June 1, 2025
A friend of mine recently bought one of my favorite daily whip outs and got it framed.
"Divisadero Guero"
(Barbara Zimet owns it now)
It goes with a story I am developing.
In the heart of the Sierra Madre at the very top of the uppermost ridgeline, lays the village of Divisadero and just beyond it, to the east, is a narrow pass to freedom.
El Guero slows his tired pony to a trot to give him a breather, and as he rides through the all but deserted plaza he gets a chill. He sees nothing but empty windows and shattered door frames. He had heard the rumors of a village with 300 widows and he now wonders if this could be it? He suddenly senses something behind him and turns in the saddle to see a weird, old woman closing in on him on foot, wearing a red, tattered shawl.
Her eyes are beady and intent and she speeds up her walk now that he has noticed her. Turning to spur his horse up the trail and out of town he spies four stout women walking towards him, shoulder to shoulder, armed to the teeth. He reins his tired pony sharply to the right and gallops down a narrow side street. Three empty buildings down he sees a young girl about his age hanging up wet clothes in the back of a crumbling adobe. As he rides by she shouts something to him but he rides on until he comes to a complete dead end. He turns to ride back out and now he sees the same girl in the road. She gestures for him to come quick and as they make eye contact, she mouths the word "Ven."
"Whenever the poetry of myth is interpreted as biography, history, or science, it is killed."
—Joseph Campbell, "The Hero With A Thousand Faces"
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