Tortilla Del Ray

Sitting the tortillaria I've been eyeing for days. It smells of compressed corn and grease- the tables garish blues and reds and yellows with raised portraits of catci and men in sombreros creating distorted tops. I've ordered my favorite- huevos rancheros con chili verde. The whole menu was in Spanish.

The tortillas are fresh off the press and they burn fingers. The green sauce gives my mouth a body high. It tastes like Oaxaca and that back street shop where I learned how to say "Sugar."

Before dreaming of my New Years escape to Mexico, I think of my friends who are traveling or who will be soon- all their back streets and new words.



Then it's to the balcony at some small hotel I hope to find, overlooking a colonial street echoing with laughing children and stray motorbikes. My feet are propped on the railing and my breath opens up the space between my shoulder blades. The waitress and tortilla pressman are teasing each other, yelling in Spanish over the mariachi music. I'm here but I'm gone.

I feel a road trip calling....Sometimes I wonder if it matters anymore *where* I am, if it's always in my own body, thinking my own thoughts, dreaming of the next spot on the map, the next town down the road.