Fortitude

We live out in the country, about 10 minutes from town which means I do a fair amount of driving: getting kids to and from school, picking up Martha (our personal saint that just happens to keep our home organized and clean!) and all the errands to do in a day. In my daily comings and goings there is a woman that is also going about her day on foot with her children. This other mother is a tiny Mexican woman, you can see the Indian influence in her face, there are no Spanish features about her, she is short, dark, with jet black hair and has the most beautiful cheekbones. Generally she is carrying her baby in her rebozo, holding the hand of a 2 or 3 year old, while her other three chidren are older and walk on their own.

This is where I see her walking with her children: To school, about 1 kilometer away but on narrow dirt and cobblestone roads with a fair amount of traffic. To get water from a local pump, she crarries two 5 gallon buckets, attached to a limb, across her back full of water, I would say that is about 50 kilos, or around 100 pounds (her son also takes the wheelbarrow and pushes 100 pounds of water, he looks to be around 10). To wash the family clothes in the nearby alfalfa field. Her oldest daughter carries the wash tub, the second daughter tends to the toddler, the 10 year old boy pushes the wheelbarrow with the clothes and the baby in it and she carries more clothes in her two 5 pound bucket yoke. I've watched them all go into the field and help their mother wash their clothes by hand or tend to the little ones making sure they stay out of the road.

One day the family was in their usual laundry spot which faces another field, it is wide open to the western sky and the Sierra de Guanajuato Mountain range. There was a particularly beautiful sunset that night and the oldest daughter was facing west, transfixed by a moment. Disclaimer: I don't profess to be a shaman! But suddenly everything in this young girls life opened to me as I watched her, she was absorbed in the last embers of the day and looked so fiercely fragile, like she was longing to jump into the sky over those far away mountains. The way she looked at her landscape seemed to fill her with hope and this crazy otherworldly glow was all around her head. When I drove by I said outloud to myself "I have just seen her hopes and fears and the solace that she seeks". This was a rare moment, I was driving completely alone and going very slow so I could savor quiet moments and what a gift I received in those precious few moments. When I see her now I want to weep because she represents to me the proverbial flower in a hailstorm, something so beautiful but with such fortitude she cannot, willnot let herself be destroyed by what is ugly in this life.

More often though I see her mother, walking, walking, walking, always in the opposite direction of which I am going, which adds to the juxtaposition of our lives. I can tell you her entire wardrobe; 1 black skirt, 1 khaki skirt, 1 white blouse, 1 tan blouse, 1 red sweater, 1 black rebozo, 1 pair of dusty black shoes. Her legs are always dusty from the walking, her hair a bit disheveled. Her expression is never one of joy, sorrow or anger, she looks indifferent to the world, this world simply is, nothing more or less. When I drive by this Mexican mother I feel so guilty in my life of relative priviledge, guilty for the fears I have, shame for every time I speak harsh words to my children or refuse to take three children somewhere by myself, because it's a hassel. Everyday this other mother walks the road with her children and her children recognize they have to work with their mother, they cannot survive without each other.

Please don't think I am romanticizing their life, it must be hard beyond my belief. I am trying to understand why this is still how the majority of the world lives, it's real, it's in my face and I cannot stop thinking about this family. The world I inhabit has running water, washing machines, maids, concrete floors, cars to drive, I feel like her evil twin when I drive by. We are polar opposites and I wonder, if I am faced with her level of poverty could I even stand up in a day and walk half of the miles she can with such grace?