| Monday, July 07, 2003 |
| lazy sunday.... |
i'm assuming for everyone there comes a point where the place you've gone is no longer new and wonderful and exciting, but has become just the place you live. this may help explain why i no longer feel the overwhelming desire to write about every experience like it has never happened to anyone.
nevertheless i must write on!
it occurs to me that, although i've written about things i've done, i don't think i've described much of the town itself. Autlan is a town of about 40,000 people, mostly your average small-quiet-town people. their weekend starts on saturday, as there are classes and lots of people work on saturday morning. today, being sunday, is the main holiday, with some of the men being enthusiastic enough to start drinking as early as ten in the morning. you know when there's a mass going on because there isn't a soul in the central garden. correction, the 2 central gardens. the gardens are kitty-corner to eachother and each about the size of branion plaza (for non-gwelfies that means a small city block) and are peppered with trees pruned in the shape of cubes and cylinders. they are carefully tended, being watered most mornings, quite lush and make for great shade on the wrought rion benches. some morning on my way to school i see men with cowboy hats and machetes hacking them back into shape as about a dozen different types of bird chirp, tweet, whistle and caw. the garden closest to our house has a gazebo, while the other has a small, grimy fountain. other than this last fault they are usually pristine, because there are women who some by to sweep them. having visited a few other towns of the same size or smaller, Autlan is by far the cleanest and is endowed with many pretty buildings which are reminiscent of it's colonial past. but the best part of Autlan, as with most of Mexico, are the secret gardens. houses here face the sidewalk, with no porches or front lawns. most of the time doors are kept closed, and windows shuttered, but sometimes, as you walk by a door or window left carelessly ajar, you can peek through to the interior of the house and catch a glimpse of a courtyard filled with fragrant greenery, from small potted plants to full grown trees, vines, flowers, and the prerequisite patio chairs with which to enjoy them in comfort. in contrast, our courtyard has one tree, but it's a lovely tree. although most of it's mangos are gone now, it's still nice to sit under in the evenings. but damn i wish i had a garden patio.
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posted by tatjana @ 5:07 a.m.   |
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