As we settle into D.F., I’m fascinated by how our life is finding its own rhythm and routine here compared to the rhythms and routines we maintain in San Juan and New York. Sunday in New York is walking Penelope and picking up The New York Times and indulging in five full pounds of newspaper. Sunday in New York is often rollerblading along the Hudson River, and in the summer, it is going to Pier 54 for live music and dancing in the evenings. It’s movies and a nap in the afternoon. Sunday in San Juan never involves the newspaper or rollerblading; both newspapers are astonishingly bad and rollerblading on the blue cobblestone streets of Puerto Rico’s capital would be suicidal. Instead, Sunday in San Juan is often a day when we sleep in late and then drink coffee on our balcony while we enjoy the brilliant blue of the sky and the pleasure of quiet talk as we recount our night’s dreams to each other. Sunday rarely involves the beach. Sunday night is often when friends come over and have dinner and mojitos or martinis that we invent with whatever happens to be on hand, enjoyed with friendly conversation about politics, jokes, writing, food, and travel burbling against the backdrop of our most recent favorite music… lately, that’s been Francisco Cespedes’ tremendous CD, “Con el permiso de Bola,” which we listen to over and over again and enjoy as much as we did the first time we heard it.

             This is our first Sunday in D.F. and I think we’ve initiated a walking tradition. We step out onto Avenida Reforma and head towards the antiques market on Calle Londres. Avenida Reforma is closed to traffic today but is full of life with cyclists and roller bladers. We watch a grandfather encourage his nieto to trust himself as he lets go of the bicycle seat… the nieto doesn’t trust himself, and both he and abuelo tumble onto the pavement. Neither one is hurt, both are laughing and determined to try again. I look up and see three window washers on the vertical face of a skyscraper, each suspended from a rope, feet planted on a square of glass that he will wash as he drops down. The buildings along Reforma are gleaming, each having had its own group of window washers this week in preparation for the Independencia celebration that is coming up in two weeks. The excitement of the event is already palpable. Enormous banners of green, red, and white—the colors of Mexico’s flag—cover almost every building. Street vendors are already selling patriotic doo-dads from shopping carts, and restaurants have festooned their entrances with elaborately cut paper garlands. I’m thrilled the action will take place just blocks from where we live.

            The antiques market on Londres is filled with the usual blend of fascinating bits of history mixed with objects of questionable interest and value, though I love thinking that someone in need of precisely four tear drop shaped chandelier crystals—preferably someone from far, far away-- will happen upon the market and be enchanted and overjoyed to have found them here. I browse the book table—The Life of Poultry, replete with color plates, The Treatment of Tropical Diseases (thankfully without color plates), and 20 peso paperbacks in French are all offered up for our perusal at “un buen precio.” Another vendor has U.S. quarters and nickels that he claims are historic but look fairly recent and definitely usable to me. I love the old photographs—a wedding party in which no one among the 30 or so people assembled looks at all happy and a postcard-perfect picture of a town square at night, the black and white grain of the photo pulling out shadows and light in absolute balance. A not so old but rather battered looking Twinings tea tin. A new Japanese ceremonial outfit, improbably and improperly accessorized with a chain metal tie.

            This is Sunday in D.F… the accelerated city slows down to almost full-stop. Families enjoy one another’s company. Some men keep working. People with treasures pack up their wares and bring them to market. And Francisco and I walk our way through our new city, enjoying Sunday as much here as we do anywhere else.

-September 2, 2007