Don’t Drink Fountain Water

Today is Monday and I should have been in Spanish class, but instead I was here moving all of my photographs from the laptop to the desktop. This is an unpleasant task and fraught with confusion, tedium, missing folders, corrupt files, and lots of cursing. One word in particular said repeatedly over and over like a broken record. The cat possee took turns sitting on my shoulders and running their claws through my hair, swatting my feet under the desk, chewing on wires, and laying over the keyboard.

My neighbor’s Mexican gardners came by around noon and I had to fight the urge to tell them to put down their leaf blowers and tree trimmers and come sit on my porch for Spanish class that was starting in 5 minutes. They being the teachers of course and I being the student.

LA is cool and cloudy. I don’t have a set of french doors opening onto a courtyard with a gurgling fountain. There is no rooftop patio to stare up at the sky and watch the egrets flying over on their way to Benito Juarez Park. I haven’t heard a single firework. I miss the heat, the light, the purple trees, and most of all I miss the Mexican sky and bright edge of clouds on the horizon.

Tomorrow I will crack open the art journal and finish a few pages I started in San Miguel de Allende. I’ll also take a few photos of pages I finished in Mexico.

My body is back in California, but my mind is still sitting in El Jardin on a cool iron bench, listening to the bells or a guitar or the splashing of water in the fountains. My water sample made it back safe and sound. It has joined the other bottles up on my desktop. Tonight I’m going to sleep with it in my hand. Hopefully I won’t wake up in the middle of the night and drink it.