méxico

 

This is a collection of my sketchbook I brought with me on my year long hitchhiking Spiritual Journey to the Mother Landia, México.  All images are 9″x12″. 2003-2004

“And to me the men in México are like trees, forests that the white men felled in their coming. But the roots of the trees are deep and alive and forever sending up new shoots”

– D.H. Lawrence

This is the first page of my sketchbook I took with me on a year long hitch-hiking, spiritual journey to La Tierra Madre, The Mother Land, that is of my Mother’s side.  The discovery of my Father’s side is just beginning.

On this first page, I have a collage of bus tickets, transfers, quotes, drawings, names of countries I had planned on visiting at the beginning of my journey and I did visit them all. This journey was not filled with fotos, just words of a 20 year old young women trying to find love, trying to find her roots, trying to find her voice, her self, her place, her TRUTH.

…Explaining why Mexico…..

I had just returned from living in Chiang Mai, Thailand for one year, from 2001-02, just after I graduated from the Milwaukee High School of the Arts, and while I was living there studying Thai culture, arts, Buddhism, Life, Food, I found myself questioning why I was even in Thailand in the first place.  I thought, I am not Thai, I am Mexican/Polish(Just found out Cherokee Blackfoot on Father’s Polish side) American girl raised by her full blood Mexican Mother, why was I not in MEXICO? Why was I not even interested in Latin America? I honestly think I thought, well, that is my roots, when I am ready, I will go there, return there. And in Thailand, that is where I realized I needed to return to the Mother Land, México. So then, there I am after one year study abroad, I had a clear vision of how I was going to return to the Mother Land.  I WAS GONNA BE A DISHWASHER and EARN MY WAY TO THE MOTHER LAND.  It was a romantic vision and I managed to save $5,000 in 10 months dish washing at Beans and Barley.  I was on my way to my spiritual journey to the Return to the Mother Land.

3:00am Monday, September 1st, 2003/2546-Milwaukee

today i begin to see that i am almost gone. what is freedom. it may be scary, it maybe right- i maybe ready. i thought all day at work(my official last day) i can do anything with my life. move away, get a job somewhere else. learn a new language(or 2) find new friends-make new art-follow the rainbow. I question why am i going. what do i really search for. what do i fear. what do i know. what if i fear that maybe i can really do this. what if all my fear is lack of self trust. 

Wednesday, September 10th, 2003, Colorado on a train….somewhere. 

Yesterday i left my sad mother. i pray and pray and pray so that she is protected, for my good luck in travels and tht her and i will meet again someday. but for now we are always together in our hearts, in our souls. and i thank her for all of her hard work that she did for me in her life. . . . .and tomorrow around 6pm i should be arriving in san francisco.  

My first stop was a train ride to San Francisco.  I spent 2 weeks in San Francisco staying with my good friend, Maureen.  I met so many amazing friends just on the first day alone.  I walked from North Beach all the way to the Mission district and then to China Town, then spent the evening in Berkeley.  I wanted to ride in their Critical Mass bike ride. I found a dude named Sand, who had a tandem bike, I road on the back along with 500+ other bikers, all riding along to the song, Eye of the Tiger.  We road to Albany and ended at a party on the beach, a sculpture garden on the beach. Free food, good music, and the Sling Shot people were there(the little sling shot organizers, i have like 10 of them). Then we biked all night long.  I finally made it back to San Fran around 3 am.  This was only the FIRST DAY I was in San Francisco.

A few days before I decided to leave San Fran, I went to the bus terminal in downtown San Francisco, bought a bus ticket to a place called Guadalajara, Mexico.  Off I was to Mexico, on My Spiritual Journey to the Mother Land. . . . after a quick awesome breakfast of beans, eggs, rice, cheese, cafe, and tortillas at the bus terminal in Tijuana I got on the bus and headed to Guadalajara. Just a day trip, I THOUGHT. Ended up being a 3 day bus trip, no food, I was so scared to get off the bus in Northern Mexico, I just bough water.  I knew not one word of Spanish, I did not even have a Spanish-English dictionary, all I had was my backpack with a little clothing, my sketchbook, and mi Corazón.  

I sketched out the map of my journey.  I only made it to Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras and Costa Rica.   But it changed my life forever.

10/13/2003 monday

Thoughtless tragedy thrown to the tariffs of shotwell’s system

look around tremble till the bottom drops. spirals envy the straight ones who envy the circle ones who breathe

breathe breathe.

Thoughtless wonder of the north to the west

set the wind in a rotation until the bottom drops. 

Engine running through my mind of what will happen last. 

Far enough away that the threads have no movement. Wonder what will unwind next. Truth. Loss. Tranquility. Hope

has nothing left for the freedom of wisdom. 

PURA

blue ball point pen and water color Self Portrait 2003

ink Portrait of my friend Ludwig 2003

collage in sketchbook 2003

what is with the bearded man i keep drawing, dreaming of- nightmares, no nightmares yet. 

intellectuals, great art is where there is great tragedy, great romance, great risks, great minds….mexico is of one. i’m more than -that, she says on the estéreo.

Growing, growing, changing, speaking. 

22nd, of October, two conversations in spanish oy!

2003, mexico