For several weeks I have been rereading my journals written over the last six years as research for the book I am writing about Felipe and my move to Mexico.  It is a horrendous task.

I have kept a journal since I was in my teens, and though they are essential to me for sorting through life, venting, and inventing, I have always hated reading what I wrote years ago. Though in this case, with an unfinished book and the need for more scenes and dialog, they’re invaluable.

As a bit of comic relief from this labor I will share one of my more entertaining and illuminating entries with you.

Monday Dec 8^th 2006 (We arrived in Mexico August 20^th 2006) Every life has many paths and I have chosen as many of them as I could in the time I have had so far, including 3 marriages, many jobs, and many passions.

Yet at 30 years old I had married a man I loved but could not totally commit my life to. Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew that the security that I sought with him was not my path.

I want my life to be an adventure.

I have written this statement many times, in many journals. Though I was not aware of what those adventures may be, or what would prompt them.

Enter Rico… Suave

Embarrassingly enough, Rico Suave was indeed one of my life’s great prompts.

Viewing  Mr. Sauvé’s video for the first time in 1990 prompted a  fascination with all things Latino when something undeniable and primal rose up within me and declared, “I want one of those.”   But before I moved to Chicago, all my small town Iowa life had allowed me in terms of La Vida Loca was a penchant for Latin literature and an admiration of the works of Frida Kahlo.  It was several years before I saw a latin man in the flesh, but when I did I remembered my declaration to Mr. Suave.

Your motivations at 23 are not the same as they are at 38(my age when Felipe and I married) but I still totally value the visceral. Not only sex, but the whole of life’s lush, sensuous feast. I believe we are in a physical body to experience the physical plane and to lose sight of that is to miss out on a most important part of our time on planet earth.