All Over the Map - Laura Fraser [100]
“What kinds of things?” I ask. I am skeptical, to say the least, but his reluctance to talk makes him seem honest.
“Physical things, emotional things,” he says. “I just see them.”
I can’t resist asking him what he sees about me. We are in a dim outdoor space, and the bar is between us; he can’t see more than my upper body.
“Your right hip,” he says, immediately. “It was injured a few years ago, and it’s still injured. You’ve tried everything, but the pain deep down doesn’t go away. You have trouble sitting cross-legged.”
I’m speechless. He hasn’t seen me walk, and even if he had, no one can detect my injury.
“How did it happen?” I ask, pushing my luck.
He frowns. “I don’t think you want me to talk about that right now,” he says. “It’s a very personal story.”
“Right,” I say.
“What is it?” asks the young woman with him.
“Nothing,” the shaman and I say in unison.
“Can you fix it?” I ask.
“I already did,” he says.
I rotate my hip joint and still feel the pain.
“I know,” he says. “It’ll take a few days. You’ll wake up Tuesday morning, and it’ll be fine.”
Tuesday morning, despite believing that I will be better, my hip still hurts. Maybe a little less. On Thursday, I have a party in my new house, everyone squeezed together in the little kitchen or hanging out on the terrace for a smoke, and I see the shaman and give him a kiss on the cheek.
“I know,” he says, before I say anything. “It’s still there.”
I nod.
“I was a little drunk, and you were behind the bar,” he says, sheepishly.
“No worries,” I say. He’s like a good-natured warlock who gets things a little wrong, like the befuddled aunt on Bewitched accidentally turning Darrin into a toad.
“I can try again,” he says, not moving. “I just did.”
“Sometimes pain is there for a reason,” I say. “It can serve as a reminder.” I have a deep, physical twinge that tells me I’m vulnerable, that it’s okay to be vulnerable, to want to protect myself and to be protected. It reminds me I’m female, that I’ve lived a full and exciting life, that I’ve made mistakes, that I’ve forgiven myself and others, that I do my best, here in middle age, to live with Mexican patience, tango receptivity, and a Spirit Rock sense of lovingkindness.
“That’s true,” says the shaman.
“I mean, if you can make it disappear, go for it.”
AFTER EACH VISIT to San Miguel, when I come home to San Francisco, my friends tell me I look good and seem softer and more relaxed, as if I’ve just been on a meditation retreat. After spending some weeks in Mexico, I always fall in love with San Francisco anew—for its wonderful restaurants, huge parks, steep hills, longtime friends, and intellectual liveliness (people are much less apt to use the phrase “It’s all up to the universe” in conversation, for instance). I’m not ready to give up San Francisco. When I’m back in the Bay Area I realize that it’s my home; San Miguel is a getaway, tranquilo, a place where I love to spend some of my time, to speak a little Spanish and feel a little Mexican, but it doesn’t have San Francisco’s stimulation. Yet when I’m in San Miguel, it feels like home, too, I feel softer and more at ease when I’m there, and I wonder how I can leave. I am grateful to have both, to feel settled but able to see my surroundings, in either place, with the fresh eyes of a traveler.
I SEND PHOTOS of my house to the Professor and tell him I hope he comes visit sometime. He e-mails me back saying congratulations, it’s beautiful, and who knows when he may find himself in Mexico. He sends wishes that Obama will win the presidency, saying it would be magnificent, once again the entire world could be friends with the United States. I’m happy to hear from him; he has not written since last summer, when he told me he was going on a trip to India, which he had always wanted to visit, telling me that if his