Monday, July 26, 2021

Winner-Winner...Chicken Dinner

 

Wisdom for a peso
I never knew I'd say so...

Until I found a little coin 
amidst mi three amigos...




Yesterday, as I was working with Jose on our 'Hands of Truth' mural project, I came across a coin between two of the black cobblestones of Hidalgo; our future 'Calle of the Murales'. Stooping to pick it up, I realized it was a 1 Peso coin, currently the equivalent of about a nickle. Pretty good find. Most of the coins I've been picking up since I arrived here in Ajijic are often the smallest denominations: of the centavo class. Portions of a peso... fractions of a US penny. I still can not help but pick them up. I've also been rewarded with a 20 Peso paper bill and a few 5 and 10 peso coins. A few days ago, I was awarded with the trifecta while walking to the dentist. 

There's one... and nearby another. Going to be three for sure

On the way back, in front of the Torrito Mercado, coin # 3. (rare is four...maybe because I settle for three?) Total U.S. value maybe a penny. But a coin's a coin, right? Tiny though they are. Size of a shirt button.

Seated in the nearby plaza of 6 Corners were three young men I knew. Ramone, Raymond and Moises.They were watching Jose as he painted away. As with many passing by, they marvelled at his artistic abilities and the process of bringing to life, from an old wall, new light and new energy. I, too, was captivated as I watched what began as a very personal inner vision be transformed from the canvas we created to a large-scale mural. A gift I would leave behind for Ajijic and especailly mi barrio; Seis Esquinas (Six Corners).









They saw me bend over and come up with a coin.

Never really feeling that these coins are mine, my instinctive desire is to share them. Sometimes with small children, sometimes with adults; always a buena suerte (good luck!) to go along with it. Sometimes I bring them home and share them with Our Lady of Guadalupe... (statue in the stairwell)




Allow me to digress for a moment

I wasn't sure if my affinity for finding 'money' would continue in such a different venue as Ajijic in Mexico. I reminded myself when I first arrived, having found over a thousand dollars over 40 years of running the roads of the U.S. 'streets of gold', that I was not in Kansas... much less Naples!

It didn't take too many days on the ground in Ajijic when on my first Sunday morning, I found a 10 peso coin in the street just outside my gate. I gave it to a young girl on her way to church for the collection plate. From that point on, the question about my finding money here got answered. And beyond.

There is always 'surplus'...right there in the street!

Not everyone agrees.

And they are just as 'correct'. Because I don't really find things either... anymore. 

Stopped doing that at a point in time I do not exactly recollect. Just know there was a transition. Maybe more-so a transcendence? 

Now I have the sense it's much more me being found than me 'finding'
(Note to author: more about the 'Lost Art of Finding')

Back to mi amigos; I took the coin and presented it to Moises, who was closest, with a buena suerte. He looked at it and announced back to his buddies:a peso! And then, grinning, in broken english, he recited the following:

Winner-Winner...Chicken Dinner...
99 more and we eat... with brown gravy and potatos!

More aware of hearing my words rather than speaking them, my reply:

 ...and if you had been collecting the other 99
now we'd go eat!

They laughed. I'm not sure the intended message about the only way you get to 100 came through.

To him who has...more shall he be given

When I returned to mi casa later that evening, I was struck by a curiousity. A curiousity to count the coins accumulated and shared with Our Lady.

101 pesos. ($5)

Here; enough for that chicken dinner... for three... as in Trinity.

The Lost Art of Finding huh?

Ya. I think so. It's already written.

And the wisdom of wealth; its already found.

Just waiting to be picked up...

Sometimes small

and sometimes

round