Broads Living Abroad : The Art of Creating the New Life

"Art is an elastic sort of love."
 - Josephine Baker 

In less than a year of living in Yucatan, Mexico, I am going home for the second time.  See, I wrote it - I am going home.  

There is no physical place, no house, and no structure of home in Texas.  Home is emotional, and I happen to have two homes.  My Texas home is filled with people who love me, whom I can't wait to visit, and who will not understand, as I don't fully understand, why I will cry when we are together.  My Yucatan home is filled with people who love me, who hate me, whom I can't wait to visit, and whom I hope to avoid.  When I do cry, most of them understand, and they understand in a way that few of us are able to fully capture.

This is not a post about crying.  It is a post about love, the importance of creating and cultivating places for relationships to become bountiful.  Women need connection.  At the very least, we need one other woman that feels like home - a safe place, where explanation is accepted, and utterly unnecessary.  The emotional home is connection.  It is the sound of one hand clapping, as your one hand reaches for the other, with a gentle tap or an explosive burst.  

Two homes is something I have, and I cultivate both.  Love resides in an organic space.  It most often is an immediate feeling, with deeper roots taking hold with each encounter.  Like the tears that suddenly come to the surface, leaking down my cheeks, love can't always be contained.

Austin sounds like live music venues, quiet spaces along abundant nature trails, English, and Maggie's amazing laugh.  Austin smells like nouveau hipster chic cuisine, Sumac leaves, newly tooled leather boots, and perspiration on Melissa's forehead after a day of gardening.  Austin looks like naugahyde covered mid-century modern, vertical slatted fences, different tribes dressed the same, and the Albert and Jamie's new family room.   Austin feels like well worn tee-shirts, a table with beer stains at the Mean-Eyed Cat, garden soil from Garden Ville, and the soft pink of my children.  Austin taste like a bottomless pot of coffee,  chewy everything bagels, chicken fried steak, and asparagus quiche at Mary's house.

Yucatan sounds like fireworks, nothing, fan blades, and Kathy's amazing flipnotic-crazy-wonderful insights.  Yucatan smells like whole fried fish, sand, burning plastic, and Joan's sunscreen on a day by the pool.  Yucatan looks like limestone building blocks covered with vines in Marcs' photographs, the streets of the French Quarter under gas lamps, Carrollton Avenue mid-city, and Denise's smile.  Yucatan feels like a hundred cotton comforters, a soft moss pillow, Manuel's new haircut, and my cat's fur.  Yucatan taste like Marie Christine's soup, a new sensation, a stale bag of M&M's, and a glass of wine with Tracey and Brian.

Sometimes, when I am very lucky, Austin love walks off a bus, and collides with a full banquet of clumsy angels singing Mexican revolutionary songs.

Who do you love?

- The Broad

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