Stories from the Road 2002
an ongoing travelogue

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In this time of rain, of gray heavy and more rain, the first warm morning light -- in maybe a week -- falls through clean air like a spring morning in Santa Cruz
Through the cafe window beside me, the light falls through an iron grill-work painted a cream color. The shadows of adjoining U’s with a small circle between lay long, stretching and distorting across the grass table mats, my satchel, the egg-shaped steel salt & pepper shakers, and the ashtray. The shadows stretch up and wrap around my right arm and torso. Through the grill and across the narrow cobblestone alley a father braces his little one on the edge of his shop counter top. Maybe she is two. Her billowy shirt and shorts find shape at the elastic bands around her arms and thighs. These little appendages, all having almost the same girth. Her eyes are big and brown. They are encircled with a black ink that make her curious lookings even more piercing. The ink apparently has medicinal qualities that strengthen the child’s eyes for their later adulthood.
I look over, through the cafe, following the trail of a familiar language to a young man speaking with wide eyes and a dancing hand that holds a cigarette. I find myself squinting to pick-up more audio. It is Portuguese and for several seconds I can’t remember where I am. Back through the window grill -- my TV to the world -- a man is tearing open a silver packet of pan, he empties it into his mouth. Another man crouches with his daughter and son in the entrance hallway to their home. They are mixing rice and dal together with their right hands, scooping it quickly and silently into their mouths. The mother sits hunched over a plastic basket containing a small green vegetable that looks like a lime. Her left leg stretches out long the basket’s side, a sari of floral print is wrapped around her body and over her head. She wears a silver stud in her left nostril. The contours of her teeth are stained betel-red.