Mexico 1 United States 0

I removed myself from that land because my ancestors had stolen it.

I was tired of benefitting from a crime, tired of the guns, the helicopters, the trash strewn around the streets—yes I lived in a big city.  Most people call it “Los Angeles,” but the natives preferred Otsungna, “the place of the roses...”  I go with the name of the land coined by peaceful people.  People without loud, dishonorable, nature-hating guns!

Boom!  A zigzag of echoes through time, and where were we?  When did the white European lose his way and culture, start assuming “America” was his because he took it by violent force?  How ironic to justify wrongdoing by bibles, calling ourselves Christian mid-murder, hailing God and Thanksgiving after we subdued the natives... Genocide, removal and prayers made us the greatest democracy in the world.  For non-Native Americans...

***

She was just there at first, me bagging groceries, self-serving at the local store.  I asked about her marital status way deep into my foreign stay, brushing up on my Spanish—but why in Mexico?  Shouldn’t we have been speaking Nahuatl or one of the other sixty-eight local languages that shone for centuries before Spanish conquest?

I couldn’t escape land theft, just passed by with enough of a query to pique interest, and soon we had a date.  I was not in Wales yet, nor in Scandinavia—homes of my ancestors, Rome intruding on everything once upon a time.  Civilization or death!  Christianity or death!  Movements that left many earth-lovers in the dust, me wandering through litter on my way to the church with my lovely date at last.

We got deep fast, but not as a fast as I wanted.  I figured she’s a woman, I’m a man, let’s go!  But no, this would have to take time, her defense top notch and well-organized to boot... I saw an opening and held her hand, rocketing body parts to their natural attack positions.  From there they had minds of their own, began various countdowns and rushes of blood, all in futile circles while our love needed hope in a second date.

I kissed her offered cheek, so close to her lips that the hidden scorekeeper nearly awarded me the goal.  No sale, I’d have to regroup and try another day, but man did we have a few moments there!

***

Date number two was tragicomical, up and down, left and right—leaving me further from the goal in some ways, closer in others.  I met her lovely mother, pleaded with that entity to talk to her daughter on my behalf, hoping for patience.  The point being our date derailed when I didn’t want to ascend a trail her heart was set on ascending.  Ten years older than her and fresh from probably a bout with the infamous Corona Virus itself, I was tired and stopped before reaching the pinnacle...

Her expectations were dashed, and she saw a side of me she didn’t like.  When she pushed and pushed me to ascend with her, and I kept saying no, it seemed necessary for me to raise my voice.  And it was in that moment she saw for the first time my anger.  An ugly trait, reflecting more the angered person’s fear than anything else.  In the case of our date, I was afraid of injuring myself or relapsing into a scary darkness of disease.

Later my wrath would come up, when I thought she was threatening to leave me.  Yes, you analysts out there, the old “fear of abandonment” thing.  I had it, okay, I admit.  Maybe I still have it, but as I write this very word the woman I ended up falling in love with is seeking entertainment elsewhere.  Yes, the very thing I feared most, protected most dearly against... Happened.  Gosh, but at least she is still talking with me, listening to me...

Why?  Maybe because of the rainbow outside my house the day of our first kiss.  Maybe because not a drop of alcohol touched our lips during our time together, our love a pure one as children have... There was and sometimes still is a mighty attraction of bodies, rockets and butterflies satisfied in that imperfect perfection that is two adults slightly past their prime finding eternal youth in the song of passionate love.

Whispering at me still is the regret of one last yell into the abyss that was her raised voice.  I got mad for maybe the last time in her presence... Asked for the ring.  Yes, I had proposed to her on the sixteenth day of July, two shy of my birthday, about four months into my nineteenth year of contented sobriety.  A dream come true to be in a position to love her forever... United States 1, Mexico 0?  But wait, I don’t believe in the United States anymore!

Was any of this real?  Shouldn’t I be on my own land?  Where is that, in Wales?  Norway?  Rome?  Where didn’t my ancestors steal with horrible, loud weapons?  I was on my way, in an in-between place, but one of European conquest nevertheless.  I came to this country to write and publish a book about land theft, not to get married to one of its beautiful locals... But there she was.  There I was.  Together, hashing out differences, me seeing love, she thinking, thinking, thinking...

Better than drinking, drinking, drinking.  Alcohol the enemy to us both, our peace of mind somewhere on the horizon between here and the land of my forefathers.  I miss the truth, the calling out to Mother Nature, the feet on sand and dirt, the taking in of the rays of the sun, snow and sleet with equal praise and gratitude.

Native chiefs help me.  I call on the ancestors who know wisdom.  Pray for us European sinners, for Matoax, who saved my people in Wingandacoa, a place white people call Virginia.  White people speak ignorantly of Pocahontas, continue to litter Paspahegh land still to me closer to Powhatan than Washington D.C.

Whatever happens to my dream in this Mexican storm, that soft skin, a sober soulmate under the stars in mountain bliss forgetting fake democracies... I have peace that I’m on the road. An unpaved one toward the wilderness of my spiritual Celtic name called out in the wind of past ages, present beaches, the echo of which inviting me home.