You can't always get what you want

There was a period growing up when The Rolling Stones was always playing on our stereo. In dealing with her three rivalrous daughters, Mom had a fairly regular mantra, "You can't always get what you want."

There are probably three times each day when I have to tell my daughter that she can't have something that she really wants (like dessert, or skipping hair washing or a sleepover with Cece on a school night.) No matter how big or small the disappointment, Lucia's frown face is always dinosaur-sized. But her recovery is usually speedy. After a whine, a cry, a kick, she's over it. Usually.

Last week when Lucia really wanted to take a night walk, I blew her off, telling her it had gotten too late. Her disappointment was monstrous and her recovery was not speedy. She had a volcanic melt-down in which, through sobs and head-flailing, she managed to explain that we'd agreed. We had a plan. As I was gearing up to give Lucia my you-can't-always-get-what-you-want speech, I experienced a rare moment or maternal clarity. I understood her disappointment. She wasn't asking me out of the blue to take a night walk. We'd agreed and she'd prepared and she had a plan in her mind. So, in our pajamas, after brushing teeth, we put on our boots and walked to the alley to look at the waning crescent moon and the sun setting over the Olympics. It was lovely.

Since that nanosecond of clarity with Lucia, I've been thinking about my own relationship with disappointment. Whether it is my self-restraint keeping me from buying the $300 boots at Anthropologie, my quiet resolution in accepting that Lucia might not go to a bilingual school, or an unrequited crush, I know the feeling of disappointment. "These things are out of my control" I tell myself. My recovery, like Lucia's, is pretty good. I have the moment, and then I'm over it. There is always the part of me that wants to use the credit card or beg the school district or work magic, but mostly I accept my disappointment and move on.

The next line of the song "You can't always get what you want" is "But if you try sometime, you just might find, you get what you need." And it's true. In the midst of accepting that I can't have everything I want, it becomes glaringly clear to me that I absolutely do have what I need.

Expanding my Territory South of the Border

There is a supernatural warmth about Mexico. Sure the temperature is in the mid-80s and the sun is strong all day. The people just look warm. There are brand new babies everywhere and two out of three women between the ages of 15-45 is pregnant or nursing. People seem to eat ice cream cones all day long. No one has acne. Everyone seems to like their body. Parents genuinely like their kids.

On Sunday in a Oaxcan tourist market, I met an eight-year-old girl named Estrella (that translates to Star) who, in collaboration with her grandma makes little cell phone bags. When I met Estrella, I had been in Mexico less than 12 hours, most of it sleeping, so an eight-year-old felt like a safe place to start using my rusty Spanish. Estrella´s business is to draw pictures of whatever she wants on a piece of cotton (cowgirl, tree, flower, farmer). She then embroiders what she can and her grandma finishes them up. Estrella makes 5 pesos (about 35 cents) on each bag. After interviewing Estrella on her business model and art skills, I shot a photo of her with the bag I bought for my daugter Lucia.

At the Abastos Market, the market of the people (where we saw not one gringo), I ate divine tamales oaxaños-- they come wrapped in a giant banana leaf and inside are the traditional tamale incredients plus mole negro. Even with the random chicken parts I found in my tamale they were still divine. Luz, the proprietor and I had a nice long platica (chat). She told me that her little restaurant has been there 22 years. At the Abastos market I also bought pillow cases to embroider from Maria who turned 8 that day! Feliz cumpleaños Maria. My pillow cases have love birds with the words ¨Tu eres me amor¨ in an arch above.

Not all of my contacts have been as charmed as my interlude with Estrella and at the Abastos market. One afternoon, while having a solitary moment in the plaza, a short blood-shot-eyed fellow sidled up next to me on the stairs where I was sitting watching a campesino speaking about something political I couldn't quite understand. Juan was so complimentary of my accent (and my boobs). Where had I studied? Had I been to Belgium? He'd recently been deported from Cincinnati after a 12 year stay. After enough eye-boob contact, I made a quick, not very polite exit.

Jorge, the dueño of our bed and breakfast grew up very poor and never knew his father. But he is from one of the original Oaxacan families. His grandfather was 100% Zapotec. Jorge wrote a book for his children to explain his life. It was really easy, he said. In a short time Jorge churned out 186 pages that his daughter (who is a professor in Spain) is working on getting published. Today when I visited Monte Alban, the ruins of the Zapotec people, I thought of Jorge´s grandfather.

Making contact takes effort, especially in another language. Initially it was scary to use my Spanish to all of those people, but I'm so glad I did.