Inspiration

Maria de la Luz Duran

When I was a young girl, I spent summers living with my grandmother, Maria de la Luz Duran, in Laredo, Texas.  I called her “Abue” and she called me all sorts of pet names:  Míja, Mi vida, Estrella más bella, Corazon.  Laredo is desert hot and I remember how she would wipe her mouth before doling out sweaty kisses.  She often sang to me when we rode in the car together or while I waited for a meal at her kitchen table.   She was the quintessential networker and knew nearly everyone in town.  I know this because she took me with her on all sorts of errands: to shop at the market, to drop the car at the mechanic, to pay her respects to her comadre who owed her a few dollars. 

Laredo, Texas in the 70s.

In those days, she had a pensión downtown in Laredo’s business district.  We, the family, used to refer to it as el hotel, because her customers were people who traveled from the interior of Mexico to shop for bulk items in the malls and stores on the U.S. side of the border.  The guests would shop all day and return to el hotel in the evening to spend the night.  

I have vivid memories of groups of women gossiping in one of the communal bedrooms.  The chatter would go on until all hours of the morning while they packed large, vinyl, cornflower blue suitcases with costume jewelry, plastic toys, electronics, and clothes.   I still remember some of the regulars by name.  There was Margarita, an elderly, dimunitive woman who wore her thick, grey hair parted in the middle and braided with ribbons; la señora Medina from Patzquaro, Michoacan whose husband had died mysteriously;  and Hector, whose wife was a hairdresser who resembled Donna Summer and who gave me a mullet one year.

Flautas, the real thing!

During the day, my grandmother cooked. Everything. Homemade salsas, brothy soups with fresh cilantro, mouthwatering guisados, melt-in-your-mouth refried beans, flautas de pollo with freshly cooked chicken—not the potato-filled chicken mash found in most frozen and restaurant varieties today.  

At noon, while her other customers shopped, the business district’s storekeepers and sheriffs stopped in for lunch.  My Abue not only cooked the food, but she also served the food, socializing with each person and often returning to the table with baskets of warm, corn tortillas.  Whether cooking for one or for many, she demonstrated her love and happiness  by preparing homemade meals for the people she cared about.

 

My grandmother and me, circa 1994.

Who is your inspiration?