Mi Suenos:Pink Bath Soap of forgetfulness

Mi Suenos
The Pink Bath Soap of Forgetfulness....Remembering Mexico

     No graphic images of the basement have been posted. It is too overwhelming, but I should be brave and take a few.

    Focus and Concentration: Organizing my brother's many paintings and drawings down there.

    So, once again I descend. The area that I am focusing on has old checkbooks from my parents   (need to shred) I see their handwriting....increasingly wobbly on the old checks...and the uncertainty that accompainied those last years...I toss the two baskets aside. They wobble like the past wobbles....almost toppling over..  And the old bathroom stuff, a douche bag, various sundries...easy to toss. I am trying so hard to make this area just for my brother, but first there is so much to let go of...The two crummy rugs will be hauled upstairs..one to the Vine Hut to keep out snow.....the other...really to the trash...
   
   All the old useless stuff we accumulate... and there amidst the cracked tubs I find a lovely round bottle of Pink Liquid Bath Soap...still sweet, still usable. I place it on the stairs to take up later.

     and if I am going to line up my brothers paintings on the old wooden stereo...really now..do we need to keep That?? I need to move and let go of the old paintings of mine.
$100 a piece anyone??
Oh the past..and how I did capture the dark mood of leaves in autumn outside my parents dining room window...and that drawing from long ago....and there amidst the memories a painitng done of the Hotel Pombo... a place I stayed in long ago.
I'd forgotten it was down here.
there it is . The sunny roof tops, the red pots full of geraniums the green courtyard at the top. I hardly needed to go down into the streets to paint and sketch and muse...it was all there before me...near the room I stayed in that I filled in up with the scent of white flowers and Oaxacan chocalate.
The journey there sustained me for 14 years. I painted la vendadoras..the proud women vending watermelons, chalmomile and even turkeys on the street. The mysterious overflowing markets of pots and finally the internal introverted courtyards of mystery...all there before me...including the charming woman in red I met on the street on her way to see her son.

all that

mystery and beauty filled me...I sketched and took photos as politely as I could..

and then returned home to Minnesota.

All winter in that small dark aparment I found my focus and painted the mujeres, the markets and the courtyards... and so it went for years..

my sunny intorverted life remembering and remembering 

as my husband read nearby

encouraging me.

Go and paint he said

and I did

leaning over my rough paper and paints far into the night.

the trip should never have happened. 

I had no money.

earlier that year I had been told I was 2 hours short on paper to receive Health Benefits.
I knew that was wrong, but struggled through the year.

and by chance my ticket was picked at a fundraiser at work..

and thus $500 mysterious dollars  for a Travel certificate wafted my way and I went off to Mexico 

for weeks.

the mess in the basement fades.

I fill the bath with the sweet pink soap

and get in.

drifting in my dreams of Mexico

remembering  Mi Suenos.