The Story
The setting of Mariposa is 1920s and 1930s West Texas, Los Angeles, and Mexico. Annarose, a spiritual, intellectual, brave young woman desires to feel the magic she believes exists in connections to nature, to people. Deep down, she feels that fulfillment of spiritual longing, the ultimate mystical experience, is found within a connection to the Other. The other for Annarose, a girl from rural Texas, is a Mexican man. Along the way, the story illuminates the perils of prejudice as well as the intimate, yet treacherous bond that exists between Anglo and Mexican people who live side by side near the border.
As a child in West Texas, Annarose sees life and intelligence in everything. She finds herself in a relationship with an invisible Presence, which beckons to her spirit and with whom she feels most alive. A friendship with a Mexican boy and her love of the landscape also nurture this young girl who feels rejected by her Mother.
Banished to Los Angeles at 13, she loses her connection to spirit and begins to seek it again through intellectual pursuits. There, she finds herself in a kind of waiting room between worlds, that of Texas and Mexico.
Her philosophical studies and supportive friendship with Estelle, a gifted musician, lead to an awakening for Annarose, and she becomes a writer, and she travels to Mexico. She wants to feel life again. Artist, Frida Kahlo, befriends Annarose and offers her a glimpse, by holding up a symbolic mirror, of true power. She meets Mexican muralist, Crisanto, and chooses him as her lover. He is her connection to all that is beautiful, wild, free, and happy because he is the Other, and Annarose feels that she can also find aspects of the maternal within him. She embraces all that this man, his people, and his country represent.
