En Xoxocotlan, Sí

By Almendra….

My passage through drug addiction has a twist that has surprised all my shrinks and therapists, though perhaps some of you are aware of this “recipe.” I took poppy pods (the larger the better — golf ball-size is good, tennis ball even better) and I ground them up into a rough mess and steeped them in hot water with a little lemon (or if no lemon, vinegar). I drank down this vile brew and after a few times it no longer made me gag. Later I discovered that whirling the broken-up pods in a coffee grinder until they are powder and mixing the dust with grapefruit juice makes the concoction slide down the gullet easier, with the one disadvantage that you can’t save the grounds for a second (though considerably weaker) brew.

Nature-girl that I am (and seeing as I know few people who would be likely to supply me with “hard drugs,” nor would I wish to know such people, as I imagine them), I figured that my poppy punch would be an ideal way to imbibe, not to mention avoiding problems with the law. Ordering the seeds is legal, though there are some gray areas about growing them. Ordering the pods is easy, though they are harder and harder to come by (and more expensive; naturally — I’m not the first to think of this!). But don’t let anyone, Nature-Girl or not, try to tell you that the beautiful flower in its natural seed-pod form is a benign sort of Autumn decoration. Those fuckers pack a punch! The pod contains many alkaloids in its natural state and these are problematic in that detoxing is no simple matter of substitutes.

I began consistently using because of several reasons: I hated the fact that I had a Ph D and my job for 7 years involved teaching college students the difference between “their,” “there,” and “they’re,” and that reading their (there?) heinous papers (which came in groups of 75-100) made me want to stick knitting needles in my eyes. I also believed myself to be a lousy teacher. Then I got Lyme Disease (as an avid runner on the local gamelands I am sure I came across a tick or two), which went undiagnosed for 8 months. The only way I knew I could get out of bed and numb the pain and stand in front of my classroom was to Pray to the Pod. And thus it went on. In 2009 I quit my job (or, rather, it quit me, as I wrote a blog and expressed my thoughts about the Penn State Administration — and lo and behold, look what happened years later! But that’s another story) and the department Muckety Mucks (illegally) declined to renew my contract in the most humiliating manner–I felt as if I were standing in front of a panel of the inquisition. But never mind–I was relieved to mentally flip them the bird and go back to cultivating my garden!

In August 2010 I managed to get off pods for some months — at the beginning it was excruciating — I had cravings, I felt horribly sick, I cried and cried, but I knew it would eventually ease off, and it did. I slipped up some during the dreaded “holidays” with the family, but then I was clean again until mid-May 2011, when my puppy was hit and killed by someone who never owned up and my mother had a very bizarre onset of dementia and has never been lucid since. I only knew of one way to numb myself. (I absolutely hate benzos, by the way, unless I am detoxing and writhing uncontrollably and can’t sleep). Marijuana gives me horrible hallucinations and I panic at the loss of my left brain faculties. So there were the pods… just a Visa card number away… And so it began again…

The cycle continued; I’d swear to stop; I’d stop briefly; something would set me off, etc. During August of this year (2012) I made another resolution to stop and booked a trip to Oaxaca for the Dia de los Muertos celebration. I had wanted to visit for decades, since I had read Carlos Castañeda books in my teens. Seared into my brain was this image of Carlos coming upon Don Juan Matus in the Zocalo. I had long since dropped that myth but never the desire to visit Oaxaca. In my 20s I traveled to Mexico with a Mexican boyfriend from the North but though we went to Mexico City, we never ventured beyond to Oaxaca or Michoacan or Chiapas or any of the places I especially wanted to go. I felt that there was something ominous about Mexico (and this was the mid-80s) and I wanted to know more.

My trajectory turned out differently, however, and I ended up spending up a lot of time in India.

But back to the addiction. It suddenly came to me that I needed to go NOW, this year, and fortuitously the money to do so arrived. I am an artist and images from Mexican folklore (in particular the skull or calavera, in Spanish) have always figured in my painting and fiber art. I knew that I had to do something about my habit though–carrying powdered poppy pods to Mexico just didn’t seem like a real intelligent idea. So I managed to score some tramadol from a very friendly vet tech, and it’s easy to get OTC in Mexico as well, if you’re willing to wait in line behind middle-aged women clamoring for “Dooculax.” Though I was quite jittery, at least the first 5 days or so, I was fine and happy and having a marvelous time. I did have horrendous nightmares of being so angry I burned up everything. I don’t know about the rest of you, but under the influence of opiates I don’t remember my dreams. Something I see or hear may recall a fragment here and there, but never any sort of narrative or series of images.

On October 31 we made our visit to the Xoxocotlan cemetery, where people decorate the graves of their deceased loved ones with elaborate displays of enormous marigolds and cockscomb flowers and candles and sugar skulls and the occasional Sponge Bob. These cemeteries are not pleasant park-like places where you can walk and commune with the dead at your leisure. The graves are no more than one-width of a foot apart in many places and it had rained the night before and it was slick with mud. The ground is also uneven so it is a perfect opportunity to fall and break your head against a tombstone. Very convenient though because they can just leave you there and throw a little dirt on you.

There were lots of Gringos in their fleece sweaters hanging out and taking pictures, Mexican families gathered around tombs, some playing music and drinking mezcal, and some families more somber if the death had been recent. Lots of hawkers outside the cemetery and makeshift eateries set up. More of a carnival than anything else. I can’t say I was particularly moved, though my artist-buddy spoke in hushed tones about the “Deep, ancient atmosphere.”

But then, after the visit to the cemetery, my mind started to break up in that dark van, and it was like oh shit, ME ME ME!! Oh no! GO AWAY!! Like there was some malignant little child-ghost holding onto my sleeve, pulling at me, tugging me hard, and I was thinking, GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME!! but at the same time feeling sorry for all she had suffered and was suffering. I so wanted to rouse one of our Mexican guides (it was 1 AM) and demand that he hold my hand. I can’t ever recall wanting so much to hold the hand of another human being. But of course social constraints are very powerful! The next morning I was OK, though a bit weirded out. When I got back to the U.S. I had this sort of suffocating feeling at first, and then angry, and then sad, and now, I think, turning the corner and ready to move on. My close friend and airy-fairy horse trainer Anita talked to me about looking for shamans and whatnot, but for me that’s only a metaphor–I’m my own shaman, and indeed, I did meet me. And of course ME is the scariest goblin you will EVER meet on Halloween night or any other! So that’s where I’m coming from and that’s why I’ve stopped. Whether I am using drugs or holding someone’s hand or taking a hot bath, I’m the one doing it — I’m my source of comfort. Does that make sense? So while Marc’s response was NO to the addiction, mine is sort of YES to the ability to mediate difficulties, to protect myself from addiction. I’m sure that’s just a different way of putting it. Don’t you think?

I’m doing OK now; the worst of the terrible emotional vortex has dissipated and I have no cravings. I just feel weak, mostly from not being able to eat. But that will pass too. That is the easy part I am sure.