Mexico - The Moments Not Captured
On the street of La Veleta, in Tulum, MX
As someone who loves to capture moments, I’m convinced the best moments, like butterflies, were never meant to be captured.
Delicate as they are fleeting—flickers of light sprinkling magic dust in their wake. The only way to enjoy them is to be there, in their midst…
It was on a dusty and humid night in Tulum that my sister and I stumbled upon that magic.
Arriving only a few hours earlier, we’d meandered our way through the city’s Independence Day festivities:
The proud mariachi band
The wide-eyed kids blowing their bubbles
The street performers slinging fire in the intersection
We’d exchanged broken Spanish with the weathered man sitting in the pews
And we considered buying homemade jewelry from one of the local vendors
But strangely, or not so strangely, something left us wanting
A typical symptom of conspiring sisters, we weren’t ready to put our curiosity to bed
Listlessly peering from our hotel window, we were seduced by the young, vacant night.
Stepping in between the shadows of sporadic passersby along the potholed streets, a light guided us in the distance
We followed it.
Arriving at a cemented area lit with an orange hue, an underpass, families and friends were perched up on cement blocks.
Actively watching as they were, an improv soccer game was taking place—a handful of boys around 11 or 12 years old running up and down the concrete.
Shyly looking at the families, my sis and I gently grinned and took a seat on an empty block.
They didn’t seem to mind. In fact, something in their presence welcomed us.
The game ensued. Not so sure of their footing, or a little more enthusiastic than their skill allowed, all of them nearly tumbled over the ball.
An “ohhhh” here and an “ahhh” there, and so it continued.
All in the chase of the catch.
A well-known cast of characters, each of the small players had their own way of working the crowd.
There was the chubbier little guy who lifted his shirt up and let his belly hang out—he couldn’t handle the heat any longer and sprang at the others with newfound gusto. Pure determination and mischief filled his eyes while the ripples in his belly jiggled and made the crowd laugh.
Then there was the little, skinnier one with the big brown eyes and jagged teeth who wasn’t intimidated in the least by his friend’s breadth and began charging full-throttle at him. The rest of the cast of characters clumsily corralled around the two.
Hearty belly giggles stole the moment, they couldn’t help it.
The pure simplicity of it all was magic.
My sis and I looked at each other. How precious this moment we stumbled upon.
Even for two tourists, there for the beach, just passing through, nothing could have compared. It was just a soccer game, but it was also so much more.
And how if we weren’t here for it, we would have missed it. Our phones left tucked inside our pockets. No, this moment demanded our presence.
Let the beach parties and vacationers continue, but give me this…
Give me something REAL in this life.
And there we were, watching an impromptu kids soccer game, knowing somehow that the uneven concrete was the best seat in Tulum, peering into the real magic… of being there.