The Heat
Project Zine No. 1
Printed copies available in Todos Santos. Contact The ATB Press for a copy.
Read the Writing Up Close
La Playa
La luz del sol cae sobre la arena de la playa, la hace aparecer como un sendero infinito para el trashumar. Cae también sobre la superficie del agua crispada y sobre la espuma, que es como un cordón de leche brillante que delimita las fronteras de dos reinos, tambaleándose entre sus confines en un juego perpetuo de robarle al aquí y al allá, de mezclarlos un poco, de hacer que nunca sean los mismos.
Atrae mi atención el movimiento de aquel cordón de espuma; parece un gusano borracho que va hacia un lugar lejano, un gusano galáctico, un gusano que se emborrachó con leche galáctica y se tambalea hacia un lugar muy lejano. Surrealista imagen.
Me recuerda aquella noche en que caminé desde La Pastora hasta mi casa por la playa; era tarde, tal vez ya las primeras horas de la madrugada, invierno, me acompañaban Sunny y Moon. Era luna llena, pero el ambiente estaba todo lleno de neblina, densa; nunca la había visto así. Así que no podía ver la luna encima de mi, pero su luz se colaba entre la neblina y le daba una claridad sucia a todo el entorno. Escuchaba el potente ruido del mar tan cercano, pero no lo podía ver, solo aparecía si me acercaba lo suficiente para mojar mis pies. Sentía la inmensidad del lugar en la brisa fresca que me golpeaba, el sonido estruendoso, la absoluta desolación y la arena bajo mis pasos que nunca se acababa.
Que raro, que onírico lugar me había derrepente engullido, parecía ser en sí mismo un planeta independiente flotando por el universo. No sabía si alguna vez había sido habitado por persona alguna o algún tipo de ser viviente y mucho menos si volvería yo a ver a alguien alguna vez. Mi única conexión con el pasado, que era como un aquí usurpado por este mundo opaco, frío y absoluto en el que ahora me encontraba eran Sunny y Moon; que no estarían aquí presentes si no fuera por la lana que me pagaban por cuidarlas, lo cual, puede ser que aumentara la sensación de soledad.
¿Qué es el aquí cuando cambia? Cuando deja de contener los elementos que nos son comunes.
¿Dónde están los lugares si ya nada en ellos significa lo que solía?
¿Dónde es aquí y qué tan a menudo se nos convierte en un allá, en otros múltiples allás, con el voraz tambaleo de los mundos?
____
Germán Mesa Parodi is a jewelry artist from Colombia living in Todos Santos some years ago. IG @Germán Mesa Parodi
The Window
She sits by the window looking out over dust fields. They are desert to most and plant strewn. But her eyes can only see dryness – land parched with a top crust that molts and scatters in the thing called wind, but that feels like dragon's breath, firing. Dust coats cognizance and her every sense, the windshield of her mind so obscured that she’s not sure who she is anymore without that looking glass to steer through.
What now, then? How to move out of this dry mire? How to pull herself away from this window and go find water?
She remembers a time when the sky was gentler and she thirsted for nothing. Craggy rocks and water-worn stones. The cove curved along the edge of one continent while her gaze lifted to another. Everything gathered at that lip where sea lapped into ocean: a terracotta tile tumbled into the same shape as the palm creases inside her hand, a sheep's tooth, sea glass the color of irises. She harvested them and read them all like novels. She found that beach after walking the streets that were more like alleyways, walls white, with the color baked out after centuries of sun. This reminded her of another town, across another ocean.
Looking back through this window of time, she questions: is she someone who must always be in search of something? Is her looking the actual finding?
____
Amanda Aileen Fisher is the founder of the Todos-Santos-based project Abre Tu Boca. She is an interdisciplinary social practice artist and writer who is drawn to the power of language in creating and reconstructing “realities.” Her work heavily explores perspective as a shape-shifter and how it can be used to access and recode the individual interior landscape, and thread by thread, the collective reality. You can read her writing at ephemeralcult.substack.com.
Enough
Enough dust particles
floating like desert snowflakes in the afternoon sun.
Enough dried leaves under the umbrella tree
forming carpets of beige on brick.
Enough campfire smoke next door
slithering under poorly made windows.
Enough silver palm fronds brushing the walls in wind.
