October: Going Home

This month I am going home.

It is a place beyond the city, down in a valley an hour away from Guadalajara, a town called Cocula.  The entrance is held by double arches, the name big with the following inscription: “La Cuna Del Mariachi” or the birthplace of mariachi.

Little square houses line up in rows leading up to the center plaza where the main church is, one of way too many churches in a town able to fill only two.

This place is the home of the parts of me that lived before.

As a child, once a year I would travel in time to cold water showers, outdoor kitchens, and tacos on the street with family. I would walk along the stone streets, as I would wave at cousins, uncles, friends, and neighbors to go to the corner store. A little market at the end of the street, too small for the merchandise fighting for space; My sister and I would buy chips and stroll over to my cousin’s house.

A house with the door permanently open, everyone from around the town stopping to chat and to buy her magnificent beans. I could eat those beans everyday, they are absolutely perfect.

I would visit the cemetery to help my parents wash the graves of their parents and replenish flowers. Graves there are monuments, tiled rectangles with statues on top waiting for reverence. Can’t wait to visit my aunt there.

Then we’d go out to the “loma” or the hills on the outer edges of town where my grandparents lived. The iguanas would be baking in the heat and the butterflies avoiding our excited hands as we tried to catch them all.

There I could see Cocula down below and feel my heart beating outside of my chest.

It’s been almost 10 years and the excitement and eagerness to return lives in my throat, fighting to release itself in tears. I miss it so much. And I get go this month!!!

I am you and you are me, de cocula es el mariachi and so am I.