Blanca Juanita

You don't know me...

Otherwise known as White Juanita.  As mentioned in my last post, every once in a while I get the urge to bolt.  It's during moments when I want to drop everything and disappear.  Of course I wouldn't, not with The Boy and the Girl to keep me grounded to the life I've made for myself.  But on the occasions when they're not with me, my imagination begins to wander.


It's in some of that imaginary wandering that I pack my car with my essentials and hit the road.  I've disappeared before, though not entirely anonymously.  I moved across the country with a 2-week warning to my family and friends when I was 20, when I woke up one day and knew I needed a change.  But this is different.  When I get this feeling now, I know that it has more to do with an internal change or shift that has to take place, but it just feels like it would be easier to disappear.


Where would I go?  I would drive to Mexico, change my name to Juanita and make a simple little life for myself as a barmaid in some dingy little Mexican bar that served fresh tacos.  I'd sling shots of tequila to the regulars every day and make terrible jokes in broken Spanish.  They wouldn't just call me Juanita, they'd call me White Juanita, or rather, Blanca Juanita because of the obvious non-Latin features I've got.


I would make my life very simple there in the anonymous Mexican village, not getting to know anyone very well, keeping to myself and perhaps taking on the occasional lover, always making sure he left before sunrise to avoid any complications.  My best friend would be a stray cat that comes to my window for scraps and the deepest conversations that I would have would be philosophical exchanges with the man I buy coffee from at the cantina down the street.


But it wouldn't last.  One day, someone from this life, the life I have now, would go on vacation and walk unexpectedly into the dingy little bar and order a shot of tequila, some chips and salsa before even looking at the barmaid. Then, as I turn to pour the shots, I hear them say, "Jess?" and I pause for a split second before Augusto, one of my regulars at the end of the bar replies, "No, eso no es Jess, que es blanca Juanita. No la conozco."  And at that moment, when I look into Augusto's eyes, I realize that there is nowhere I can really disappear to, nowhere I can really hide myself because someone will always see right through that facade, right into your soul where you can't lie to yourself anymore and you have to go back.  And it's at that moment that I decide to not drive to Mexico and embrace my alter ego.


At least not this time.