I was sitting on the Metrobus in Mexico City last week when I had a flashback to a dystopian movie. Until then I was certain I had entered some kind of inner-city bus-heaven. The line’s bright red buses turned out to be new, clean and more like subways, with side doors that slid open with a satisfying snap and sped along on a separate “track” six or more feet (1.8 meters) above the road, smoothly bypassing the almost constant bumper-to-bumper traffic on the city’s main roads. Moreover, a handful of the bright pink interior seats were empty! I settled into one of them gratefully for the almost hour-long ride to the north of the city where I was catching an overnight bus back to Oaxaca City.
Then I looked up. In front of me there were two screens. They were playing music videos or advertisements for several musical artists, it was hard to tell which with the pictures changing so fast, emojis and graphics blinking frenetically, and the terrible sound coming out of the speakers. It felt disturbing to watch. I looked around and noticed no one else was watching the screens either. Some were looking at their phones, others were staring ahead with tired blank looks. This is when the scene from the movie flashed in my mind, the name of which I cannot recall. The female lead character, who was trying to escape the authorities, risked going outside and as she walked on a crowded city street she passed long lines of enormous flat screen TVs flashing advertisements. I can’t remember if they were targeted ads like in the movie Minority Report, but the screens themselves were dystopian to me, a nightmarish sensory assault at every turn.
Now here I was under the sensory assault of the two screens ahead of me. And I wondered, who chose to put them there? I flashed back to my younger years – a good many years ago like 30 years – when changes to public spaces and the content of television shows were publicly discussed as to their suitability and benefits for the people and community and I wondered when and why these discussions stopped. Even if everyone on the bus preferred to turn them off I wondered if the bus driver was able to do so. Would he lose his job? Or were they centrally-controlled somewhere?
Interesting facts about Mexico City. It is the fifth largest city in the world with twenty-one million people and is situated 1.5 miles (2,400 meters) above sea level! The latter explains the stellar weather for a city so near the equator, warm and sunny (but not hot) during the day, cool at night. Incredibly, this sprawling metropolis spanning 577 square miles (1,495 square kilometers) with nary a waterway in sight, used to be an island in Texcoco lake system. Pre-1500’s the lakes were managed with canals and aqueducts by the Aztecs, later the Spanish colonizers and Mexican government drained them further.
Despite the size and magnitude of the city, I don’t normally think of Mexico and in particular Oaxaca City, where I have lived for the past one and a half years, as being caught up in the increasingly corporate and centrally-controlled dystopian reality found in developed countries like the United States. It is one of the reasons I like Mexico and am drawn to the developing world in general.
In fact the things I love most about Mexico, and in particular Oaxaca City, seem like the antithesis of all that. For example, I love how almost every neighborhood provides for nearly all one’s daily needs within a ten minute walk – restaurants, small grocery shops, hardware supplies, pharmacies, seamstresses, cell phone repair, office and school supplies, taco stands, hair salons and more, almost all of which are small family or individually-run businesses. I love how anyone can buy up a supply of popsicles, rain ponchos, children’s coloring books, tape and scissors or whatever, board a local bus for free and sell their items. I love how musicians can also board the buses for free and sing or play their music for donations. I love how the local bus and colectivo (shared taxis) drivers can play whatever music they want at whatever volume and no one seems to mind (personally I like it!). I also love how anyone can set up a table in front of their house and sell delicious home-cooked tamales or pastries, candy, plastic containers or whatever and are not required to undergo an expensive and lengthy government process to do so. One time I stumbled upon a woman selling organic vegetables out of baskets on a downtown corner. I love the freedom here.
And so it was a bit of shock to find digital Big Brother making an appearance on a local bus in Mexico City. And while there are corporate chains here, in particular supermarkets and the larger pharmacies, offering products one may not find in the little shops, there is always a choice to go there or not to an extent that is rarely possible anymore in the United States.
Fifty minutes later I departed the Metrobus and began the short walk to the Kolors bus stop, a long-distance bus line that would take me back to Oaxaca. By 10:50 PM I settled into my seat for what I hoped would be some sleep, grateful that the movie screens ahead would stay dark, one of the best reasons, in my opinion, to take a night bus.
I felt like I was going home, despite continuing to feel like I stranger in a strange land, My apartment was awaiting me, after all, as well as my dog Maya, my bed and kitchen; a place that holds me safely, free of centrally-controlled screens and almost everything I need a short walk away. I took a deep breath, rolled up my jacket for a pillow and closed my eyes as the bus tires rolled on. Rolled through the inner-city, rolled onward through desert-y landscape dotted with giant cacti, until at 6:50 AM we pulled into Oaxaca City. My brain foggy from intermittent sleep I caught a taxi and in ten minutes I was home.
Home. I’m not sure what that is, exactly. Perhaps it is a safe haven where one can breath-in this magnificent, complicated, and at times disturbing world from a distance. A place where the clock ticks on, ticks on, like the wheels of the bus rolling, like the sun rising and falling, and those outside noises turn to stillness and fade away.
What is home to you?
Life is a big mystery, which is more apparent than ever these days. All I can do is lean into the minutes as they sometimes scrape by, grieve for home the same as I grieved for my dog business, and remind myself that I am here now, tapping on my keyboard, sending smoke signals to friends and loved one’s far away. And I am fine. We are all ‘fine’, as per the definition “of very high quality;” and life too is fine, as per the other definition of a “very thin or narrow” road. Given that gymnasts dance, spin and flip along four-inch balance beams, the possibilities are vast even as our very fine selves spin into the perpetual mysteries unfolding. If you fall down, get mired in fear, don’t worry. Just get up. Up. Up. Dive into each very fine new day as it arrives and goes, arrives and goes.
People from all over the world come to Khajuraho to see the 1,100 year old tantric temples in the center of town. The western temples, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, are adorned with most exquisite well-preserved sculptures I have ever seen and depict all aspects of human life including people harvesting fields, attending school, eating meals together, and fighting in wars. What makes these temples especially unique are the erotic sculptures. There are couples engaged in tantric sex, which is considered a way to connect with high spiritual energies, as well as couples having procreative sex and even people having sex with animals! When I asked about the meaning of the latter I was told that the temples represent all aspects of human life, high and base.
A Leap Into 
