The night before Revolution Day, David, Patricia, and I took their mother to El Pistolero, “The Gunfighter," to celebrate her seventieth birthday. I suppose there was a certain revolutionary spirit in Carmela’s tossing back a beer in a bar with her son and daughter —...
David drove, and his mother Carmela rode shotgun, stiff-backed and silent - maybe because her son's CD of thumping, electronic Latin dance music was vibrating the compact car around her. “This music doesn’t bother your mother?” I asked Patricia, who sat with me in...
Around noon, an aging sedan rolled up. A skinny, baby-eyed girl-woman got out, stepped up to the courtyard gate, and gave me a puzzled smile through the bars. She had long, metallic-red hair, mod side-bangs, and fluffy white ankle boots. “Sara?” I asked. She widened...
I woke to the safe sounds of a gas burner igniting, a pan shifting, an egg sizzling. It was only then that a rooster started crowing somewhere in Colonia del Carmen. Perhaps he sets his clock by Carmela. I lingered in bed, until I heard 69-year-old Carmela and her...
As Patricia and David had promised, their mother didn’t live far across the river from El Paso, Texas. After David drove through downtown Juárez, he spent five minutes winding through dark neighborhoods before turning into Carmela’s driveway. He unlocked a padlocked...
I woke in terror and opened my eyes to green tubular objects floating toward me — string beans, or slow-motion bullets. I yelled, startling my husband. When I snapped out of it I reassured Dale, “It’s only what always happens.” Meaning: “It’s only because night...
This Thursday, I’m traveling to a place that should have yellow caution tape around it. According to the news, according to family and friends, according to the U.S. State Department, if I’m looking for danger: non-essential travel to Chihuahua, Mexico is the way to...
In my life before kids, I might have traveled to a seaside resort in Mexico to relax, troll for shells, and enjoy a sense of calm. There would be a lot of sitting around staring at scenery, reading, and languishing over meals completed without disruptions. Nobody...
When I tell people I’m an avid traveler, I say so with both pride and shame. Pride: because world travelers tend to be among the most environmentally conscious, culturally sensitive, socially progressive people you’ll ever meet. Shame: because, as a traveler, I cause...
Alongside the highway that roars past Bucerias, Mexico, on the opposite side of that highway from the susurrating surf of the Bahia de Banderas, I slowly slide my fork through the crust of the most delicious tropical taste my tongue has ever savored: mango pie. Pie in...
Cara Lopez Lee is the author of They Only Eat Their Husbands. She’s a winner of The Moth StorySLAM and performs in many storytelling shows, including Unheard L.A., and Strong Words. Her writing appears in such publications as Los Angeles Times, Manifest-Station, and Writing for Peace. She’s a traveler, swing dancer, and baker of pies. Cara and her husband live in the beach-town of Ventura, California, where they enjoy tending their Certified Wildlife Habitat full of birds.