Enough bags of compost collecting in the freezer.
Enough temperamental electric tea kettles.
Enough wax dripped candle sticks.
Enough porch pretty sunsets.
Enough black outs,
enough house flies,
enough gecko calls,
enough dog howls.
Enough sage,
enough ceremony.
Enough question,
enough quiet.
Enough heart,
enough home.
tick…tock
Enough
time.
____
Christine Martin is a holistic interior designer experiencing the world as an expat and traveler for the last 20 years. Living in Todos Santos, Baja, she offers people a transformative experience by connecting them to their home space through intentional design. You can find more of her writing on Substack: substack.com/@ladyhomebody.
Happy for Life
There's a delightfulness in the everyday, the small potatoes, the dropping off of dirty clothes at the cleaners, the ham sandwich at the airport. Is that manchego cheese melted? I delight in them with ease. I'm going to be happy for life. I whisper as much to the hummingbird at the maracuja flower. She already knows. She has tasted the honey on my lips.
____
Dillon Porter is an actor, filmmaker, writer and free-styler. He is a lover of words and a co-founder of Teatro Pescadero. He’ll be facilitating the Abre Tu Boca Men’s Writing Circle online this summer and in person in Todos Santos starting this fall. Find him at on Instagram at @teatropescadero and, soon, on Substack.
Full Disclosure
As a resident of San Vicente, I hear everything you can imagine sold through a megaphone from a pickup truck rolling by my apartment. I normally don’t pay close attention to the noises of the barrio after living several years in front of La Sociedad Mutualista, the most popular venue in town to host your daughter’s quinceañera or boda. I’m used to my Saturday bedtime music of banda and norteña classics loud enough for the entire barrio to enjoy until the sun comes up.
Today, it was the usual sounds for elote, nieve, fruta and Global Gas as they cruised down the dirt roads making their announcements. However, one finally caught my attention: ¡¡Si sufres de diarrea, colitis, gastritis o cualquier inflamación, dolor o problema intestinal, te puede curar la Tónica Azteca!! ¡La Tónica Azteca, palomilla!¡Por solo 100 pesos! ¡También tenemos crema para curar los hongos de pie por solo 50 pesos – sí palomilla, 50 pesos!
Wow!! Who would’ve known that after five doctors, four antiparasitic medications, three herbalists, and more supplements than I can count to combat my parasite infection, that all I needed was to spend 100 pesos on “Tónico Azteca”️ (whatever that is) to cure all of my stomach issues? All along, the guy in the pickup had the answer. AND he sells foot fungus cream! I suppose I should’ve been tuning in to that background noise a long time ago.
I imagine these announcements in a neighborhood in the United States. No one there would be caught dead rushing from their front door to get in on this fabulous promotion of Tónico Azteca promised to cure their diarrhea, colitis, gastritis, or any intestinal issue. The foot fungus cream, alone, would be embarrassing enough, much less the advertising of issues with their bowel movements.
You can completely forget about anonymity in Mexico, especially in this little town. As mentioned, I have frequented the doctor many times to describe in detail what my bowel movements looked like. Definitely not my favorite topic of conversation – describing the texture, consistency, and color of my caca. And doing it through a paper thin wall with a waiting room full of people hardly eased my apprehension. One day after outlining the usual details to the gastroenterologist, she waited until I had fully opened the door from her office to the busy waiting room to ask me one last follow-up question about my newly discovered bacterial infection that the parasites had caused. Gracias doctora, perfect closure, or disclosure rather, before the walk of shame where I would face the roomful of patients now privy to what my shit looked like. At least she was extra thorough.
____
Marie Blessing grew up in Texas and New Mexico immersed in Latino and Southwest culture. Her published work includes a series of devotional books titled Prayers From the Barrio, (available at Pura Vida), with a bilingual children’s book, Chola the Cholla, coming soon. She also composes and writes music and comedy. Find more at @marieblessingofficial.
Excursión #1 y La Libertad de Correr
Cuadradas ellas pero con más lados que cuatro.
A veces quisiera que las piedras de los cerros fueran simples e inofensivos cuadrados perfectos. Grandes y definidos a la distancia, bloqueando así cualquier posibilidad de tropezar con ellas. A cambio, ¿qué obtenemos?
