Coyoacán

Nothing is easy with two small children. Leisure becomes a luxury more often forgotten than enjoyed. Mornings break a little earlier. Dinner wears the rigid uniform of a domestic taskmaster. Bedtime and sleep tease playfully, cruelly, just beyond your exhausted reach.

This is how our first Cinco de Mayo in Mexico began today. The evening of the fourth wrestled with Sharon and me a couple of rounds and tested the limits of our training. Our daughter tossed and turned an extra forty-five minutes before settling down. Her older brother developed a sudden and intense desire to drink water, gallons of it, after his beloved nighttime story. Stress took root and pushed tranquility out of bed and downstairs onto a lumpy sofa that's always two inches short of a full stretch no matter how you play the angles.

Nevertheless, we met the day head on and with big smiles, larger plans, and enough laughter to make the neighbors nervous. (The upside to having kids is immeasurable, but more difficult to describe in writing without eyes glazing over, and entirely impossible to gripe about.) We were making haste for Coyoacán where we would visit La Casa Azul (the Frida Kahlo House), the Diego Rivera Museum, and the Leon Trotsky House Museum. Méxicana, Murals, and Marxism. It sounded better than knocking back a six of Coronas with lime.

My earlier complaints regarding a lack of sleep and the hardships of parenthood were put in stark relief with a bit of history I learned today. Frida Kahlo was described in her time by a fellow artist as "a ribbon around a bomb."

Today I discovered that, "...on September 17, 1925, Kahlo was riding in a bus when the vehicle collided with a trolley car. She suffered serious injuries as a result of the accident, including a broken spinal column, a broken collarbone, broken ribs, a broken pelvis, eleven fractures in her right leg, a crushed and dislocated right foot, and a dislocated shoulder. Also, an iron handrail pierced her abdomen and her uterus, which seriously damaged her reproductive ability. The accident left her in a great deal of pain while she spent three months recovering in a full body cast. Although she recovered from her injuries and eventually regained her ability to walk, she had relapses of extreme pain for the remainder of her life. The pain was intense and often left her confined to a hospital or bedridden for months at a time."

If that's not enough, she contracted polio when she was six years old, which left her permanently disfigured, and historians have also debated whether or not she suffered from spina bifida, a congenital disease which affects spinal and leg development.

Now, what was I whinging about? Nothing. We never made it to Rivera's murals, nor did we relive the Bolshevist movement here in Mexico City. La Casa Azul and La Plaza Hidalgo in Coyoacán filled our day splendidly.

The Frida Kahlo house is really blue. Very, very blue!

The colors here in Mexico City--when one is not railing against the gray, polluted sky; as I most certainly was not, today--range from sunflower yellow, to Georgia red clay, to Tyrian purple. Bright splashes of charm and warmth live down nearly every lane and they appear to be lovingly maintained with fresh coats year round.

Even those less fortunate, neglected bursts of color reach out to greet passersby. Mexico City is a town of barrios, colonias, and plazas, and each one seemingly works overtime to outdo the next in terms of brightness and local appeal, regardless of age or wealth.

So, we found ourselves in La Casa Azul, mesmerized by color and again startled by palpable calmness and serenity. Aren't there nearly 25 million people living here? Where did they all go?

Even in El Jardin Centenario, in La Plaza Hidalgo, on the day which commemorates the Battle of Puebla, we were confronted once more by relative peace and quiet. I could get used to this. I came to Mexico with visions of Asia in my head: shoulder-to-shoulder on every pavement, battling for a flat surface on which to rest a bowl of noodles, fireworks for breakfast.

I was wrong. Yes, of course, there is mad traffic here, gridlock that can turn gray hair white. But daily we are reminded of Mexico's Spanish heritage. There is the village square with fountains, gardens, and enough seating to accomodate old men playing chess and young lovers alike.

Cathedrals peer around each corner, ancient and wise, recipients of generations of knees, prayers, smiles, and tears.

Cobblestone streets and handicraft markets tucked away down little alleys. What is it about cobblestone that captivates me? Does it work the same magic on other Americans? Why do a few rocks in the roadway inspire me to work on my family tree and study foreign languages just a little bit harder?

There is a simple elegance and a timeless grace in these plazas and on these streets. One senses the original architects and builders felt it, too, before even laying the first cornerstone. Perhaps, while they hacked their way through the forests and jungles, and up these overwhelming plateaus, they reached certain landmarks, or maybe just a divergence in the trail, and something called to them. Something compelling, old, and wild. Something which bid them stop and take measure. Build a home. Create a village. Here is a foundation. Or, maybe their GPS told them they had reached El Dorado. Hallelujah! Let's put up a church!

What I do know is Sharon and I have a dinner date set for an undetermined time in the future. Cobblestones underfoot or not, Mexicans know how to eat and how to enjoy their meals.

Oh, and our daughter fell asleep as I waxed poetic about the Conquistadors and their benign inclinations. Looks like I'll have another long night on the couch.