Dancing in Half Moon Bay – Celebrating Día de los Niños

Posted on May 7th, 2010 by Maya Christina

Oh the traveling about…we have been everywhere! And truly it has felt like a party everywhere we go. But everywhere there is a treat, a special prize to be had…and the Half Moon Library on April 29th, was no exception.

Beforehand, Matthew shared with me that he thought Armando Ramirez, the Librarian who invited me to the event, and I were old friends because of the way he worded his email to us. I laughed. “Nah, we’re just Mexican.” I joked, “I don’t think we’ve ever met, he just needed a favor.” I was joking, but the truth is that at times, cultural differences are clear and do bond us. It’s not that Mexicans are friends right off the bat. Of course not, life is not that simple. But there is a sentiment, a cultural aura that has been handed down to us through???eating tamales only our grandmother could have made, the bond of menudo, nature, sangre?, genes, or just culture??? Truly, it is impossible to pinpoint the heart of a Mexican. But as each race knows, there is something that is inherent to each of us. It may be tagged as a stereotype or a profile by outsiders, but there is a heart within us that remains uniquely our own, a shared navigational tool to face the reality of “westernization” through centuries of familial colonization… or possibly just this moment.

As I suspected, when I met Armando, he felt like family, a familiar fellow.
We set up for the event. We played with fantastically awesome kids who looked just like me or the kids in my books. It was good. Together, we read I Know the River Loves Me (see video below) and later, very generously, Armando gifted me with a gorgeous purple/fuschia rebozo from Mexico! Immediately, I wrapped it around HIM and demanded that he “very gently” dance a dance! Now that’s Mexican! Maybe not every Mexican, but the kind of playful, big-hearted, life-is-just-life Mexican my father was: a good man. The kind of man my father was who conveyed to me that life is for spirit, life is for play, children are penultimate and spirit speaks through just about everything we can see with our eyes. I cannot know if Armando was that kind of man, but what I can know, is that he danced!

Thank you Armando! I love my rebozo. When I am in Mexico, I always get foodfoodfood (always, in search of my grandmother’s cooking from my childhood!) and good-market-going mesh bags and aprons to wear in my studio. I always forget the rebozos. I think mostly because I run out of money, prioritizing flan and salsa and cover-up for my fancy dresses… as I paint my soul! So there it is. Ultimately, no matter where I go, in Mexico, I feel “normal.” It’s just like that for some of us.

What’s hilarious to me is that there are actually studies that Mexicans are “culturally” happier. We are the second on the list, right under Nigerians, I see. Despite the twists and turns of living in our own land divided by an “American” border, we have a spirit, a way of life that compels us to wrap our rebozo around our big shoulders and dance to whatever song the sun decides to sing that day…ahhhh Mexicans…we know that the world is one, whole…oh, Armando, you remind me of sunsets, and trees and ocean waves, and Matthew, my husband of love…all things that makes me dance. At each turn, in every moment, any weather, spirit rises, mind expands…and always we dance. I don’t have to think to thank nature. The kind that rises and grows in every direction and illustrates for me love and beauty! We Mexicans know that this world is ours and that it is ours to mold and shape to our own dream, our own vision of love and life and spirit, no matter what side of the border we are on. We are tricksters and merry-makers and great crones of wisdom. We gladly go into libraries and play with every child that will come forward and show their face and prove to us that we live on and on and on.

Armando dance!…gently…for your good heart…show me that we go on…whether we speak the same language or not, we dance the same dance. Thank you for inviting me. Clearly we are old friends, deep beyond this life and into the great sun, where we are all one. Dance, Armando, dance! We shall read and lay our eyes upon art and know who we are. We are. We are here. Now and always.

Read more about the The World’s Happiest Countries: http://thehappinessshow.com/HappiestCountries.htm