A Moment of Gratitude

Transcript

I was just thinking about today, just the things that happened today in my day. Not a particularly amazing day, in a sense just a regular Sunday.

Its about 7pm and the suns still in the sky about an hour away from sunset I guess and I thought why don’t I go to get on the city public bicycle system here in Guadalajara and just ride around for awhile because there won’t be many cars.

It’s Sunday, quite late in the evening so I went and got a bike and just rode. No particular place to go just like Chuck Barry said.

And I rode around the center of town down by the historic center some of the temples that are around there and I reminisced about things that happened, about meeting friends in the center of the city there. Taking busses out to the periphery of the city years ago and having a good time.

And I rode my bike to the plaza in downtown and ran into an old friend and said hi. It’s corona virus time so she didn’t hug me, she actually looked kind of cute and made this motion of hugging by crossing her arms across her chest.

And they have a vegetarian market or vegan tacos and things and vegetarian deserts and I went and got some coconut cream cheese pie or cheesecake I guess and ate it sitting down there.

And I got up and got a tamale. I was walking between these three stalls thinking “Am I going to get a taco or something else?” and when I walk up this guy is like “Hey buy something from me.”

He’s the least busy stall in this group of stalls and I’m like I don’t know.

And he’s like “Come on I need some money to buy some beers later” or something like that.

I’m like “Alright I’ll have a look”.

And he’s like “It’s just the tamales.”

And I was like “Alright I’ll have the one with the capsicum or the rajas like strips of chile poblano and I realized after ordering who I’m actually ordering from.

There by the temple there’s a very famous stall, it’s a family who runs the stall out of the front of the house. You order through the bars of the fence, just a little house tucked away on the side of the plaza there.

That stall is called the Doll or La Muñeca and even there’s a sign in the stall that says “Our tamales are not the same as the ones they sell outside.” And I realized I was ordering from a counterfeit La Muñeca, I was ordering specifically from the ones that are not the same as those ones.

I’m ordering fake tamales, it’s decent but not quite…. Because they steam the tamal, they steam the corn dough it tends to be quite dense but when you get a good one, I don’t know why, there’s still something a bit spongy about the dough.

Anyway it was still a pretty good tamal. And he asked “Do you like it?”

And I’m like “Yeah”

He’s like “A lot or a little bit?”

I’m like “A little bit.”

He’s like “Ok thank you and I paid like 26 pesos I noticed later, the real La Muñeca charges 19 pesos for a tamal.

These guys have some balls to set up shop, steal the name and charge 20 pesos for.

So I go to La Muñeca and order tepache. Do you know what tepache is? It’s a fermented pineapple drink. You get the rinds of the pineapple. Of course you can eat the flesh but what do you do with the rind?

Well you ferment them with piloncillo, cane sugar and cinnamon and a few other things. You leave it for a day or two and it turns into this sour sweet pineapple sour cider. That’s what it’s like.

And it’s very refreshing. It’s probably probiotic or something, adjusts your ph, I don’t know but it tastes strange and wonderful and walking home past Parque Rojo and just walking casually in the street I thought “how wonderful it is just to have a few hours free to wander around with nothing particular to do to enjoy myself and see what happens.”

It’s interesting how many times just walking around I just started to notice or spontaneously feel gratitude.

I think I’m blessed or this is the result of many years of practice that it happens spontaneously.

But anyone is capable of doing it with intention if you notice if you’re hanging around the city, if you can go for a walk or even just stare out your window, watch and think about what’s going on.

Maybe open your window and hear the birds chirping, the sound of liberty that cannot be restrained and think, how lovely, how lovely to have such a day like this.

Thank you for listening, thank you for noticing the wonderful things in your own life and enjoying them even just for a mini, tiny nano moment just enjoy them.

Thank you and I will talk to you soon.