Diane Talking About her Trip
to Mexico City
So I decided to take a trip to Mexico City.
I decided that this was going to be the
trip I take by myself, this is going to be the
trip where I reclaim my independence.
This is going to be the trip where I venture
out, take on the world, all without help
from a travel companion, from a man.
So I went there, and really, it wasn’t as
frightening as I thought it would be.
I needed to learn more of the language,
but otherwise I got along just fine. Oh,
I got lost once, and men in cars kept
offering to give me rides, “hey, baby, you
want your own private taxi?” and I’d have
to move away from them, but one guy
told me which bus I wanted, so I was fine.
But the man that ran the hotel thought it
wasn’t safe for me, and he asked me
if my parents loved me, if my family
loved me, if anyone loved me, anyone
at all, because if anyone did, why would
they let me go on this trip alone?
And then as I was touring I went to an old
church where the was a saint, and they’re
considered a saint because their body
doesn’t decompose. It’s not like religion
in America, because they had to put this
saint’s body in a glass case because all
the people who came to see him would
pick off part of his face as a souvenir.
And then as I was touring I went to a
nunnery, a place where supposedly all the
bad young girls were sent to to live out
the remainder of their days. And
they showed me around in the tour,
and they said, "Here are the crosses that
the young women had to carry when
they walked around in circles in the
courtyard. And these, over here, these
are the crowns of thorns the women
wore." And I looked at the crosses, the
crowns, and there was still blood on them.
This is how things were, I guess. And they
looked at me as strange because I was
taking a trip alone. No one in Mexico City
understood why I’d want to do this there.
No one understood why I’d want to be alone.
Copyright Janet Kuypers.
All rights reserved. No material
may be reprinted without express permission.
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