Our room swallowed light whole. Even in summer when sunlight glared through the windows, it was somehow dim inside. Now it was only Easter morning, and the muted sky of early spring offered scant relief...

Mexico, as it was in the 1970s—and isn’t now—was my Paris. With Mexicans, Europeans, and Americans I celebrated life and the journey, which took on qualities of a pilgrimage in which every moment was a...