Actually, Carly has been to Mexico twice before. Both times in late February and she has booked to go and stay with her friends Joanne and Norbert for a third time at the same time of year. It has become a regular trip. “It must be a thing”, Carly says to herself. Joanne and Carly go way back. They met when Carly ran a playgroup for toddlers at her local synagogue. Joanne, a committed attendee, and was a dab hand at drawing, being an artist by profession. She could use her skills to help entertain these energetic and high-spirited young children. The most momentous was a skeleton Joanne drew using crayons and that cheap paper you use under wallpaper having drawn round one of the parents there for her outline. Carly was very impressed by how all the internal organs were drawn so correctly. Carly knows a thing or two about these structures, having had to dissect a body back in the day. Well actually in her first two years at medical school.
As a doctor now, she isn’t really very good at remembering all the minutiae, like all the bones in the wrist or the ankle. Carly is a firm believer in only keeping what is absolutely necessary in the front and centre of your brain. Previously, the rest could be found in textbooks. Now don’t even need to type into your phone – you can just shout your question into one of the voice recognition software apps. And up comes all those funny little bones with Latin names. Although sometimes it almost seems these apps deliberately misunderstand you.
Maybe, like Carly, Alexa or Siri could be wayward. She can understand why Alexa was chosen. A nice girl’s name! But Siri? “Some male having a joke?” Carly presumed. But hang on one minute. Carly, as is often the case, is far too quick to judge. Siri is actually a Scandinavian name for a female who is both beautiful and brave. Oh, and a type of crab in Brazilian Portuguese. Wrong again Carly. And she’s just found out there is another digital assistant – Cortana. But that one has been removed. Phew, it sounded too much like the Ford Cortina car. And it was, in fact, named after a nude female assistant in an online game. And another sigh of relief. Later on they clothed her as appearances must be upheld.
Carly lived near Joanne, and they continued to be friends way after the kids were no longer toddlers. It was Joanne who advised Carly about not trying for more children when she was already struggling with the three she had. Joanne is wise and able to challenge the headstrong Carly. They also did one of those all-American horse-riding holidays together where the men and boys attempt to gallop all day long. Ones where everyone wears cowboy boots and Stetsons. Carly remembers a three-generation family of 17, where not only did they have matching red hats and red boots, but also red neck bandanas and red plaid shirts. Of course, everyone wore blue denim jeans anyways. Otherwise, all that red might have been misconstrued as devil worship.
Carly and her family really enjoyed these holidays. They continued on without their friends to do another horse-riding holiday in Utah at a Mormon ranch. That was a bit tricky as there was no wine, no coffee and nothing in the way of vegetarian food. There was, however, a very nice Pitbull terrier called Sally. This managed to challenge Carly’s notion that ALL these dogs are very dangerous. Sally was a super soppy dog. And Carly came away with warm and fuzzy feelings about Mormons. So much so that she never went to see ‘House of Mormon’ as it felt sacrilegious and an affront to their kindness shown towards her on this holiday.
Joanne regularly checked in with Carly during her divorce. Coincidentally, when Carly decided she wanted to move to live in Jaffa, Israel, Joanne and Norbert relocated to Tepoztlan, Mexico. That was more about Norbert always flying to New York for work and Mexico being the same time zone, give or take an hour, and much nearer. Like Carly, they also wanted a new project to put zing into their lives.
Carly was invited to stay with her friends in their home just before her son Harry’s wedding. This meant Carly could return home refreshed and able to cope with an over-the-top Jewish wedding as the mother of the groom. She had borrowed her friend Barbara’s second wedding dress. A wonderful deep maroon red fitted dress with a sweetheart neckline and a little bolero jacket to cover her arms. Initially she was worried that others would find it reprehensible that she was wearing a second-hand outfit. But when her daughter Boo was open about borrowing her aunt’s dress, Carly was truthful. Even Carly surprised herself about how worried she was about protocol. In the end she had black henna tattoos all the way down both arms and hands. That was hardly following Jewish wedding etiquette.
