postcard 2.1 hola, may

three day weddings and fingers in the dirt

The plane lands from a sky bruised with smog in my 15th country, Mexico.

“When are you getting here?” Ben texts me from his wedding welcome dinner as we’re hustling through customs. I look down at my running shorts and tennis shoes and ask if we should still come if we can't get there ‘til 8.

The answer is “absolutely” and 8 was a very ambitious answer. I follow Topher who somehow gets us out of the agriculture X-ray by repeating “Salida?” over and over while I furiously order an Uber. And then, we’re haphazardly dodging traffic and potholes the size of a small state as we race across the city.

A bellhop takes our REI duffels (covered in dog hair, of course) and we hurry through check-in, realizing we did not bring enough chic outfits for this caliber of hotel. I hope they don’t mind overalls at breakfast. We wait patiently as we’re shown how to use the lights in our room and our luggage is stacked on the rack. The second the door clicks closed we’re tearing our suitcases apart, shimmying into a dress and button down respectively. Topher combs his hair with one hand, fastens my necklace with the other. Fresh deodorant and we’re racing back down to the lobby. The bellhop does a double take and laughs as I do a quick twirl before we hop into another Uber.

At the restaurant there’s a DJ accompanied by a live sax and we’re crushed into a crowd of familiar faces, including the men of the weekend; Ben, one of my oldest and dearest friends, and his fiancé Furhan.

We’re late but the party is just getting started. Before we know it we’re ushered into a conga line, following the sax player and then we’re handed sparklers that shoot flames into the air wildly close to the rattan light fixtures. It’s a premonition of what’s to come as we spill into the rain-dampened streets, a knot of us, some I haven’t seen since highschool, making our way to the hotel bar.

Mexico City is so much bigger than I had ever guessed. In the morning, we cross a small sliver of it on foot, wandering through a giant park, across busy intersections and past taco carts that do nothing but frustrate me, their alluring smell making my mouth water. I have vowed not to take any risks of food poisoning, including street food, before the wedding, but you better bet the second it’s over I’ll be first in line. We placate ourselves with churros from a cheery blue and white shop down the street and spend the afternoon reading in the hotel room, prepping for another big party.

The riot of color is delightful as we board the shuttle to the Mehndi. Honoring Furhan’s Pakistani roots, everyone is dressed in traditional attire, the crowd a sea of rich purples, greens, yellows and pinks. The wedding party is escorted down a path through a lush garden filled with fountains and statues that quickly leaves the hubub of the city behind. We all collectively gasp as the grooms come into sight. Furhan is wearing a flowing white cape. They look like actual royalty and Ben’s cousin dubs it the royal wedding. We get through photos and then return to the parking lot where the rest of the guests are arriving. The entire wedding dances down the path and into a stunning venue strung with marigolds. It’s epically gorgeous.

The evening is filled with special dances prepared by friends and family and presented to the grooms. It’s a beautiful introduction to Pakistani culture and we hoot and holler as Ben’s siblings and cousin joins in for a choreographed dance. The food is a divine combo of Mexican and Pakistani and we’re sopping beans up with naan before hitting the dance floor. I kick my heels off as soon as possible and we dance and run around the gardens barefoot, stopping to rest by the fountains and sucked back into the melee by Ke$ha. We’re on the last shuttle back, helping Ben carry all his things back to the hotel after midnight.

Hair and makeup call is early and all of us girls cram into Ben’s sister, Marian’s, room post face masks. It smells like hair spray and curling irons and we spend the morning telling our favorite stories about Ben and Furhan trying not to ruin our makeup.

The nerves hit as soon as we get on the shuttle, looking like a million bucks. Ben and Furhan again look like actual kings. I’m so grateful when someone hands me a wooden fan with their monogram on it and I pace back and forth trying to stay calm. I’m officiating this thing. When we walk out for the rehearsal, I almost loose it. A string quartet plays “A Thousand Years” and the entire 15th century stone convent is aglow with a million candles.

It’s a surreal moment, seeing your childhood friend—more brother than buddy—walk down the aisle into their dream life. I think maybe my heart is going to explode and I hope the mic isn’t picking up my wavering voice. Soon, I’m pronouncing them married and we’re cheering as they kiss.

