Article

Directions

Turn left at the pink temple. You can’t miss it – it’s Pepto-Bismol pink, plastered with dark bruises.  And it’s enormous.  Despite the delicate iron archway, high over the star-like intersection, the temple is the entrance to the neighborhood.  From there, the street narrows considerably — cobblestones tumble toward center, push carts and houses shoulder to shoulder press in.  At the first bend, distracted, you will be tempted to follow the curve of the inside of your left arm.  But you will be deceived, spit out, cast out, onto yet another unfinished busy road.  And like a river at its peak, the rush of traffic will threaten to envelop you and sweep you like a small branch into eddies far from your destination. Instead, veer against instinct and follow the outside of your right arm.  See, at the elbow, jutting out, there’s a cart overflowing with flowers and a phone store, its windows promising all kinds of assistance.  Take a left so the putty-colored wall with the rounded top, no taller than the old man who walks his dog on the dusty paths early every morning, is on your right.  You’ll watch the park in the company of shiny blue-black birds with strange green-yellow eyes and pure musical notes.  They’ll send the dark green leaves that surround your 2nd-story balcony, each the size of an old map, fluttering.  You will feel as if you are inside a marvelous cage, a cage so vast the thin rusted bars containing you aren’t even visible, as you marvel at the peddlers on loaded bicycles below, their packages as wide as the bicycles are long.  All awaits you, provided you pull left now — now — and jump the curb onto a square of gray pavement just out of sight around the corner.  Miraculously, you land a mere few feet from the front door of the house — your sanctuary for now — and the cool marble and diffused light of its entryway.