The Last Good Days in Mexico

• we had just bought the low rider honda (civic?) with cigarette and burgundy interior; it felt both safe and familiar, compared with the expletive jeep. I burned a beatles cd and drove somewhere by myself, just because I could without fear of breaking down. I listened to "I've just seen a face" over and over and sang out the windows, into the wind and palms.
• we took missy out on the boat, in the morning, before work. we trolled away from civilization, toward Sisal if you travel far enough. The water was flat, almost glassy and we each smiled in our own direction, riding parallel with shore and horizon. Eventually, malcolm tangled us in mangroves, and we thought we might ge stuck. but we weren't.
• swimming to the pier and back, completely boyant in the absurdly salty Gulf. overhead birds. dogs on the shore, standing sentry. in the near distance, our charming ruin of a house, steps digging into the strand. nowhere and everywhere, happy to be floating with practice.
• walking single file on the uneven sidewalks of centro, under the direct heat of a despot sun, peering inside dusty American renovations and the damp coca cola courtyards of families who count generations in threes. among simultaneous building and crumbling, there is a permanence.