21 Abril: The pleasure boats
Days & Days
A pen-and-watercolor sketch I made of plaza life in Jardín Reforma, on Dia de Flores.
. 21 Abril It’s always a holiday here at the Chavez place, piña coladas, micheladas, desde 1963. The oars are carved two-by-fours. The pleasure boats show their years. The shade canopies are made of canvas, the reservoir of rouge & green & small grey stones. What story shall we tell? We are swans. They are pirates. That wall is Croatia, and from it jump Croatian men in tiny swimming briefs. Now we are rowing to Greece. The curled tail feathers of the ducks unrushed before us. Josephine, age 8, wants to talk about the Titanic. Did steerage know first? Did the band play on? What was it like to climb down into a lifeboat full of children, in the cold Atlantic, in the dark? . 19 Abril In this dream/life: I stay. I become the reina de compost. I rise before the city wakes. I have a shiny wheelbarrow in a shed Jardín El Cantador is where I report. It couldn’t be a finer design, with its gates and fountains, its promenades and stone. I am raking up the plastic caps & cigarette butts, laying down the cardboard, coaxing the worms. My mulch game is aggressive. I plant 100 guanajuatense trees. The children rent bicis, the bicis have bells. Fascism? Over it. Where might we put the agave garden, the rose garden, the orchard, anyway? And who wants an agua mineral con limón y sal in the tender & spreading shade? . 1 Abril One sad piece of spinach gonna tuck into the greenery this ex-hacienda is awesome P.S. Have you ever seen Koyaanisqatsi? It’s worth it just for the extended shot of one woman trying to light her cigarette; or the now-nostalgic shots of people’s natural faces, aging. 1983, no words, music by Philip Glass.