The map is certainly not the territory
March 16, 2009
Mexico is an amazing country. The axiom “the map is not the territory” is certainly appropriate when held up against my recent trip. I can’t explain, could not have explained, the smell of the Caribbean Sea in the morning. Or the sound that sea breezes make as they move through palm trees. Or the feel of the sand on bare feet. There is no way I can come close to understanding Mexico, or at least the small and incredibly privileged part of Mexico I visited, without actually having been there. You need to stand on the beach at 5:30 a.m. and look east. Or at 2 a.m. with a full moon hung out to dry over the sea. Or at noon, with an ice-cold mojhita in hand and wearing the Havana stingy-brim hat your wife hates, while watching your daughter make a sand castle. And the waves strike through the corral reef three-hundred feet out. You need to look at the particular colour of the sea, that translucent blue, pale-green clarity, with awe. I tried to pay attention to the small things. I want to get the air right. And the sky. I want to understand the moment the palm trees touch the sky. Wrote the beginning pages of a short story called “The Quiet Man” and read most of Salmon Rushdie’s The Enchantress of Florence.