Crossing The Border #22

San Miguel #22

I walk back and forth to school by myself. In the morning I check my watch and leave the Pink Palace at 8am exactly. It is a twelve minute walk to La Escuela but sometimes it takes me longer if I stop to look at something on the way. There is what I see every day and then there are sometimes new things. The donkey is usually coming up Hidalgo. The old man leads him with a straw rope whose strands are separating and sticking out in all directions like broom bristles. The donkey and the man are both tired, but there they are every day anyway, headed to market, the donkey carrying the man’s pack of vegetables that will be sold, the man gently leading the donkey and then,at the end of the day, after their work is done, buying feed corn for the donkey with some of the money they earn. They are friends.

There are three or four women every morning on the sidewalk either before or after the donkey and the old man. They each carry baskets balanced perfectly on their heads. They are walking uphill and the sidewalk is uneven, but the baskets do not move. The women move their bodies this way and that way, slight adjustments that keep each basket perfectly balanced, perfectly still.

There are no cars parked in the street; this, says Jose, is a rule imposed by the town board, of which he is a member, because having a stupid Renault here or VW there by the 16th century curb sitting on 15th century cobblestones might disturb the ancient feeling that makes this town a type of tourist attraction for foreigners who are tired of their own countries or are just adventurous.

Sometimes there is a wagon of hay or a group of Mexican boys whistling and pushing each other around on their way to the local military academy, maybe a townsperson headed to the store or two businessmen in suits carrying briefcases and talking to each other with serious faces probably on the way to eat breakfast under the eaves of the restaurants neighboring the jardin.

I arrive early and Luis the gardiner lets me in without me even pressing the buzzer anymore and I go straight to my desk and begin my work right away because I have a lot of it to do and because I like the silver stars and I want a gold one.

On the way home there is more activity, children running home from school, chasing each other, tourists taking photographs of the cobblestones or a stone wall or the distant view as Hidalgo continues its winding but visible rise until it is finally out of sight at the edge of town.

Eden is usually late in the morning and always leaves exactly at 3pm and I don’t think she has very many silver stars and she doesn’t smile much but I think she’s happy and we spend time together at recess and she has begun walking by my desk pretending to get a book out of the bookshelf where the song book is and dropping little notes on crumpled pieces of paper on my desk and sometimes the pieces of paper are folded up really nice and its like opening a flower when I look for the message inside.

I think I had about twenty-five silver stars the day Eden asked if I wanted to go home with her after school the following day. So I walked to the Pink Palace a little faster that day to see if my Mother was around so I could ask her.