From a darkened room I write – the blue haze of my computer screen stroking my face. With the power out, it provides the only light, save a candle that sits by my bedside. Outside, the rain in pouring down, a rare thing for Cuernavaca, la Eterna Primavera (Eternal Spring). My body feels full with contentment, having just returned from the most magnificent dinner.
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Flickering honey-colored lights quiver and skip across white linen table cloths, moving and swaying to the rhythm of a fountain’s falling water. A pink orchid hangs overhead from its earthen basket. A stairwell, painted warm yellow and orange, rises upwards and around the plaza in which I am seated – wine in hand, letting the tastes of fresh goat cheese and apple slices encircle my mouth. And then, softly at first, the music begins. The sound creeps upwards, rising into a crescendo, the notes beginning to swell within my chest. Just as my body feels full with the light, the music, the romance and the beauty, he steps forward and stands at my side. Like releasing the power and beauty of a great ocean wave, he opens his mouth and out swells the most glorious voice – to serenade me.
Never before have I experienced the shear force and power of a voice so close that it caused me to tremble and my heart to falter. Never before has opera music sounded so serenely beautiful. Never before have I struggled so hard to find one word, even one, in Spanish or English, to express my emotion. Never before!
Never before have I experienced the shear force and power of a voice so close that it caused me to tremble and my heart to falter. Never before has opera music sounded so serenely beautiful. Never before have I struggled so hard to find one word, even one, in Spanish or English, to express my emotion. Never before!
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México is a country saturated with this magic and romance. It is a country full of the richness of love and affection.
Sitting at dinner with friends, there is the constant dance of couples’ hands twisting and turning, entwining themselves around one another. As if simultaneously carrying on two conversations, their hands whisper to one another with assurances of affection while their mouths go on speaking with others at the table.
Their words, too, betray something of México’s romantic sentimentality. The language is full with the richness of couples’ affection – “mi amor” (my love), “mi vida” (my life), “mi reina” (my queen), couples call one another.
A walk through a park is a walk through couples, their bodies curled round one another, lent against tree trunks, reclining on benches, sprawled across the grass. This is not the place for the PDA-wary. Even the car alarms here whistle as if at a beautiful woman passing by.
I enjoy the freedom of love here. I enjoy its taste. I enjoy the shamelessness of affection. And I wonder why we aren’t all so generous in our demonstrations of love, so affirming of our feelings.
Sitting at dinner with friends, there is the constant dance of couples’ hands twisting and turning, entwining themselves around one another. As if simultaneously carrying on two conversations, their hands whisper to one another with assurances of affection while their mouths go on speaking with others at the table.
Their words, too, betray something of México’s romantic sentimentality. The language is full with the richness of couples’ affection – “mi amor” (my love), “mi vida” (my life), “mi reina” (my queen), couples call one another.
A walk through a park is a walk through couples, their bodies curled round one another, lent against tree trunks, reclining on benches, sprawled across the grass. This is not the place for the PDA-wary. Even the car alarms here whistle as if at a beautiful woman passing by.
I enjoy the freedom of love here. I enjoy its taste. I enjoy the shamelessness of affection. And I wonder why we aren’t all so generous in our demonstrations of love, so affirming of our feelings.
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