NYE in La Paz Shows Me Life's Possibilities
New Year’s Eve in La Paz
The end of the year found me in the kitchen, making meatballs and fixing my mother’s marinara. Same recipe, different geography. Mexican tomatoes, local herbs, a little improvisation. The sauce tasted like home, but also like something new. Living in La Paz Mexico that has been the theme.
I should really take more pictures of things I cook, but I'm Gen X, so its hard.
After dinner, I took a nap. I woke around 10:30 pm to Noelle changing the music to something lively. I shook the sleep off, went upstairs to get dressed, then came back down and made us a couple of cocktails. The night took shape. Noelle came downstairs in shimmers and tall boots. I wore Adidas track pants with the three stripes down the leg, a tux shirt, and a tux jacket. Moving to La Paz Mexico has given me a new creativity in style. I felt like I had nailed it. Noelle looked ravishing.
We sat by the pool, playing with Moby. Random fireworks cracked and whistled in the bright night sky. The moon was nearly full, reflected cleanly on the water. A party over the wall at our neighbors’ place drifted into our yard and mixed with our own music. The sounds blended together in that casual, unplanned way Mexico does so well. I have always believed sound tells the truth of a place, and La Paz, especially in the city, lives inside a constantly shifting collage of music, voices, a range of moving things, and laughter, the moon herself DJ’ing at the boards of this desert city.
I called a car and we went out into the street to talk with neighbors, some of them leaning against cars, smoking, laughing. I stepped into open living rooms to respectfully say Feliz Año to abuelas and tíos kicked back in chairs just inside their doorways.
We asked the driver to take us toward the center of things.To Patio Domínguez La Paz, to Les Miserables Mezcaleria La Paz. He played dance remixes of country songs. Mexico and music are a complicated romance.
On Belisario Domínguez, a block from the zócalo, it was still quiet. Not yet midnight. Most people were home with their families. We ordered a couple of beers at the mezcalería and stood on the sidewalk. I find myself on sidewalks a lot in Mexico. The action here lives on the dance floor and on the sidewalk.
Noelle spotted friends across the street. We finished our beers, returned the bottles as requested by the bartender, and crossed over into the embrace of a night out. Hugs. Laughter. New introductions. Photos with people who were already friends and others who were becoming so quickly. Faces turned familiar. I recognized the mustache of a waiter from one of our favorite restaurants. We talked. At some point, he and I were talking about a trip to Guadalajara to see Lenny Kravitz, the kind of plan that happens here, casual, low-pressure, sparked by a new friendship and the way possibility seems to travel easily in Mexico. Is this really Starting Over in Mexico, or is it only starting to live again.
Like Bud Bunny says, I should have taken more photos
On a night like this, the best plan is simple. Order a Ballena of Pacífico and share it with the person you love. Maybe add a tequila to toast with a friend. In Baja, a Ballena is a 940 milliliter beer. About thirty-two ounces. It is also, of course, a whale. Both meanings apply.
After midnight, people arrived from family gatherings across town. The street filled in. Both sides alive. Spanish, English, French weaving together with music spilling from the dance floor.
Eventually, we all piled into a cab, far too full but not far to go. We opened the doors to our house, danced in the living room, told stories by the pool. When the sky began to lighten, we called another car and went to the beach.
The sand was dotted with groups like ours. People still in party clothes, stretched out on blankets, watching the day arrive. Welcoming the year together.
Standing there with my toes in the sand and my heart surrounded by friends, I felt the promise in small things, in conversations that might turn into trips, in friendships just beginning, in the quiet certainty that this place keeps opening itself to me.
Drowsy and full of life and the glow of the evening, Noelle and I called a car home and fell into bed for a few hours’ sleep, a New Year’s beach bonfire still waiting, with friends I couldn’t imagine missing.
It felt like the right way to begin. Again. If you wonder if maybe next year you're someplace different, feel free to browse listings, do some no pressure research.