So, Carly was delighted she was invited to Mexico to stay with her friends just before this momentous occasion. Their house was unquestionably gorgeous and full of the most amazing artwork, as well as cats. Carly is a feline obsessive so that ticked that box. For most of her time there, Norbert was away in New York. Just as well really. Carly finds him a bit on the tricky side. Rather alpha male with significant road rage as well as being very demanding of waiters. Oh, and he smokes. Interestingly, on her return trip a year later, she was much better able to cope with Norbert and enjoy his company. Smoking has become less of an issue. Moving to Israel had sorted out her knee jerk hatred of cigarettes. Yes, Carly did still hate smoking and all the things it did to smokers and passively to those around them. But lots of her friends in Jaffa smoke, and so Carly has had to capitulate a little bit nowadays. Also, she learnt to handle Norbert better. They both worked out a way of being that felt more mutually respectful, and he taught Carly how to improve her breaststroke and how to stretch out her back on a large ball. And Carly now felt she could challenge and question him on a range of topics.
Whether Norbert is around or not, the afternoons and evenings always revolved around margaritas. Classical ones and others with mezcal. Followed by a sumptuous dinner. Often at a nearby restaurant with white peacocks. “My goodness, what a racket those birds make”, considers Carly. They are so elegant and refined. But they sound like demented fishwives when they get going.
And when it was just Joanne and Carly, they were like ships passing in the night. Carly is very much an early bird, up from 05:30. Joanne is a night owl. So, they would meet around midday. Carly would have had her coffee, breakfast, morning yoga, run and swim as well as her standard game of card patience and making five dreamcatchers on paper before a mussy-headed Joanne surfaced. At night they swapped roles and Carly was in bed by 9:30pm.
On both trips to stay with her friends, Carly felt that she should shield them from her over-exuberant personality by going off for a few days. In 2023, she went to stay with her friend Barbara’s stepdaughter Tina in the heart of Mexico City. They rushed around craft bazaars and had some sensational meals in food markets. Carly was exposed to all manner of new food. A Mexican smorgasbord of deliciousness. Tina was delightful and loved showing Carly around, even taking her to the airport. What a totally lovely human being.
In 2024, Carly took a four-day trip to Puebla. Now this is a very nice city. Lots of hand painted, colourful tiles adorned all the buildings, and most of the roads in the historic centre were cobbled and numbered like Manhattan. Odd numbers east and west, even numbers north and south. She continued with her dreamcatcher pictures and went to all the museums, galleries and churches tourists are supposed to visit. And then one afternoon she was drawn into a makeup shop. She isn’t sure why. She was fiddling about looking for purple cosmetics. And then it came to her. She loved imprisoning items onto 300gm white paper with embroidery thread. Maybe a better word in enclosing or enveloping. She did have the card she needed with her but not the thread or the needles. So off she went and found one of the many old-fashioned shops where the merchandise is sold by willing assistants who write chits for you to pay at the separate cashier counter. It reminded her of the butcher she went to as a child or the bookshop Foyles in Tottenham Court Road, London. As long as the cosmetics were purple, she could justify purchasing them. Purple is Carly’s colour, and she finds having a go-to colour immensely uplifting and freeing so she can be truly creative. It is wonderful just to look for items in one colour. It speeds up choosing by leaps and bounds.
In the end she did 29 of these artworks. She found lipsticks, hair extensions, false nails, mascara, nail varnish, eyelash curlers, temporary tattoos, facial jewels, eye powder and applicators as well as nails files, scissors, and nail clippers. She called this project ‘Cosmetic Imprisonment – The Plight of Women?’ It had to have a question mark at the end. Are women entombed by wearing make-up? Also, don’t a lot of men wear it now too? Maybe not quite as much as all the male contestants on one of her favourite competitive TV shows Glow-Up. But still, she knows plenty of men who wear mascara and paint their nails. And why not?
Whilst in Puebla she found out her beloved niece and her wife had had a baby. Carly was super excited and managed to find an intricately hand-embroidered pink felt dog for the baby. Carly aptly named him Carlos. She didn’t feel there was anything wrong with giving this dog her male counterpart’s name. Neither did the baby’s mothers. And boy did Carlos go on some adventures. Mostly running around to get all the necessary ingredients for a margarita. Well, that was whilst he was in Mexico. Which included being photographed all over the artwork back in Joanne and Norbert’s house. And amongst the limes in the supermarket much to Joanne’s embarrassment.
In London, Carlos was shlepped all over the place. On the tube, overground and buses, up and down stairs and escalators and even to the baby show in the O2 centre. That was after going to John Lewis on Oxford Street, for a shopping spree. Since he’s been with the baby, he has been on trips to the park and even made it to Brighton. And then Carly took him to Padua, Limoges and Oslo. He is a very well travelled-boy…
Wow. Carly has such very fond memories of Mexico. She can’t wait to return!
