Mexico Diary - I vow to tease you until my last breath

It was just a moment. So tiny, I might have missed it had I breathed.

The sun was high in a sky coloured a perfect cloudless blue. I was strolling around an art and crafts market with our Spanish class teacher and the only other student in my class, P from Zurich. Amidst the colour and festivities of the artisenias, I saw them.

She was seated, her hands busy with cross-stitch or embroidery or something of the sort, something wonderfully feminine and totally alien to me. Before her, a delectable spread of her delicate work was proudly placed on a table cloaked in white fabric.

He wore a white cowboy sombrero made of fine weave straw. His personality showed through his swagger as he came up behind her, slowly he bent over and leaned in until his mouth was only a breath away from her ear. She stirred as though she knew he was near. His mouth moved slowly, and as he spoke, the corners of his mouth turned up into a mischievous smile. She wriggled free from his grip on her shoulders and shooed him away like a pesky fly and refocused on her work, her nose crinkling to make a little face at him. He came back with the same gusto and bravado as a kamikaze fly plagued with hunger. Except his hunger appeared only to be the need for his senses to be filled with her. Once again his mouth curled up into a grin, as he whispered gently in her ear, this time with a firmer grip on her shoulders so she couldn’t get away. Then when he’d finished speaking he gently pulled her toward him so he could plant a soft kiss resolutely on her cheek. Her resolve was admirable, but her eyes gave away everything when she finally glanced up to behold his face for just a moment. Instinctively, I reached for my camera as I could never resist perfect beauty, but I found my hand shrinking back as it reached its quarry. The camera remained in my bag respectfully, and instead I replaced my sunglasses to hide my eyes for I could feel them start to moisten.

From their hands, I guessed a possible age, they testified to a long full life of honest hard work. But their faces were soft and smooth like a child’s, and the sunlight danced in their eyes. I smiled as I thought back to my urban friends…that perhaps love is the best anti-wrinkle cream.

When the moment receded, I became angry. I didn’t understand why life chose to keep bringing me back to love. When I was trying to focus elsewhere, to ponder my raison d’etre, figure out my next career move, decide on my next meal… But everywhere I turned I was being confronted by it…a mother gazing down on her baby in a crowded bus, a little girl reaching up to grab her father’s hand as she called out ‘Papi’, a couple embracing like it was their final embrace even though they were only parting for an hour. I was an unwilling, unwitting witness to love in such pure forms, as though I was an open book that refused to be closed.

Mais ca c’est la vie. It is not always up to you, when Life chooses to deal the cards that are meant to teach or show you the path to change or to evolve. It is sometimes when you are the most vulnerable that you are also the most open to her.