Language & Power, or: Abandoned in Mexico!

It's funny the thoughts that pop into your head in moments of meditation. Usually its simple, like remembering to write "soy milk" onto my grocery list for the next day. Or as random as realizing, as I did a few days ago, that the color-scheme for the painting I just finished was the imagery and color scheme from my "Odyssey of the Mind" club t-shirt from 6th grade!!!

Tonight somehow in my meditation (obviously not over anything super important- this usually happens in the transition from prayer to meditation when I'm just looking for simplicity and clearing my mind, just before the real discoveries) I thought about how important language is, how language is power. I remembered a time in 2006 when I was with my family in the seaside/country town of Santa Cruz, Nayarit, Mexico, and we were borrowing our friend's big white truck. We used it to go between our little apartment and some other homes, and when my parents weren't with us, I got to be the driver! The only reason I can see why I got to drive was because I spoke Spanish and my siblings didn't-the reason could have also been because I had traveled a lot in "Latin America" and this was the first time for my siblings... but in the end, most roads are the same, especially this road which was basically just one two-lane country highway curving through mango & jackfruit fields. So basically, although my sister is older than me and my brother is male, my language skills trumped both seniority and gender for the drivers seat! For the week we were there in Mexico, I got to drive a huge white Chevy everywhere.

When I think about that truck it just makes me smile. I remember this one day when my sister, Meredith, and my brother Adam, and I were going to the "Cocodrilario". Its a place where you go on a boat with a guide, they take you through this maze of rivers in a marsh. There are tons of mangrove trees, you see the wildlife out there like storks, turtles, fish. There are even some little huts on stilts that were built for some horror flick called "Cabeza de Vaca" (I don't think it ever made it to the big screen)...At the far end of the marsh, there is the "Cocodrilario" where there are humongous crocodiles in cages; little babies in mini pools, you can buy ice creams there, there are also javelina's & deer...

Anyways, we had met some people volunteering at an organic farm for the summer. This American couple had a beautiful house up on a hill, and they had an organic farm that was manned all by volunteers, usually from the states. We had met two of the girls (in their mid-twenties or so) at our American friend's house, and invited them to come to the cocodrilario with us that Saturday. They said they would come down the hill from the house, and meet us on the side of the road. From there it was a 25 minute drive to our destination.

My sister, brother and I got into the big old Chevy, which just had one bench seat in the front, and a camper top on the back, and headed out to pick up the girls. I was definitely feeling smug about driving in Mexico, even if it was just a normal road like any other, not like driving a Taxi in Mexico City or a Jeep through the Andes or anything like that! But the fact that we were IN Mexico made it exciting. We decided that Mere and Adam would hop in the back of the truck to let the two girls sit in the front with me when we picked them up. We saw them waiting at the side of the road, Mere and Adam hopped out, the girls hopped in, and we took off!

I was so into driving that truck. I felt powerful and independent. I never thought twice that some things were amiss. The two girls and I talked our heads off on the way to the Cocodrilario. In order to get there, you had to make a quick turn off onto a small side street, and we missed it.

That's ok, we would just go a little while up the road until it got wider, and turn around. We were chill and in no rush, so we continued a little down the road for about 10 more minutes until I saw a wide shoulder. I pulled off, then put my right hand behind the passenger seat, and turned to look out the back window to back up, and gasped.

My sister and brother had completely disappeared!!!

The two girls and I looked into the truck bed through the little back window in disbelief. My first thought was that my siblings had turned themselves invisible! This was crazy and awesome and I was jealous! But it slowly dawned on the three of us that ....they weren't likely wearing invisible cloaks... they couldn't have fallen out...or been abducted by aliens as we drove...so....they must have never gotten in, 30 minutes back when we had done the seat change!!! I realized that I was so into driving that truck and picking up our new friends, that when my sis and bro jumped out of the front and the girls jumped in, I had immediately zoomed off up the highway! We almost died laughing, still in disbelief. I think we actually laughed the whole entire way back to find them.

It was such a ridiculous situation that I was partly sure that my siblings would think it was funny, but a bigger part of me knew they were going to be violently angry. My pride at getting to drive around in another country was definitely not going to stand any case they could now make against me... We stopped off and bought some fanta for them because hell, they must be getting thirsty by now under the humid Mexican sun, and backtracked about 20 minutes, finally spotting them walking up the side of the road, about a mile and a half from the place where I had left them....dusty.....sweaty.....there was a group of men around them, they were trying to get directions from them to the Cocodrilario. One of the men had worked in California for a few years and spoke pretty good English.

We pulled up and all of us looked at each other and just BUST out laughing! My sister was like "MEL! we hopped out of the truck, and I had my foot on the bumper of the truck to hoist myself in when you just TOOK OFF! At first Adi and I thought you were just doing a little joke, the truck slowed down (I guess I was looking to see if there were any cars coming), so we ran after you and then you just gunned it!!!!" A few hundred feet later I slowed down again and they thought I would turn around, but I was just going over a speed bump. "We watched you until you were out of sight, then we just turned, looked at each other, put our hands on each others shoulders, and screamed with laughter! We were like, Mel just abandoned us on the side of the road in Mexico!!!" We had a good laugh and I even had to consciously remind myself not to take off as they were loading into the back of the truck for the second (more like first) time. At least now they had a Fanta to cool them off! We at last made it to the Cocodrilario -
And this time I didn't even miss the exit!