Day 26 (My Last Day): Milagros

7:36 pm

I can't believe that I am coming home tomorrow. My time here is up, and tomorrow morning I hop on a plane and come back to my home in the United States. This will be my last entry on this blog, but all good things must come to an end.

Today was a perfect last day; I spent the morning packing and then afterwards I went out to experience the city for one of the last times; just sitting, walking, watching, eating ice cream and memorizing everything. The city is so beautiful and I know that I am going to miss it here very much. But I'll be back someday; I already know it.

Before I finish this blog, I want to mention one other thing about my experience in the campo. On Day 17 (July 7) we went to Maestro León's house for a temascal. A temascal is an indigenous Otomi sweat lodge ritual. They built a half-sphere structure out of rhebar and thin tree branches, with one opening; a small door pointing in the direction of the rising sun.

In the middle of the floor, which is also covered in thin tree branches, there was a brick pit where they put hot stones, fresh from the fire. They pulled a big blue tarp over the top of the temascal hut so the air couldn't escape. Before we went in, they gave us each a length of orange ribbon, to signify the people that we love who couldn't be there with us. It was for all of you. And then eight of us piled into the hut in a circle around the rocks. The leader pours cool herb water over the rocks, creating sweet-smelling hot steam. And we began to sweat. And sweat and sweat and sweat. And talk. There were four "conversations," where we went around the circle and each said something about a particular subject; what God has done for us, what we can do to protect our Earth, and so on. Between each conversation, there was singing. And sweating. I was soaking wet with sweat, but oddly, I didn't mind it. My skin was hot to the touch. I was wearing my pajama shorts, which were the only shorts I had brought with me to Cieneguilla, and they were getting soaked straight through with sweat and getting muddy from the dirt beneath me and green streaked from the tree branches. But I didn't even mind it. After the last song, we were told to exit headfirst, because it was like being born into the world anew. So we exited, one by one. When it was my turn, I pushed out the tiny door that faced the rising sun, dripping with sweat and still clutching my orange ribbon, which was wet by association. Just as the first breath of cool mountain air filled my lungs, a painful, piercing breath, a brightly woven Mexican "recieving" blanket was thrown over my head. I wrapped myself in it and collapsed on the blue tarp outside the hut, alongside the others that had already exited. I disentangled my head from the blanket, and as I was looking up through the tree branches, I realized that it was like being born. It was like seeing the sun for the first time, seeing the sky for the first time, seeing the world for the first time. In ways I don't even know, Mexico has made me a new person.

That place will always be in my heart; the cool early mornings of Cieneguilla; the smell of cooking tortillas; the soft hands and face of little Anita Karen; the beautiful night of the change of the mayordomos, when we walked along behind the saint statues in the dark praying the rosary; the lines across the sky; the sign of the cross with the smoke and the flowers falling all down my face. And San Miguel; the spires of the parroquia; the winding uneven streets; the sky and the air, always the air.

Tonight I went to Mass for the last time at the parroquia. We went to a park on the far side of town, so I came from an unfamiliar direction. There was this postcard I had bought of the parroquia, but I couldn't figure out what angle it was from, because it had a beautiful dome in front of it that I didn't recognize. I was walking toward the church, unsure of where I was and a little worried that I wasn't going to be on time to church. But then, all of a sudden, I took a side road on a whim, and suddenly, I rounded the corner and looked up the street, and I saw... There was the parroquia, a lot closer than I thought it was, from the angle that I hadn't seen before. It was amazing.

When I had been to church on other days, I had seen a statue of Jesus in the church that had pictures and prayer requests and milagros pinned to it. A milagro is a little cheap metal charm that serves as a sort of prayer request in Mexico. People buy one to correspond to their prayer request; an arm for arm problems, a coin for money problems, a cross for faith problems. But the word milagro in Spanish also means miracle. People usually pin a small paper with their prayer request to the milagro, asking for their milagro or giving thanks for their own milagro; their miracle.

Mexico has been my own milagro. I wanted to leave something behind in thanks. The one I brought was a heart. The Heart of Mexico.

After Mass today, I went and pinned it with a little piece of paper to Jesus' long purple robe. I knelt to pray in thanks and when I stood up, a small grey flurry of motion flew into the side of my leg, there in the church. It was a bird; a very small and very scared gray and black pidgeon, partly blown in by the wind and partly chased in by the 5-year-old child who followed soon after. The child picked up the bird and carried it out the side door of the church. I was speechless. I think that God wanted a way to say that he was hearing me. I think that God wanted to comfort me, to let me know that He will be with me, even when I can't be here.

My paper that was pinned together with the Heart of Mexico to Jesus' robe was a message of Thanksgiving for this beautiful place, my beautiful memories, and the almost inaudible heartbeat of the mountains and the valleys and the sky, a heartbeat that will softly thud in my dreams for a long time. And this is what it said:



"HIJA, TU FÉ TE HA CURADO"
(Daughter, your faith has made you whole)

Thank you, Lord, for bringing me back to life.

Thank you, Lord, for Mexico.

The End