It was the artist José Guadalupe Posada who they say popularized the Catrina figure, with his etchings of high-society women and their desire to glom on to everything European. Back then, in the early 1900s, the Catrina was a symbol of revolution, a jab at the inner emptiness of the upper class. But in Mexico, images of women and death go way back to Aztec mythology, to Mictecacihuatl. Try saying that one out loud. Anyway, she was Queen of the Underworld, and her job was to watch over the bones of the dead. It wasn’t until after Christian beliefs got mixed up with Aztec traditions that Catrinas became symbols of the Day of the Dead, an expression of the Mexican willingness to laugh at death, and a reminder that everyone is equal, in the end.
In the little town of Capula, we hit pay dirt, a Catrina co-op, offering thousands of Catrinas from hundreds of artists. At first glance, they all looked alike to me, with their delicate bony fingers and gaping grins. But up close I could see that no two Catrinas were the same. They wore their wide-brimmed plumed hats, earrings, strings of pearls, aprons, and ruffles with the attitude of a woman strutting her one-of-a-kind designer outfit at an opening-night gala. Each parasol, every bright bouquet, every little purse, each handcrafted appliqué on every lavish gown had its own unique design. Even the poses they struck and the expressions on their skinless faces seemed to all be different. I shopped for hours.
The first Catrina I chose was dressed all in black, with one bony leg suggestively poking out from a slit that ran from heel to hip, her ribs exposed down to her waist by a wide, pink-edged neckline. And she had wings. Black wings. She seemed funny and naughty, sort of like the way old friends who knew me well saw me way back when.
The next one had an elegance about her that reminded me of my mom, an elegance that I always strived for yet never seemed to be able to achieve. Her strapless yellow gown cascaded down her skinny frame as if it were made from silk instead of clay. The matching hat perched atop a head held high by her long, graceful neck, like an ornate bloom on a reedy stem. She was perfect. No, I was more the naughty black angel type. But I added this one to my purchases anyway. One can dream, right?
The gun-toting Catrina spoke to me in a faint voice from a distant past. With two ammo belts crisscrossing her puffed-out skeletal chest, she was the rough-and-tumble girl with traces of her parents’ Arkansas blood pumping through her veins. She was the tough one who took no nonsense patrolling the prison yard, who survived living with a hot-tempered wannabe warlord, who will defend anyone, and who isn’t scared of anything.
Masked Catrina was the one who was afraid to let anybody see who she really was. Strong and confident on the outside, but inside not so much. Faking it until she was making it, as my mom always advised. Her sequined eye mask hung around her vertebrae at the ready, and though her black boa and leg garter suggested a masquerade party, I chose instead to stick with my own interpretation.
I fell in love with the Frida Catrina the moment I spotted her. Adorned with the long dark braids and the birds and flowers I recognized from some of Kahlo’s self-portraits, this one’s face was unmistakable in its determination to appear strong no matter how deep the hurt. I knew that face.
My final purchase was the butterfly Catrina. Not only was her deep blue gown sprinkled with a handful of the dainty orange and silver creatures, but she was, herself, a butterfly, with strong, broad wings fanning out from behind her back and two sparkly antennae sprouting from the top of her cranium. Her cocoon long gone, she was a Catrina who had proudly morphed into a beautiful being, the one who had always been there deep inside, just waiting for her chance to shine.
It was the next day that everything came crashing down on me with a thud so loud you could have heard it all the way back in Kabul. We were in the mall in Morelia. I was trying on sunglasses at a kiosk, and when I turned around, Sharon was gone. Vanished. She had simply disappeared. The spot where she had been standing just one minute before was now an empty hole. I took off the glasses and scanned the area on all sides of the kiosk. No Sharon in sight. I dug out my phone and I dialed her cell. No answer. It didn’t even ring. She must have wandered into one of the stores, I thought. I also thought about what my mom had always told me: If you ever get lost, just stay where you are, and I will find you. So I stayed. But Sharon didn’t find me. I sat down on a bench and tried her phone again, only to get that message you get when someone is out of range or their phone has been turned off. I could feel my breath quickening. Keeping one eye on the area where I had last seen Sharon, I stepped into the doorway of the Liverpool department store to see if I could spot her inside. No dice. I wandered in a little farther, trying to convince myself that I’d sooner or later run into her over the sales racks or at the cosmetics counter. But my brain just wouldn’t let me go there.
