Low Country

I took a loooong, self-imposed drive through South Carolina back country today on my way to visit some friends down by the coast, and I have to say, back highways are a lost treasure. I even used an actual map! You remember those? The large multifarious things that have squiggly multi-colored lines and terrestrial illustrations all over and yards of paper that take a 101 class in order to properly re-fold? I did, however and as usual, forget my camera so my awesome yet wasted idea to document my journey and all the small podunk gas stations and fruit stands along the way had to be abondoned. Sigh. Driving used to be a journey, and now, we just hop on interstates, put our brains on auto-pilot and tune out the rest of the world. Today, I wanted to see the cows, dang it! I wanted to actually drive under the shade of trees instead of admiring them from a distance and beyond ugly silver guard rails. To boot, my truck even achieved immensely better gas mileage. I think Dixon's trying to tell me that he's from the country and he likes it that way. Okay, I get it! You're sick of miles of mind-numbing interstate boasting sporadic yellow arches and strategically placed tiny green mile markers. Or is it me that's sick of those? Same difference at this point. We're mind melding, my truck and I. He even sings to me when I'm having a bad day. Methinks this is a relationship that has some serious lasting potential. Even if he is a Ford. Low country, here we come.

They Say You Can Never Go Home

One would think, with so much time on my hands, I could be writing reams worth of words. This, however, is not the case. I simply don't have much to write about. The only thing that comes to mind is the state of my hometown and its rapidly increasing levels of change. My home church and high school, both within a half mile from my parents' house, now look like weird modern versions of research facilities. My church, the place largely responsible for the foundations of my faith, seems to exist in another time. What it is presently holds next to no familiarity for me. Even the pull of Sunday mornings aren't enough to incite any sort of directional movement. I still know some names, but the people aren't the same. There are many faces from my past who are simply no longer there, having progressed through the Christian bubble to pastor their own churches with their quaint families mail ordered from the Christian Universities catalog. There was a time when Christianity was dangerous. Now, here, it just seems rote.

The county library, once one of my favorite places to go, also has a new building. The lovely dark stacks and slightly musty smell of old books will soon be replaced with the scent of carpet glue and filtered air. Things like this make me sad, because soon, my only witness to the way this town used to look will be my memories. Everywhere I spent my childhood has a new facade, a new location, or has been bull-dozed in favor of some other replacement. These are the bricks of someone else's childhood now, someone born in this century, raised on technology and mail you can never touch. Life is entirely different here than it once was. This is a rather obvious fact, and yet despite my need for change, there are times when I vehemently wish to deny it.

Pain and the Wonder Plant

Let me tell you, friends, a moped accident is the gift of pain that just keeps on giving. I spent my last few days in Mexico STILL on the couch, wondering what on God's green earth I could take/smear on my scabs to make them stop hurting, for the love. My plane trip home was nothing less than an evil to be endured, and I lost count of the number of complete strangers that looked at me and said "What happened?!?" If they didn't say anything, their expressions that silently said "Oooh" were enough. Yes, thanks, it is very painful, no, I don't need a wheelchair to my gate, yes, I have learned my lesson and won't wear shorts and flip flops next time. My stewardess on the flight out of Mazatlán took one look at me as I was boarding and said, "You fell off your moped didn't you?" What?? How often does this kind of thing happen?

Now I'm healing in the great state of South Carolina, where the temperature is literally that of the surface of the sun. It's like someone constantly following me around with a hair dryer, and I can get no relief from jumping in the pool although my leg is healing up nicely, thanks to aloe, the wonder plant. I snap off a thick, fleshy leaf and rub plant snot all over my knee once every couple of hours, and to my utter amazement, I can almost see my skin regenerating itself. Every few hours I also take a nap. Reproducing skin can be an exhausting task.

Aiiii Muchacha!

It was bound to happen. Today began mostly like any other day, the difference being that on my way to the shop this morning, I took a turn too sharply and fell over, the moped falling on top of me ensuring that my skin got well acquainted with some Mexican asphalt. A myriad of other random, painful things have happened to people here so I'm guessing it was just about my turn. Let me tell ya, my leg has never hurt as badly in my life, and I'm sure parts of my epidermis from my knee cap, calf, ankle, and elbow are still lying mixed up in some gravelly dirt on that particular road. What happened next was a mixture of me crying, saying ow, hoping someone would come to pull the moped off of my leg, and being lifted by my armpits into a standing position by a couple of weathered looking older Mexican men that had been working at the site across the street. Thank God for the kindness of strangers. Its a testament to my vanity that my first thought coming off the pavement was "Crap, that's gonna leave a scar."

I managed to understand and speak enough Spanish in between my incredibly shallow breathing (it's rather hard to get a mental grasp on anything when every other thought is "PAIN!!!") to have the guys drive me home. Arriving, however, was a small comfort because I knew the cleaning up process followed, and if I thought the soap and rinsing and the dabbing with a wet towel was painful, it was a pinprick compared to the iodine treatment Ryan, our resident lifeguard/EMT,  put on my leg next. Holy mother of everything good and holy. I was white knuckling the counter top like it was a lifeline and sucking air between my teeth as if I knew no other way to breathe. Ryan tells me I'm doing good just before he says, "There's still some dirt in there. You're gonna need to scrub that out." I'm sorry, what? You want me to scrub who? My mind reeling in protest, I grabbed the towel from him and proceeded to rub what felt like tiny razor blades over bleeding flesh, whimpering and crying the whole way. Wait, I mean, I growled and bit down on a piece of bark and took it like a MAN. (lies, all lies)

This story ends with me laid up on the couch, knee propped on a pillow, leg sporting numerous bags of ice. None of my invalidity stopped me from hobbling myself and all my oozy wounds to the tienda on the corner to get a glass Coke, which garnered an "Aiiii, muchacha!" from the woman mopping the floor, but despite the dull, stinging ache of my scrapes and the occasional burst of sharp pain from any number of them, I'm rather enjoying my day on the couch watching movies. I'm not in any hurry to do this again any time soon, and I'm currently of the opinion that mopeds are of the devil, but now I have a story to tell and another refreshing Coca-Cola. There's gotta be a commercial in that somewhere.

Imps

The children are so beautiful here. There are a few rag tag urchins that run up and down the sidewalk by the shop, clothes dirty from the dust and deep brown eyes gleaming with mischief as they grab another handful of our free candy. The girls have loose, dark tendrils framing faces that will be nothing less than stunning in a few years' time. The boys' hair sticks straight up, springing thick and soft from their foreheads, a playful exclamation point to their gap-toothed grins and warm, innocent eyes.  As gorgeous as they are, they can be little imps, leaving messes in our play area and on our tables. It doesn't stop me from wishing I had the genes to produce one of my own.

I lost myself downtown yesterday in El Centro, stumbling upon the huge indoor market entirely by accident. That place is nothing but color and noise and smell. At one end is the meat market that boasts the bloodiest, most unappetizing flesh clinging to bone that I've ever seen. Every time I caught even the faintest whiff, I threw up a little bit in my mouth. People were everywhere, carrying babies around like purses. The school kids stood out in their collared shirts or plaid, pleated skirts; no longer urchins stealing candy, but young Mexican dolls causing obvious distress to the unfortunate groups of teenage boys. They sipped nonchalantly from white, styrofoam cups with straws while the guys fidgeted and wondered how to talk to them. The best they seemed to come up with were playful hits to the arm for lack of anything clever to say. I feel like things haven't changed much despite age or country borders.