Obtenemos la bella singularidad de las piedras de los mil colores y las miles aristas que se entierran en la tierra de las formas más caprichosas o peculiares; flojas, engañosas sobre su estabilidad y tamaño. Amenazan con un futuro esguince si no pasas con cuidado. Tan simples y tan conocidas.
Ellas son los únicos testigos a tu alrededor cuando corres a la mayor velocidad posible y la mente olvida que el cuerpo tiene un límite. Corres y corres, pensando que tal vez cada rama sea una serpiente. Corres y corres, espantando a los correcaminos con los que has cruzado camino y te llenas los pies de tierra. Sí, se llenan de tierra, pero qué maravilloso precio a pagar es ése cuando sientes la perfecta sincronía del corazón latiendo al ritmo de tus piernas.
Otra roca en el camino, una rama más.
Elevación del terreno, subidas, bajadas.
Corres para esquivar las ramas que están en el camino, una acción inmediata de supervivencia; pero, en un sentido más profundo, corres porque te recuerda lo que se siente estar viva. Viva, entera y reconociendo el entorno en su totalidad. Jamás eres más feliz que cuando recuerdas.
Otro sendero.
Explosión de energía mezclada con unos ojos que despiertan y de pronto lo ven todo porque aquí lo importa todo; el viento, el sonido de las pisadas, llegar a una cima y tener una probada de delicioso silencio.
Corres y sueñas a veces que corres larguísimas distancias sin realmente tener ningún propósito de llegar a algún lugar, conquistar alguna carrera u obtener alguna marca de tiempo. Corres porque quieres sentirlo todo, saborearlo todo, tocar con todos tus sentidos cada gota del paisaje.
____
You can read more of Ana Isabel Suárez’s writing at anaisabelsuarez.substack.com.
Soles on Dust
by Nica Celly
One heel, two toes, one hell:
Dust polvo
polvo dust
A sideways song,
tongue tip tracing words
in a closed mouth.
Kickin up some in some barroom.
Into a slide,
a smoke without fire,
reminding, memorizing, flagrantizing.
Hungry ghosts again.
Mouths open, gaping, toothless,
peeled off, peeled, off, peeling.
Echoes in pinching fine sand,
a buildup into the toenails,
fluff to crust.
Weighting themselves with their superfluousness
building weight over time.
Like on my windshield, back window, blocking my view.
Wait.
Shhh.
Listen.
Look left, and down. There they are.
Mouths open, ready for you.
You ride right through, this time on two wheels with a chain between,
turning back to look in astonishment,
the floating cosmos blooming from your churning wheel.
Dusted.
You giggle. You think you got away.
Play not, pure polvo and rising plume
of polvo polvo, dust dust
Polvo dust dust polvo swaaaaaaahaaaa
Ring around some rosy, pocketful of that posey.
Another twilight to thrust up:
you anticipate the echo,
and for that,
you hear it again.
Crackling whisper of a cackle
This time, on four wheels.
You charge through them,
and still,
the hoops of their open mouths
feeding themselves: their own illumination.
Round the corner to charge again,
and round we go, they say:
Polvo polvo dust dust.
Oh, it’s a game now
Your pitch teeters on warning and tears.
They laugh back, empty stomachs, starving and never enough,
looking at each other, laughing at themselves, and then at you.
What a cruel folly
You spin around yet again,
this time, on four legs and claw feet.
Polvo polvo
dust dust
swaha swaha
You pitch teeters on shriek,
surprised by the rivers behind your lids.
One foot on, look down, see the shadow from late sun,
distilled in cars gone by through sparkling dust.
It’s a lion you are riding, foot flexed and sole open.
Exhausted, a weight of all epochs past,
smiling straight into the center of them, foot flexed, sole open.
Clouds of cosmos, melon bitters, and old dragonfruits left to decay,
barroom scuffles and jealous drunk whispers,
maracuyas like rudrakshas.
Thick tires,
hot to the touch,
burnt out,
trebled notes off tune, and evaporating:
Polvo polvo
dust dust
swaha swaha
____
Nica Celly is an artist and writer working between rural Northern California and Baja Sur, Mexico. Her art and design practices cultivate works that navigate the analogous links between landscape and thought, from a tantric/nondual perspective. Explore her newer written work and get linked to more projects at nicacelly.substack.com.