caffeine 13 on th beach/2
th winds have shifted due to th transit of a tropical wave through th area,
bringing showers in
from th southeast…rolling over th hills, th rain spreads an intense
country smell that transports me to th summer i was two: alberto had come
into this world w/ no small trouble in april & he absorbed most, if not
all, of my parents’ attention. i remember wandering, seemingly alone, among
th shadows of dusk filling th musty country house my mother spent her own childhood summers in… then settling into a window seat where i cd lie down & just barely stretch out…there was a cafetín just across th road & i cd hear th jíbaros get loudly drunk while th jukebox played rancheras & corridos… th mental & emotional fog & accompanying fatigue lifted enough for me to run twice in as many days- th change was dramatic enough for my second espresso cup of sunday, after lunch @ oscar & marian’s, to trigger th occasional recurrent anxiety that i might be slipping into mania…but then again, tagging along w/ carlos agustín & his 18 month old son, & meeting up w/ eduardo, who cd not avoid his usual grilling & subsequent prescription for running my life, did not help matters much… what began as a light drizzle intensified into close shower by th end of my thirty minutes of pounding th pavement that evening…first run in th rain in a very long time…towards th end of it i caught a whiff of anothersmell that took me back to childhood & ‘la casa dl campo’- a fire or barbecue made w/ vegetable charcoal- maybe guayabo- guava tree? …in one corner of th couple of acres surrounding th house & planted to citrus, th caretaker of th farm-ramón lozano, still alive & kicking- would build his ‘chimba’: a mound of earth where a slow fire wd mysteriously turn green wood into charcoal chips…i tore up my face pretty badly when i was about five, trying to rub some of th soot into a blackface mask so i cd rehearse playing melchior- th moorish third of th three kings who paid homage to th infant jesus- in th upcoming christmas pageant @ school…