DIA DE LOS MUERTOS

We went to the procession for the Day of the Dead in downtown Tucson. It is a wonderful thing but I don't want to talk it up too much, because it was perfect just the way it was- very low key and Tucson, and we wouldn't want it to be a big spectacular. People just show up to walk in it, most of them dressed in costumes and masks (see the pictures above), some are walking on stilts, most have a skull motif, some are beating a mournful drum. The rest of us stand along the siidewalk and watch. There has been little or no advertising, the procession just starts.

I have been told that the Day is Mexican in origin. It is meant to commemorate those souls who have died in the year, and to remember all the dead. Families decorate the graves, and bring little festive meals for the departed. Some in the procession carry photographs of the relatives and somehow it all seems just right. My children do this for their dad, without knowing of the Mexian custom. He loved a good dry Martini. So whoever is in San Francisco at the time drives up to the gravesite and takes two Martinis and puts them on the stone and talks to him a little. When we leave we pour the Martini on the ground, and leave the olives on the stone for the animals.

This year we didn't walk to the end of the Day of the Dead procession, because we didn't know what wonders came then. I saw a clip on the TV that night, so I know what I missed. They light a big cauldron, which had led the procession, and it is filled with papers that people had written to their loved ones, and they light it. Big flames come up, and all of the messages are consumed. Very pagan, but satisfying, I think. It reminds me of the Burning Man festival in Nevada.

Don't tell anyone about the Day of the Dead in Tucson, because we want it to stay just the way it is. Some things should be left alone.

THE DAY OF THE DEAD