I don’t really care for the beach for longer than maybe twenty minutes; never have as far as I recall: not in company, nor solo; not crowded beaches, nor sparse, nor secret, nor solitary, nor of the clearest waters, nor the saltiest, nor the rejuvenating. And to travel a distance with the beach the primary intent: across town, across the state, across the country, across borders, across the galaxy? The idea sounds a bit radical.
With the beach ‘right there’, I don’t mind the occasional walks along the shore. Though I’d far rather wander the forest, the desert, the old town, the manufacturing district, the farmland, or even the suburban alley (depending on the suburbia).
Furthermore, once at the beach, my eyes generally gravitate towards the periphery across the sand: that little grove, park, natural refuge. If, however, I find the kiosks, the opportunists, the apartment buildings, the commerce, a profound sense of cholera comes to gradually consume me.
When it comes to relaxing neath the scorching sun, I could think of a dozen preferred places of refugee, one of which is the Mexican rooftop. From recollection, I’ve had more seamless access to rooftop terraces throughout all my Mexico travels than all other countries combined.
The rooftop is easy to take for granted, yet consider all the diverse optionality: the lounge table and chairs of crude ironwork, a vast umbrella for the umbra, a (slightly torn) hammock, the tenue wall lights; the opportunity for a glazing tan, to fill the notebook leafs, to read an intricate modernist novel, to stroll about and gaze at the succulent vases, the distant temples, the dogs of unceasing howls at the terrace across the alley, the peace in the thralls of the surrounding eclectic edifice, the water pumps, the solar panels, the power grid, the fences, the flower bouquets, the graffiti, the cloth liners, the climbing growth embellishing the walls of the otherwise rugged parking deck with an air of Roman antiquity (however strange the motif), the vegetation across the backdrop, the bohemian storefronts: a layered harmony of the urban with the colonial rusticity with the sanctuary of a natural retreat - everything short of an ocean, yet of much flexibility and humbleness, and the coffee and the cute stones to pace back and forth without the filth of sandy waters, all the more fortunate to have the same in nearly every Mexican domicile.
When I think of rooftops, I can’t help but think of Mexico.
Questions, comments? Connect.