Dancing in the ocean
I’ve never seen my mom so fearless and free out in nature as the time we traveled to Cancun and stayed at the Fiesta Americana in the summer of 2008. My brother was a teen, and Sebas, my son, was about a year and a half old. Paty and Carlos seemed like they had closed the baby factory, while Jo and I were still working for corporate America, figuring out the life ahead of us and working the 8 to 5 type of job in the banking and the poultry industry, respectively.
I remember an afternoon when we were all hanging out near the shore on the beach--the Talas, Jo, Sebas, my brother David, my mom, and I. Suddenly, my mom began to walk away from the shore and deeper into the ocean. In all the times we’d gone on vacation to the beach, I’d never seen my mom walking further than waistline deep into the ocean. There was something different about my mom but none of us could tell what it was. That year she created some of the most trippy and abstract art she’s ever done too. She went from creating figurative and concrete representations of objects and people to expressing herself in an unorthodox way that somehow made a lot of sense to the eye. Yet, this was a mom we hadn’t seen, ever.
During our five-day stay in Cancun, we went to an Italian restaurant that served chimichurri as a tableside along with chips and a fresh-baked (puffy pita). I remember asking for extra chimichurri and extra bread, drinking Bohemia beer, and wondering why an Italian restaurant was serving chimichurri. The conversation led to finding similarities between the Italian and Argentine cultures, specifically in the accent and the way both Italians and Argentineans speak the end of the last word of every sentence with a slightly higher pitch.
To be continued...
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About the author:
I chef Oz write these blogs. I am a home cook gone pro when my wife Jo and I decided to open Cueva Bar, a fusion tapas bar and restaurant in San Diego California. I am passionate about offering a space where people gather for a good time, and to enjoy mindfully prepared tapas, made with love and passion by our culinary team. I'm about the all-inclusive peace, love, mutual respect, unity, kindness, and compassion under the sun with liberty and justice for all.
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