Topher slides a mezcalrita into my hand and we usher what seems like the entire crowd through one million photos. Somehow Ben and Furhan still look absolutely perfect, despite having now smiled for hours.

The reception space is an actual fairytale, with candles reflecting in a pond and above our heads, thousands of individual roses in vases along the long tables. There’s tiny lobster-shaped biscuits in the bisque and bread service with tiny butter knives and the wine flows and flows and flows. There are beautiful toasts and I finally let myself cry when Furhan talks about his journey here, to this moment, and his younger self who would be so proud of him now. I think of all the moments that led little Ben to this point in his life, too, being his whole authentic self.

The DJ plays one, single slow song at the beginning of the evening and then it's non-stop dancing all night long. At some point, giant hand-controlled puppets come out onto the dance floor. Furhan’s friends materialize a box of wigs. The sparklers reappear. It’s utter mayhem and I don’t think my feet will ever be the same, but I can’t help myself and keep winding up on the dance floor. I dance with Ben’s mom to music she wouldn’t let us listen to in 2008. There’s a knot of us who have known each other through frosted tips and teal mascara and questionable life choices and we’re all getting low, low, low, low, low. On the shuttle ride home there’s two different sing alongs happening to “We’re Gonna Die Young” by Ke$ha over the bus’ loudspeaker.

I am genuinely shocked when everyone makes it to breakfast the next morning, but that’s about as far as we get. We hug and promise to keep in touch and drift off to our next adventures. Topher and I switch hotels and are immediately bummed we’re no longer at the W. There’s dead bugs in the tub and the mattress is saggy and a yellow stain that’s quite possibly urine on the wallpaper.

We wander around a chic neighborhood, eating tacos (finally, and so worth the wait) and popping in and out of artisan collectives selling gorgeous handmade goods. I buy a ceramic dish and a bandana for Hazelnut and we look at each other and wonder if it’s time to call it an afternoon. We read and play cards in the hotel and feel absolutely zero shame for being lazy. At 30, three straight nights of parties is A LOT.

Other than tacos, my number one food requirement in Mexico City was ceviche. The restaurant I wanted to try is only open tonight so we rally and sit at a bar where nobody speaks English and butcher our way through ordering dos cervas and a massive bowl of raw seafood soaked in citrusy tomato juice. Topher is still squeamish about seafood since his unfortunate case of food poisoning in Dubrovnik, so I do damage on the ceviche while he orders more tacos. It’s perfect and we suck on spicy lolipops in the Uber back to the hotel.

The alarm goes off way too early the next morning and we climb aboard a van in the pre-dawn hush heading towards Teotihuacán. Stopping at a foreign gas station for coffee feels like home and I miss Croatia as we speed past hills covered with brightly colored buildings as far as the eye can see. This metropolis is seriously mega.

But then, the road turns to cobble and it feels like we’ve been catapulted thousands of years into the past as we enter a pre-Aztec city the Spanish tried to destroy, but failed. Two massive pyramids, plus the royal quarters, still exist.

It’s still early but the sun is fierce and I can feel my shoulders and scalp burning through my SPF but I hardly care. We wander through pillars still painted with reds and greens more than a thousand years later, intricate designs and the unfathomably massive thoroughfare, like an Interstate, leading from the pyramids to the mountain it mimics. In some places it's called the Valley of the Gods and while I understand the sacred sentiment, I’m reminded of another Valley of the Gods in Utah we visited last month. There, sweeping mesas and towers grasping at space hid canyons filled with ancient Puebloan cliff dwellings.

These places we're not built by gods, but by the Indigenous peoples whose societies our white selves can’t fathom existing outside of the storied bounds of Europe. At Teotihuacán, the queen ruled, until another woman fought her to the death, building her palace ontop of the old monarch’s, reaching higher and higher into the sky. Our guide pulls down his shirt, revealing an intricate jaguar tattoo in honor of the queen’s warriors and then shows us how to tell fake obsidian from real with a local artist. We pile back into the van and eat Chamoy gummies I snagged at the grocery store yesterday.

