Sometimes when I walk into centro I like to take what I call “my shortcut” – away from the grid of busy streets and crowded sidewalks, down a steep, scrubby, winding, stony path to a soccer field on the other side of town. This shortcut is likely no shorter, in terms of steps or distance into town, but I prefer it because it takes me back in time.

On weekends throughout the year and especially on our summer breaks from grammar school, we kids – a small pack of neighborhood girls of which I was the eldest by one year and therefore the leader – were always outdoors, exploring back roads and trails through woods and fields, searching for shortcuts to that day’s chosen destination. We were feral. We were free. We were fearless. We were forever up for adventures, unfettered by adults’ eyes and strictures. Now here I am at eighty – far from that eight- year-old me — still reveling in such childish freedom. 

So the other morning I took my San Miguel shortcut to get to an important appointment I had across town. My computer had suddenly seized up that morning, and I needed my tech guru to fix it so I could continue to function. How dependent we’ve all become on technology – like dogs on short leashes — I often think.  

It was a coolish and overcast morning, having rained heavily the night before – the first serious rains of this new rainy season. But I was enjoying my solo walk down this off-the-beaten-path, path. I felt free.

As I got closer to the bottom of the hill, though, I heard gushing water. Then I saw it: The shallow gully that’s dry and easily passable in the dry season and gingerly passable over slippery slabs of stone in the rainy season had overnight turned into a fairly wide and fast-flowing river-like stream. The stepping stones I’d always hopped, like an eight-year-old, in previous rainy seasons were submerged, out of sight. I stood on the bank of this new barrier frozen, staring at all that loud, dirty, fiercely flowing water.

Should I retrace my steps? I wondered. Did I have time to climb back up the stony slope and walk into town the other way around? Or take a taxi, if I could find one?  Would I arrive late and lose my appointment with my favorite techie? …

Then out of nowhere, as if dropped from the sky, a young Mexican man, maybe in his twenties, in well-worn jeans and a baggy tee, appeared behind me. I turned and looked at him, and together we studied the situation for what felt like a long time.

“Nadamos?” (Shall we swim?), I asked him, paddling my arms and smiling stupidly.

He didn’t say anything. Instead, he got in front of me, crouched down with his back to me, and patted his shoulders.

“Noooooo…,” I said, thinking this would not be possible. After all, he was smaller than I and even skinnier, and I was carrying stuff – my always-heavy backpack, a satchel with my even-heavier laptop in it, and a big umbrella, in case the skies were to reopen. He insisted, patting his shoulders again.

How could I refuse?

I climbed onto his slender back, and he slowly, carefully, expertly – like a Himalayan Sherpa — made his way through the more-than-ankle-deep rushing water to the other side. No hay problema for him. 

“You are brave,” I whispered to him in Spanish. My face was an inch from his ear. 

He didn’t respond. He just kept slogging, slowly, sure-footedly, through the raging stream. I knew he wouldn’t drop me. My laptop, my backpack, my umbrella and I would not land in the dirty water and wind up bumping down the stream. I was in good hands.

As he carried me across, I tried to think of a time I’d gotten a piggyback ride as a child. Nothing, nada, came to mind.  This was a first.

Before I had a chance to ask his name (let’s just call him Angel) or give him a tip in addition to my “MUCHAS GRACIAS!!!” to thank him for depositing me and my weighty belongings safely on dry land, he’d danced away, in his wet jeans and soggy high-tops, across the soccer field, and out of sight.

This is my beloved Mexico.