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The only municipal cemetery still left inside the city limits of Patzcuaro is a 20-minute walk away, so D.D. took a stroll this afternoon to check it out. Once there, the final destination for all the flowers was clear...
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D.D. was amazed at the number of people in the cemetery crammed with graves and above-ground sepulchers. Traditional Mexican cemeteries have no caretakers, so all the work on the gravesite is done by the family. This day, everyone from kids to grandparents were busy tidying up the graves or decorating tombs with flowers and coronas, wooden memorials covered with brightly colored ribbon. Some families had hired small musical groups to play as they lingered on the tombstones of their dead, drinking tequila and eating snacks. Roaming vendors sold churros (a kind of long stick-like donut) and potato chips and shelled peanuts dusted with chili powder. Quite different than anything D.D. has ever experienced in association with the dead...No creepiness, but rather a festive atmosphere.
An old friend, a poet and dreamer of extraordinary dreams, reminded me of the words of Lorca in his enigmatic lecture and essay, Play and Theory of the Duende. Here, Lorca speaks to the tumultuous relationship between creativity and the mysterious black sounds of the Duende, and their ultimate connection with death in his home country of Spain.
…In every country, death comes as a finality. It comes, and the curtain comes down. But not in Spain! In Spain the curtain goes up. Many people live out their lives within walls until the day they die and are brought out into the sun. In Spain, the dead are more alive than the dead of any other country of the world…[and] in all the world, only Mexico can walk hand-in-hand with my country.
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