All we want is to bask in the AC but the grimy hotel room convinces us to head back out into the city. It is our last day, after all. Our Uber driver looks at us in confusion as he stops in the middle of the street where my dropped pin is pointing. On the corner is a makeshift taco stand, an easy up and a table where we limp through bad Spanish to get two really excellent pork tacos. We drop coins in the man’s hand and hit our next spot: fried shrimp and chile relleno, in quick succession. Try as we might, we only manage to kill an hour and a half until we're back in the Uber headed towards the hotel. Marian, who we’re meeting later for a mezcal tasting, texts us that she's trying to change her flight.

“Are you also low-key done with Mexico City?” I ask.

“Pretty much.”

Over more tacos and warm beers with heavy pours of Clamato (pass) later we’ll decide we’re glad to have had a reason to visit, the food is fabulous, but the city is a little much for all of us. It is massive and loud, a little dirty and a lot overstimulating.

But first, we’ll be shown up a rickety staircase to an apartment above a shop selling mezcal to learn about Mexico’s indigenous alcohol. Mezcal is made of agave like tequila, but it can be made from any agave plant, leading to small batch producers making bottles of spirits you can’t purchase—you have to be gifted—from wild plants in the mountains. This store has a wonderful relationship with producers in Oaxaca and we’re sipping all sorts of things you can’t buy. They’re all smokey, but they range from honey sweet to savory.

Actually, savory.

“Are any of you vegetarians?” Our host asks and I prepare for a gimmicky bottle with crickets or scorpions or something but no, this mezcal has been distilled through a piece of raw chicken. My mind is boggled and I’m delighted in that particular way only a new flavor can enlicit. It tastes like the char from a piece of grilled chicken and I’m heartbroken we can't bring any home. We settle for several bottles that can be sold, plus some locally made pottery.

After Mexico, May feels like it slips by with hardly a splash, there one moment and gone the next like the nutria we spy in the pond one morning on our daily walk. We order patio furniture and try to make our deck feel like Croatia, drinking spritzes and eating olives out there on Friday nights. We bike to the coffee shop and find a little local mountain bike trail we can do laps on.

It feels beautiful, to be here in community like this. Marian comes over to do her laundry and brings me coffee. Hanna waters our plants and we water Kelly’s. We meet up at the brewery and the farmer’s market by bike and sit in the hot tub together after work. Marian runs the Colfax Half Marathon and we make cardboard signs to cheer her on and Topher drives her stick shift home when her legs give up after the race. It’s foreign, but I also love it.

I read an article about the best sandwiches in Denver—not the best best, but the best in each category, eg. Italian, Reuben, Nashville Hot Chicken, and immediately decide we need to quest it. We find ourselves eating muffalettas out of deli paper at a quiet Italian grocery store tucked into a leafy green neighborhood and French dips at a dive bar with a stuffed moose eyeing us from the wall. Afterwards, we walk through LoDo and take our seats at the theatre to watch Little Shop of Horrors. We’re front row, so close we notice when the stage lights highlight the spit as the actors sing.

My little tomato starts I grew from heirloom seeds with names like Lucid Gem and Blood Moon still seems so tiny, but the community garden has decreed that we put plants in the ground by the end of the month. During the only window of dry weather on Memorial Day Weekend, we make what feels like a million trips to Home Depot. We scootch our dubiously rocky soil into sort of straight rows and plant the tomatoes, peppers and zucchinis in our little half plot. That night, it hails and I can’t look for the rest of the weekend. Come Monday afternoon, we peek in on the plants, expecting hail dessimated leaves, but it's tiny flea beetles that have actually caused damage. The hail, I learn will be the least of our problems. I’m hopeful the amount of blood, sweat and tears we’ve invested in the last two weeks, plus the tab that keeps adding up as we purchase a previously unknown bag of fertilizer, weed puller or hose nozzle, results in something. I’d really be happy with one, single heirloom tomato at this point. The jury is still out as the squash bugs and cucumber beetles have moved in.

I delete social media for the summer and in some ways it feels like my world zooms in, in, in. Fingers in the dirt or kneading focaccia, knitting and purling stitches and rolling dice in a new board game as summer heats up.

-Mikaela

No, you’re not imagining things my March and April postcard got lost in the mail. We’re still figuring out how this all works but if you want to keep reading these updates, drop a like!