Pilgrimage

Suddenly Angelina is standing by her bed.  It is 2 am. Angelina is in her small bedroom in her small house in Phoenix.  She does not know if she is still asleep or if she is awake.

Angelina is standing in the warm blue sky looking down on what appears to be a well laid out pastel city. She wonders if she is dreaming.  Is this a dream of flying.

Angelina stands in that warm blue sky for what seems to be hours.  Or long minutes. Or days.

She is now standing on warm sand at the gate of the pastel city.  She recognizes it as a graveyard.  But unlike any graveyard in Phoenix.

She hears a voice.  Welcome.  No there are 2 voices, a man and a women.  They are speaking Spanish.

Who is there Angelina asks in Spanish.  She knows a little Spanish but here in the pastel graveyard she is fluent. She is thinking in Spanish.

We are here.  Over here.  Angelina sees faint outlines of a couple neither young nor old.  They seem far away but perhaps right in front of her.  She does not know.

Angelina asks Who are you.

Please come in they answer.

Where am I.

Mexico they answer. Baja California Sur.  Your family is here. You are here.

I am from Phoenix.  My family is from many places.

Yes they say.  Many places

.

Angelina walks through the graveyard.  It is beautiful.  She had always thought of graveyards, of death, as depressing.  A grey place.  But not this graveyard of color and light.  Statues, loving notes, piles of spent candles, striking painted shrines, humble block and unfinished grave houses line orderly dirt streets. Exquisite architectures of the dead.

She looks at the names on graves.  She sees headstones and shrines with names that she does not recognize but somehow knows.  Orozco, Galves Soto, Gutierres Manriquez, Guerrero.  She opens a candle niche, several candle niches.  They all have candles.  The living have been attentive to the rituals of the dead. The living and the dead meet here often.

Angelina walks through the graveyard. Angelina says out loud This is a living place of the dead.

She calls out to the couple Where are you.  Will you talk to me.  Why am I here.

There is only the silence of the sun above and a small breeze bumping and shimmering the artificial flowers that have been placed at the graves. She calls out again.

 

Angelina is standing by her bed.  It is 7 am. Angelina is in her small bedroom in her small house in Phoenix.  She does not know if she is still asleep or if she is awake. The silent sun is just breaking through her bedroom window.  She is awake.

Angelina walks into her kitchen to make coffee.  She sees something on the counter.  It is a word on a piece of lined paper torn from a notebook.