A normal person would use logic, as in she’s probably in the restroom, or she went to get a soda. But no, not me. My mind immediately went to me being stranded in a strange town where I didn’t know my way around and where I didn’t speak the language and where I didn’t know a soul. No matter that I was the one with the car keys and the GPS. In my mind, I was stranded. And Sharon? Where was she? Was she having an asthma attack somewhere? Kidnapped, held against her will at the back of the Mac store with a black bag over her head? Bound and gagged in a storage closet behind the escalators, her purse (with cell phone) on its way to Mexico City? Images from every terrible documentary I’d seen about human trafficking flashed through my brain. A terror had come flooding over me, as if I had witnessed the bloodiest of bloody sights right before my eyes. I was frozen, shaking, gasping for air, and sobbing like a five-year-old. I was completely, totally, utterly out of control, way beyond caring who was witnessing the spectacle of my breakdown or what they thought. Until, through my tears, I saw Sharon approaching with a cup of steaming coffee in her hand.
“Oh my God, Debbie! What happened? Are you okay?” Sharon quickly put the coffee down on a bench and rushed to my side.
“I have to go home. We need to go. Now.” My heart was racing.
“But what happened?”
I just shook my head. How could I explain?
“Just tell me if you’re hurt. Did someone die? Did you get a call or something?”
I willed myself to stop the tears, to no avail. For a moment I was tempted to make something up, some story about twisting my ankle or losing my wallet, anything to make it sound as if I had a real reason to be shaking and sobbing, anything to make it sound as if I weren’t crazy. I was mortified that this had happened in front of Sharon. I felt blindsided, never having dreamt that something as major as my breakdown in Yosemite would ever happen again. Especially in a mall!
But here is the most amazing thing. Sometimes, when you are very, very lucky, life steps up with exactly what you need, precisely when you need it. Or, as Cynthia put it later that day in Pátzcuaro, my angels were guiding me. When we returned to the B&B that evening, Sharon headed toward the kitchen, where Cynthia was waiting, and I retreated swiftly to my room. As I fumbled for the key I could overhear them talking.
“Did you guys have fun?” Cynthia asked eagerly.
“Well . . . sort of. Deb had kind of a rough day.”
“Really? What happened?”
“I’m not really sure. She seemed to have some kind of a meltdown. Something freaked her out, and I have no idea what it was.” Sharon lowered her voice. After that, all I could make out were a few words here and there, but I could definitely tell they were still talking about me.
The next thing I knew, Cynthia was knocking on my door. “Want to join me for a cup of tea?” Her eyes locked onto mine in a way that told me I couldn’t, or shouldn’t, say no. Behind her I could see Sharon tiptoeing to her room, a much-needed glass of wine in her hand.
Cynthia gently led me upstairs to the patio outside her own room, into an overstuffed armchair that swallowed me up in its soft, warm embrace.
“Relax. Breathe. I’
ll be right back.” As Cynthia headed back down to get the tea, I forced myself to close my eyes and willed my muscles to soften. By the time she returned I was sort of in a half daze.
“Sharon told me you had a strange incident today,” she said as she handed me my cup. “I just want you to know that I think I have an idea of what you’re going through.”
“Really? You do? Because I sure don’t.”
“Ya know, Deb, you and I aren’t as different as you might think we are.”
“In what way do you mean?”
“I suspect we’ve both been through a lot in our lives.” Cynthia patted her lap, the two dogs leaping at the invitation.
“That’s for sure; at least I know it is in my case. But I honestly have no idea what that has to do with me falling apart in a mall.”
