My former office
*
Español
May 19, 2024
by Dr. David Fialkoff, Editor / Publisher
Every great while an English-speaking subscriber writes in wondering why Lokkal is bilingual: "I'd like to receive Lokkal's newsletters only in English." These people are from the Mexico-is-wonderful-except-for-the-Mexicans school of thought.
It's one thing not to understand the language or culture; it's another thing to be offended by what you don't understand. Recently, though, I've found myself perilously close to that position.
Dating a woman, for seven years, who spoke no English improved my Spanish quite a bit, greatly facilitating my entrée into Mexican culture. With her I attended a lot of social events where I was the only extranjero, foreigner.
I wasn't a gringo up north, and I'm not a gringo down here. Now, when asked, "¿Cómo estas?" I'm apt to reply, "Más mexicano," more Mexican, and it's true. But recently my mexicanisimo, my capacity in this direction, has been challenged
Evacuating my landlady
*
Briefly, after my landlady, formerly resident on this house's second-floor, broke her hip, she returned from the hospital (two weeks ago) and took up residence, complete with new hip, in a room here on the first floor. The room has its own separate entrance and had been my office, accounting for 25% of my living space before I voluntarily, and I think generously, vacated it in favor of her convalescence. (More here.)
So far so good. An 86-year-old woman, flat on her back on the other side of a door off my living room presents no problem that a little sound-proofing won't fix.
Incorporating the office into my living-room (with a little spillover into the bedroom) has been a challenge. It's been like living inside one of those puzzles whose irregular pieces fit only one way back into the box. But, especially with my workspace now well-arranged, I've got the reconfiguration largely figured out.
My standing desk
*
Much more difficult has been getting used to the presence of B, a loud woman who came back after a two-year absence to take care of my landlady, first in the hospital and now at home.
Anger, they say, is the way you punish yourself for mistakes someone else has made. I'm proud of myself for not getting angry at the way B and her boyfriend have burst in upon my once tranquil home.
I'm impressed by how things that disturbed me a week ago bother me less or not at all now, chiefly the couple parading their antics back and forth across the once-sacred preserve of my patio garden with me stuck front row center. (It's a small place.)
Patio garden
*
Three is indeed a crowd, B's boisterous entrance shattering a dozen years of delicate accord built up between my landlady, a peculiar old lady, and me, a bit old and peculiar myself.
On first moving to Mexico 12 years ago, I used to wonder while moving through public spaces why people were getting in my way. Then I realized that it wasn't my way.
My living predicament may be a function of class or personality, but it's also a Mexican thing. To take one example of many: For Mexicans with their different sense of personal space, it would be nothing; "No importa." But having someone shout, a couple yards away just outside our patio window in the blackness of the night, loudly and unexpectedly to someone else some distance away, rather than closing that distance and speaking more softly, is disconcerting to us gringos.
Bringing an 86-year-old woman home from the hospital with a hip replacement would be challenging under the best of circumstances. B's power grab made things worse, turning my landlady against me, even trying to evict me, until I spoke with her lawyer.
Taking care of everything around this house for 12 years, I now have to let go of things getting done correctly, let alone esthetically. Taking care of the landlady for 12 years, I have to now stop caring. If they are not going to seal the roof of her room before the rains, or at least patch the obvious cracks, why should I worry about the leaks?
They're not thinking about me. I need to stop thinking about them. They're going on about their lives, treating me like they treat everyone else, like they treat themselves. I need to get over myself... and keep my eyes open for another place to live.
It's like going to the beach: playing in the ocean; swimming around a bit in the shallows; standing in the water up to your chest, your feet temporarily losing contact with the soft, supportive sand as you are buoyed up by the crest of a passing wave; venturing out a bit over your head. Then a rip tide comes and sweeps you out to sea.
Out my front door
*
It's edifying and entertaining to go out and splash around in the local culture of our choosing. But it's quite different when, unelected and uninvited, Mexico comes flooding into our lives: like cuetes, fireworks, exploding at 5am, or over-amplified Los Locos music playing for hours just down the block.
As is so often true, the only, or at least the most important, thing that I can control about this situation is my own reaction to it. Getting tense and stressed doesn't help you stay afloat when you are out to sea. Pouting, as I did as a young child, only makes things worse. And this too is a cultural thing, a lesson I've learned best here, south of the border: I tell myself, "Relájate. Respira profundo. Estamos en México." Relax. Breathe deeply. We're in Mexico.
*
