My high school English teacher once told us that one of the reasons we read is to experience a life we could not possibly experience otherwise. Our lives are too short or we don't have the necessary resources or perhaps we're just too afraid. When I was young I had a vision of what life outside my own would be like. To this day I still have recurring dreams about places not as they are but as how I dreamt them to be like as a child. Things are never as they seem to be, but they are still...
more »My high school English teacher once told us that one of the reasons we read is to experience a life we could not possibly experience otherwise. Our lives are too short or we don't have the necessary resources or perhaps we're just too afraid. When I was young I had a vision of what life outside my own would be like. To this day I still have recurring dreams about places not as they are but as how I dreamt them to be like as a child. Things are never as they seem to be, but they are still fantastical.
Mexico was a decision catalyzed by a tourism commercial on television and a friend willing to host me. I spent a week in Mexico city, but the magic happened only when I left to explore the surrounding townships. The people that I have met and the things that I have seen, it was like an exercise in magic surrealism. I remember this one morning when I offered to help an Azteca Dance Troupe pack their instruments into a van after a performance outside a pyramid and they offered me to come along. Minutes later, I was on the back of a truck riding along a Mexican highway going from location to location talking about Canadian ganja and related topics. Then the engine blew up and there was a little bit of fire and smoke and there were some concerned faces and crying children, but then we had ice cream and everything was good again. It was a good day, like all days.
There is a magic that is present in the townships surrounding Mexico City. It exists to be captured.
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