Cynthia ripped open a bag of chips. “Do you know what I did, Deb, before I moved down here from Canada?”
I shook my head.
“I was a licensed clinical psychologist.”
Here we go again, I thought. Though I was remarkably comfortable in Cynthia’s presence, I had to admit that my first reaction was not a great one. No, sir, no more glowworms for me. The visit to that overpriced charlatan in Napa certainly hadn’t been my first encounter with a shrink, but I was pretty determined for it to be my last. But then again, Cynthia seemed so different. Maybe she was different. When I thought about it, it was usually when I actively sought out help that things seemed to fizzle or backfire. But help that had fallen into my lap often seemed to be something of a different sort. Indian Larry was a chance encounter, and who knows what good fortune could be chalked up to the little santo around my neck, now joined by a little silver Hand of Fatima, just for good measure. Maybe there was a reason that I just happened to tag along with Sharon for this trip, a reason that I freaked out in the mall, and a reason that I was now finding myself face-to-face with this little powerhouse of a woman who could somehow so effortlessly put me at ease. I just wished whoever or whatever was pulling the cosmic strings would do me the courtesy of letting me in on the plans. These surprises were wearing me out.
“My specialty was trauma,” Cynthia continued.
Bingo. I could almost hear the bells go off.
“Yeah, weird, eh? Has anybody ever talked to you about trauma?”
“Sort of,” I answered tentatively. “I was told that I might have PTSD. But I’m still not sure if that’s true or not. And even if I did have it, I thought it was gone by now. I thought I was pretty much over it.”
Cynthia took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. “If only it were that easy. It’s not. Trauma is something that’s often hard to pinpoint and acknowledge, and even then it takes a whole lot of work and a whole lot of time to overcome.”
“But I sat!”
“Huh? What are you talking about? You sat? How about if you back up just a little?”
So I did. And once I started, everything just came pouring out, as if someone had opened the faucet full force. Cynthia literally seemed to be drawing the words out of my soul and into the warm night air that filled the space between us.
When I finally stopped talking, Cynthia took a deep breath. “Wow. You do have some story, girlfriend.”
“But I don’t get it. Why now? Why the mall? I think I’m going crazy.”
“You’re not crazy.” Cynthia reached over and gave my hand a squeeze. “You know, Deb, I quit the therapist racket a long time ago, but if you want my opinion, I’ll give it to you.”
“Please. Be my guest.”
“Okay. But remember, you asked for it.” Cynthia tossed a chip into her mouth, chewed, and swallowed. “First of all, it wasn’t the mall. It was the frame of mind you were in before you went to the mall.”
“But I was so jazzed to be there!”
“I’m sure you were jazzed. And I’m sure you were also relaxed. Panic attacks happen when you’re gearing down. People who have experienced trauma tend to stay on alert. But you let your hair down, you let your guard down. You felt safe. Then something happened.”
“But nothing happened! That’s what I’m telling you.”
“Something did happen, to your body. You were startled by Sharon’s absence, and it triggered an adrenal reaction. It’s like a rush, like a drug. Your body is acting as though you’ve put yourself into what we call unreasonable risk.”
“But I’m really good in risky situations! I swear!”
“I have no doubt about that. You seem like a tough cookie. But that’s when you’re on alert. You’re ready, you’re pumped, you can handle it.” I sank back in my chair with a sigh.
“I know. This is heavy-duty stuff.” Cynthia poured us both more tea.
“You’re telling me. But how does not being able to find Sharon have anything to do with anything?”
“Well, think about other times you’ve had panic attacks. What were the situations?”
“They were all kind of different. But a lot of times they seemed to have something to do with getting lost. I have this huge fear of being stranded. I used to force myself to drive in Afghanistan, but I was so afraid of being lost and alone. Being lost over there means you could be killed or kidnapped. You were warned every day against doing normal things like walking or driving. But I used to do those things all the time, just to feel like my so-not-normal life was just a little bit normal.”
