Charley prowls the streets of San Miguel de Allende looking for chicken bones.
On Christmas morning I stepped out the front door of our rented house in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, with Charley for our daily walk. Charley immediately put her nose to the dirt to sniff around for stray chicken bones. Charley is a dog, so that was normal. Other than that, there was nothing familiar about the scene. The construction crew that has been pounding away at the house across the street with sledgehammers for the last few months had the day off. The small tienda on the corner where we buy fresh squeezed orange juice was shuttered. There were no propane gas trucks jangling bells in the neighborhood and no people in sight. The streets that are so full of life, energy, and dust each morning were uncharacteristically empty and silent. I felt like I was in one of the early episodes of The Walking Dead when it seemed like Rick was the last man on earth. It was nice.
As Charley and I made our way to the fields where she takes care of business, I met a woman out with her own canine companion. While Charley and her dog sniffed each other’s butts, M and I got familiar in our own way - we had a conversation. After the usual exchange of information about where we lived, where we were from, and what we did, we exulted over the fact that we had both moved out of the US. That’s a pretty common interaction between full-time SMA residents.
The question I most frequently get when I am in the US is whether I miss it. I never have a good answer. There are things I miss about it - mostly the ability to easily visit with my friends and family and to get a Slurpee - but there’s also something that repulses me about the US that I can never quite put my finger on to explain. I think you have to live outside the US for a period of time to understand why you are happy not to be there. M understood and she said, “Most Americans honestly believe they are living in the greatest country in the world. Why burst their bubble?”
There’s never a bad time to buy a balloon in Mexico.
After our first year here I wrote a blog post called “Here Comes The Reckoning” that explored whether I had met the goals I had set for myself when we first moved. Had I learned to speak better Spanish (no); was I writing (yes); did I spend more time with my wife and kids (yes); and had I devoted some of my newly found free time to philanthropy (indirectly, yes). This year, rather than examining whether I’ve achieved whatever it is I’d hoped to achieve, I’ve reflected on the larger picture. Specifically, knowing everything that I now know about our move and what it has meant to us, would I do it again? Short answer: yup.
Frankly, it’s not even close. Without even taking the current stupidity of American political discord into account, our lifestyle in Mexico is so much more calm, thoughtful, and personal than the get up - go to work - go home - do it again lives we led in the US. I still get out of bed each Mexican morning, but I never feel in a rush. Three years ago there was a lot more pressure to try to get ahead. Consumerism was more in our face. In Mexico, R and I can pursue paid work that we enjoy but we don’t feel compelled to make six figures to lead a comfortable lifestyle. If we want to buy a balloon, we can. In the US I spent more time doing things I was obligated to do than I did following my passions. Now, I can spend time with the kids in the middle of the day, every day.
Interestingly, for all the Americans that ask me what I miss about the US, they rarely ask the next logical question - what I like about living in Mexico. Well, for one thing, it’s not the US. Rebecca, being a more cosmopolitan thinker than I, describes living in Mexico as embracing wabi sabi, the Japanese philosophy of taking pleasure in imperfection. Few things here are perfect: the roads are filled with potholes and dog shit, the windows in our newly-constructed modern home leak fiercely when it rains, stores are often closed when we expect them to be open. And that’s just a start. This is a striking contrast to life in the US where there are posted store hours, level sidewalks, potable water from the tap, and generally high functioning infrastructure. On a macro level, our lives are a sea change from how we lived in Alexandria, as professionals in demanding careers, surrounded by highly-educated high-achieving perfectionists in a vacuum packed environment.
From a micro level, and it seems insensitive and tone deaf to say this considering the difficulties many people faced in 2020, we had a good year. Yes, my family and I were impacted by COVID-19 in challenging ways, but for each dark cloud there was a silver lining.
Firstly, not being allowed to leave the house suited us just fine. We love being in our house. We rent a spacious place with outdoor courtyards on all three levels. Even though we barely left the confines of our four walls for three months, we were outside every single day. I got some nice color just by walking from the bedroom to the kitchen.
Class is in session in the courtyard of our house in San Miguel.
As a consequence of being forced to stay home, R and I got to spend a lot more time together and with our children - preparing meals, playing games, and watching Netflix. Coconut and J didn’t have to leave the house to physically go to school, hang out with their friends after class, or prowl the sewer tunnels under the city on weekends. They had no way to escape our helicopter parenting. And the best part? The kids seemed to like it as well; never complaining about all the time they were forced to spend with us and even doing the dinner dishes a few times without complaints.
It’s true that the big plans Rebecca had to grow her business, Language Adventure Pros - which relies on international travel - went to pot, but the other work that we do to support ourselves - make kombucha and write magazine articles - we always did from home in our underwear. There was no changed work routine to adjust to.
I work from home with or without the threat of COVID.
The travel plans we had for summer - Coconut heading to a language program in Peru and J paddling across northern Ontario - fell through. That was unfortunate, but rather than following the kids around the globe, I drove them to the US and we spent the entire summer at a family lake house in NY with Grandpa, aunts, uncles, and cousins. That’s something we hadn’t ever been able to do. It also meant R could spend the summer alone in Mexico doing online African dance and bonding with friends.
R has made the kind of friends who laugh when someone farts.
And we were in a better position to help people in need. Most folks in this part of Mexico live hand to mouth. When tourists stopped coming, restaurants and shops closed, and domestic help was sent home, people had no way to make money and nothing to fall back on. When a woman in need knocks on your door, it feels a lot more impactful to hand her a bag of rice, beans, tortillas, and milk than it does to write a check to a non-profit.
Even though a lot of people were happy to put 2020 in the rear view mirror, we hope that 2021 is at least as good a year for us. That we can continue to embrace those imperfections inherent in living, accept that things aren’t always going to go as we hoped, and be open to the opportunities this path will lay before us.