Zihuatanejo

AMY PAYNE, SAN FRANCISCO STATE

SFGATE | SUNDAY, JUNE 26, 2005

As we descend the 84 stairs to the beach, my son collects them. Small, flat, round seed disks, shaped like poker chips but paper-thin. A currency in another world, one green and ripe, thrusting up around us. As we navigate each step, examine and count each envelope, my torpor doesn't lift, I am slow and dreamy, the batik wrap smooth against my legs, my suit ready for the cool salt of the ocean. When we near the bottom, where the stairs transition to a rough road, I hear it. Wailing. Wailing from the beach. I have grown accustomed to sounds here, laughter, screams of joy, the dull murmur of conversation, the slap of waves, but not this. This is primal, deep, full of terror and mourning. I have heard it before, on TV or in movies or collective memory, but never have I heard it experienced the way it calls to something so deep you know you won’t exist without it.

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Oil painting “Poppies,” courtesy of the artist and Amy’s friend Ann Hogle