“And how were you about that before you went to Afghanistan?”
“I know I had some issues, as a child, about being lost, but what kid doesn’t? I was always that kid at the supermarket courtesy desk, waiting for my mother to be summoned by the lady on the PA system. I do remember, I think I was around four years old, how I used to fall asleep calling out to my mom, over and over, just to make sure she was there. Being an only child, I had this huge fear of something happening to my parents, of being left all alone.” Cynthia nodded and waited for me to continue. “But it seems like any fears I had going into Afghanistan became even scarier during my time there. I’m just now beginning to realize I was probably sort of a mess before I even went to Kabul, and came out of there even more of a mess. I felt like I had been chewed up and spit out. And by the time I reached California I didn’t even know how much of a mess I really was!”
Cynthia shooed the dogs off her lap and leaned forward. “You know, Deb, it sounds like Afghanistan probably wasn’t your first offender.”
“Well, then, who was?”
Cynthia shrugged her shoulders. “I’m not a psychic.”
“I know, I know. It’s just that it wasn’t like I was abused by my parents or anything.”
“Honestly, Deb? I have no idea what your relationship with your parents was or wasn’t. But many of us have had times in our lives when we’ve felt trapped or manipulated, either emotionally or physically.” A sudden shift in Cynthia’s eyes told me she knew, firsthand, what she was talking about. “And I’m sure that you, like me, have witnessed and experienced things that have made you realize that there are humans out there who are not good people, who don’t believe in the ‘do unto others’ system. We’d like to believe everyone operates that way, but they don’t.”
“That’s for sure.”
“You must have seen a lot of ugly stuff go down in Afghanistan. And in a trapped situation,” she went on, “it’s not always you who’s the one being assaulted. Sometimes it’s just the act of witnessing an offense that causes the most pain, that causes a spiritual wounding. A person who has been a witness to any kind of an assault gains a deep awareness of what human beings are capable of doing to one another. To the outside world it looks as though they came away unscathed. But that’s far from the truth.” Cynthia paused, and propped the earpiece of her glasses on the edge of her lip.
My head was starting to fill up with so many thoughts and questions and hazy memories that it felt like it might explode. Half o
f me wanted Cynthia to stop, but the other half was excited by all these new ideas.
“You know,” I said in a quiet voice, “I’ve tried all my life to hide my issues from other people. Everyone always thinks Debbie’s just fine, Debbie’s so strong. Nobody knows that sometimes I’m afraid. Nobody knows how much I hate elevators, how I have to take Xanax just to step on a plane, how I have panic attacks that come from nowhere. No one would have a clue.” Cynthia had given me so much to think about. She seemed to have my number, even if she, or I, wasn’t entirely aware of all the details. “So now what do I do?” I asked her. “Never go shopping again? I don’t think I could bear that.”
Cynthia smiled. “Just us talking is a good thing. But if you want, I can give you some tools that might help you next time you feel this kind of thing happening.”
Cynthia’s words were music to my ears. I loved tools. Like my mother and her whole family, I could fix anything and everything with the proper tool. I carried a deluxe Swiss Army knife in my purse at all times, just in case.
“Here’s the phrase I want you to remember: That was then, and this is now.”
“That was then, and this is now,” I repeated, feeling like a Girl Scout taking the oath.
“So, like today. You think Sharon has vanished. But this is the Morelia mall, and chances are she’s getting some coffee.”
I nodded.
“You have to think to yourself, ‘I assume the worst-case scenario because I’m aware of what the worst-case scenario can be. But that was then. And this is now. And now the chances are that, for instance, Sharon has just gone to the restroom. Or Sharon is getting a cup of coffee.’ You can’t just rely on other people to calm you down. Someone else telling you it’s going to be all right will never work. The words, and thoughts, have to come from within. Do you think you can do that?”
“I can try. I’ll try anything not to feel like such a crazy person ever again.”
The House on Carnaval Street Page 16