WITH LOVE FROM MEXICO

27.09.04

I came back to the office and some guys asked me if I have watched any Paralympic sport. All right, I have missed some but I spend my days at the stadium for the rest. I am very lucky that someone finally listens to what I want. I wanted to be present at a very special event. I wanted to be invited out of the blue to a celebration: not to a simple party, reception or dance. I wanted something more, anything in order to remember again how it is to mix with the crowd, to meet people who can understand you, even though they don’t speak your language. I will not forget the Mexican basketball players who I met in the tube. They were heading to the stadium to watch athletics. They forced me to utter my poor Spanish just to wish them good luck. Some of them were really pretty. I was tempted to follow them. It was impossible. They were running in front of me and thus passed on, as if they had placed special launching pads between their wheels. I stayed behind, hoping to meet them again in the stadium. When I came in through the gate, they were already gone.

I wish I had wings (no Red Bull here). I was holding a pin with Mexico’s flag, which was given to me as a gift by Patty (one of the athletes) and I was wondering whether this was the chance of my life, whether meeting those girls was not accidental. When I was eighteen, I read Jack Kerouac’s ‘On The Road’ and I have been in love with Mexico ever since. I have never loved a real picture. It is an idea that I have in my head and I don’t even know whether what I imagine about Mexico really exists. I can’t even describe what I have been imagining. The puzzle remains incomplete. Pictures mix with one another. And yet this is a reason to finally find myself in unknown beloved places. This is true love and in that case it is impossible to believe that the meeting with these girls was just casual.