Where is home

We are nomads. North American families get spread out all over the country and sometimes all over the world. My parents live in Portland, my brothers live in Massachusetts and England, I live in New York. Almost all my relatives live near an ocean, but that's about the only geography that unites us.

I left Guanajuato last Friday in a flurry of activity and controlled chaos that is characteristic of Hugo and maybe the whole Anaya family. It was a holiday -- probably the biggest holiday in Guanajuato, the Dia de Los Flores -- Day of the Flowers. By all accounts, the tradition used to be that all the single men and women of the city would meet in the central garden, the Jardin Union, and would form two cocentric circles according to gender. The men would then gift the woman of their choice with flowers. It all sounded very middle school torture-ish to me, but what do I know? I was not voted prom queen, I was voted most likely to lead a revolution.

I woke up Friday morning after very little sleep because the party started Thursday night and there was mayhem in the street until the morning, when people started lining up on the Calle del Sol -- just under my window -- selling tamales and empanadas and a million other things boiled, baked and fried on sidewalk stoves.

My walk through the jardin revealed that it still seems like a tradition for the kids; I felt like I was at a seventh grade semi-formal. All the girls were made up and wearing their best party clothes (at 9am) and the lucky ones were carrying flowers. No cocentric circles, though.

Hugo mentioned his family was coming for brunch -- Hugo has nine siblings, countless nieces and nephews, cousins, and his mother -- the revered gran dame, Clementina. They were supposed to arrive at 10, which in Mexico means 11. They showed up two or three at a time and somehow, miraculously, Hugo pulled off a multiple-course meal for more than 30 people in the space of about one hour. Meanwhile, I juiced oranges, made coffee, set the table, served bread and listened to the music of an expressive Mexican family.

We both ate, disappeared, backed the car down the Calle del Sol -- which was like a parade route by that point -- crossed town to stop at the jewelry studio, and still made it to the airport by 1pm, in time for me to buy a bottle of water I couldn't take on the plane. . . and to lament the end of my time in Mexico.