Week Four in Mexico - A Love Letter to Guadalajara

Happy Valentine’s Day from Guadalajara as I wrap up my fourth week traveling in Mexico!

I think I’m falling in love with this city. It’s only been a week since my arrival so maybe it’s simply puppy love and it may fade with time. For now, I am relishing this place and what is has to offer, which this evening includes the start of a weeklong festival celebrating the founding of Guadalajara 481 years ago.

Cheesy as it may be, especially on Valentine’s Day, I wrote a love letter of sorts while journaling today, and I’m feeling brave enough to post it here. Por favor, be kind.

A Love Letter to Guadalajara on Her Birthday

I think I am falling in love with you, Guadalajara.

I did not plan for this to happen.

But now that I am here I can’t help but to appreciate you

and your beauty,

and your architecture, both old and new,

which mark you as uniquely Guadalajara

and nowhere else.

You have opened yourself wide for me to explore

along the Avenues of Vallarta and Chapultepec

while also allowing me to get wrapped up

along your narrow neighborhood streets

and letting me make a place to rest on La Paz.

Yes, your Cathedral stands stoic and majestic

and your smaller Churches just as well.

But it is your other House of Worship, your museums,

I find more fascinating about you.

Murals that evoke the conflict of Evil and Good,

expositions that showcase scientific achievement,

mixed media that challenges the very idea of art,

paintings so classically beautiful you hardly notice them at all,

and sculptures so grotesque and daring,

so awful and awesome,

whose anthropomorphic anomalies are so alien in nature,

whose features your brain will strain to recognize,

until you realize how long you have been staring

at a masterful work of art.

You offer sit-down dining as readily as street food

and boutique shopping as much as mercados.

You are young and green,

far more than I imagined you would be.

Yet you have a history I want to learn more about.

I feel welcome and comfortable with you,

even though I know you are not always safe.

Neither is love.