a thru e

Welcome to Oaxaca – foto by smith

Our poet guest Michael Salinger just left in a cab after a successful 7 day 6 night visit.

It’s lucky we had a guest to leave. Last night he took a cab to the Temezcal Indigenous sweat lodge cleansing ceremony. Our Temezcal lasted 90 minutes, so we agreed to meet him in Centro 2 hours later. We sat for 45 minutes, no guest. We text messaged his fone, no answer. We called his fone, got voicemail.

So we figure . . .
A – his fone died
B – his fone was stolen
C – he’s still in the ceremony with his fone unreachable in his backpack since he’s nude during the ceremony
D – he’s lost, wandering the city, his fone unhearable in his backpack over the city sounds
E – he’s dead, broken, hurt, kidnapped, or ran off with wild sheep.

I can live with A through D but find E problematic because then we have to contact the Mexican Police and even worse call Sara and say gee we’re sorry but somehow we lost your mate and partner we hope you don’t hold it against us. I’m not real good with either the Police or missing mate fone calls.

About the time we decide to go home to see if he’s there and call the cops if not, he showed up – he was inside the sweat lodge a full hour longer than we’d been and it being pitch black, steamy, clockless and foneless in the sauna, he’d had no idea he was late. Then when he got out and saw his fone message and tried to call us, he got a Spanish recording saying something he couldn’t understand so couldn’t call.

Waiting for Guest for 45 minutes is one long night, but now all is all right.

We’d stopped worrying about him because each morning he’d take our map and ride his rented bicycle off into the unknown mountains for hours and hours, each afternoon returning, so we figured he was indestructible.

This morning we all got up at 5:30 so we’d have time to find a cab in the empty pre-dawn streets. Walked a quarter block to the corner and a cab zipped to a stop beside us without asking.

Michael has luck, that’s all I can say.

Seize you on the down size – foto by smith