Rebecca a Ghost Presence in Mérida in 2018
Friday, March 16, 2018
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| Cenote de los Sacrificios - Chichen Itza - 2007 |
Rosemary and I returned from a trip to Mérida, Yucatán this
past Monday.
I have to admit here that in the beginning of this 2018 I
have been overwhelmed by stuff including a trip in January to New York City. I
have been remiss in writing blogs. I don’t think I have ever had so many holes
to fill. I don’t skip days I have not blogged. I go back and fill them.
But I have been thinking (I am 75) on the futility (I am not
sure of this word) of keeping my stiff upper lip and to soldier on and write
stuff.
My two granddaughters have been in my thoughts and in
particular Rebecca who is now 20. It was in 2007 that we took her to Mérida and
stayed in the same hotel, Hotel Casa del Balam, that we stayed in this time.
For us she was a melancholic presence, a ghost that accompanied us wherever we
went.
In 2007 my cameras were film cameras. One of them was an
extraordinary German panoramic camera, a Noblex. This camera swept an imge that
was two and a quarter inches wide by seven inches long.
It would seem that back in 2007 I was mostly interested in
printing photographs in my darkroom and I overlooked the potential of the
scanner I had then (a very good one that has since been superseded by a better
one).
Today as I downloaded into my computer the Mérida pictures I
took with both my Fuji X-E1 and X-E3 and the iPhone3g I became curious. Not
filed under Mexico in my travel files but in my family files I found Mérida
2007 – Rebecca. Perhaps of the many that I shot, I only scanned four or five which
may be buried in a few blogs (which I will find!) and post here as links.
Rebecca/Mérida Links
Sanborns in Mérida
Uxmal and Rebecca heats up
The Peace God Versus the War God
Safe and Sound in Celestún
Rebecca in Blue
Asymptotes
Rebecca eats Mexican
Casa de Frida
Sunsets,caves and fireworks
Ad Maiorem dei Gloriam
Rebecca/Mérida Links
Sanborns in Mérida
Uxmal and Rebecca heats up
The Peace God Versus the War God
Safe and Sound in Celestún
Rebecca in Blue
Asymptotes
Rebecca eats Mexican
Casa de Frida
Sunsets,caves and fireworks
Ad Maiorem dei Gloriam
As of now I am not sure if I will place here any of the photographs
I took this past week.
I noticed this one from 2007 which is a Noblex sweep of the the
Cenote de los Sacrificios at Chichen Itza. Here the Mayans performed their
human sacrifices and pushed many into the deep cenote to drown. Priceless
artifacts have been since the beginning of the 20th century dredged
up from the muddy bottom.
Two thousand and seven was the second time I had gone to Chichen Itza (this
time in 2018 I skipped it and the crowds and opted for the lovely and less
crowded Uxmal.
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| Rebecca Stewart in Uxmal 2007 |
Whenever I go to these Mayan ruins I am transported in time and I feel that I am discovering the ruins as if I were a 19th century explorer. In some cases I go further in time and imagine the Mayans themselves (no different from the modern Yucatecans who are friendly and who are short and have round faces. Many still speak the language of their ancestors. Most cities and towns in Yucatán conserve some variant of their original name. There are only a few cities like Vallalodid that have a modern Spanish name.
My memory of that cenote from 2007 (in extreme heat and
humid) is an eerie one. I could imagine the screams of those sacrificed
although perhaps they were drugged. This Noblex image I have converted into a
pseudo cyanotype. The photograph of Rebecca in Uxmal is the result of a slow shutter (that is why it is not all that sharp). Rebecca seems to be ghost (read the exraordinary poem, in Spanish and in English by my Mexican poet friend Homero Aridjis below) and that is how I felt when Rosemary and I returned to Uxmal this time around. The other photograph of Rebecca in Uxmal I took with a 35mm Russian swivel-lens panoramic called a Horizont.
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| Rebecca Stewart Uxmal 2007 |
Carta de México
Por estas callejuelas
ancestros invisibles
caminan con nosotros
ruidos de coches
miradas de niños
y cuerpos de muchachas
los traspasan
Impalpables y vagos
frente a puertas que ya no son
y puentes que son vaciós
los atravesamos
mientras con el sol en la cara
nosotros vamos también
hacia la transparencia
Letter From Mexico
Invisible ancestors
walk with us
through these back streets
car-noises
the stares of children
young girls’ bodies
cross through them
Weightless vague
we travel through them
at doorways that no longer are
on bridges that are empty
while with the sun on our faces
we too
move toward transparency
Homero Aridjis
Eyest to See Otherwise - Ojos de otro mirar
Selected Poems
Edited by Betty Farber and George McWhirter
