From the moment I got in the shuttle from Oaxaca airport and slid open the window so I could smell the sulfur and gasoline and just blooming Jacaranda on the night air, I started feeling something that’s been caught un-catch, something that’s been strangling, loosen.

I was in Oaxaca for my baby cousin’s wedding. Of course, she’s not a baby anymore at 34, but I still remember when she and her parents lived in my house in Boston and she would follow me around asking me to play with her. I was 12 and she was 2. She mostly grew up a couple hours north of here in Cholula-Puebla. Her dad, my Tio, was originally from from Mexico City, but taught for years at the University there, in the shadow of the sleeping volcano.

The cracked sidewalks and paste-up woodcut graffiti of Oaxaca. The storefronts open for business with not a single electric light on, just pools of diffused and refracted light from the fierce sun somewhere overhead pooling in front of a counter behind which someone sits or stands waiting for a customer.

A man holding a fat flushed baby in his arms in the doorway.

Abuelas in variations of their special Ropa tipica- a polka dot or floral or solid colored dress that hits 3 or 4 inches below the knee, stockings or high socks, loafers, a cardigan or a large shawl wrapped around the shoulders, maybe a hat or scarf tied over graying black or whitening hair either neatly braided or wrapped up into some kind of elegant bun or chignon, often gold earrings, or drops with gemstones. The striking beauty of furrowed Aztec features, black eyes lively or serene, bethroned by the colors and textures of their humble and lovely adornments… you encounter them everywhere throughout Ciudad Oaxaca like walking deities.

In the Molino machines wait to grind your corn or chilis or chocolate for your mole. You will walk away with the fruit of the earth warm and pliant in your hands.

It is almost the festival of the Good Samaritan. The school children will put out Agua Fresca to offer free to anyone who is thirsty.

At night in Ciudad Oaxaca there are always fireworks

Because in this world of trouble, tests, sorrow, and love

every day you’re still alive

Is a day worth celebrating.