…go with all your heart!” (Confucius)

I wake in a panic, heart racing … strange sounds and unfamiliar creaks and irritating car horns disrupting my already restless sleep.  In my groggy confusion, I struggle to make out what that loud banging on the window is… my vivid imagination is going to many places, but reason is wrestling it back to reality… think…think hard… what makes sense here?  Of course! These past few days there has been a window repair crew dangling from what looks like a very antiquated platform “secured” with ropes to the top of the building, hoisting themselves up and down the outside of this 15 floor hotel, harnesses in use, but no helmets.  I could hardly watch today as they hand cranked their little platform past our window.  I realize that the banging is the ropes used to “secure” them…they have left the ropes to dangle through the night and the wind is whipping them at fairly regular intervals against the side of the building, terrifying me.   Now I’m up and my mind starts to worry and fret over how the kids are doing, handling this big (such an inadequate word) transition.  The boys seem to be doing okay, but Caleigh had a meltdown the night before, wailing that she wanted to go home (after 2 days at school).  There have been so many issues trying to secure our house and everyday is filled with such uncertainty – will we get the house, won’t we get the house?  (the landlord is living in the US and wants to have his rent paid in USD but Sanofi’s policy is only to deal in MXN pesos – such thick bureaucracy and policy to wade through).  Aaron is going through a transition too, trying to work out a routine and establish himself at work… and none of us can communicate effectively with anyone but each other… all of this starts playing on my mind in the wee hours, and it just feels like everything is so hard and I am feeling very homesick, yearning for familiarity, when I could just go out and not have to calculate every decision and feel like so much is out of my control. By the time Aaron wakes I am primed for an early morning meltdown – wasn’t pretty… definitely a “for worse” moment…: I want to go home; I can’t believe we did this; I hate that we did this to everyone; this was a conscious choice – WHAT were we thinking!?!  I feel so guilty uprooting the kids, leaving family and friends… apparently all normal and an expected part of transitioning to expat life, but not much fun, have to say.  So once I’d had a really good ugly cry and scared the hell out of my husband, I realized that I have a choice.  I can decide to dig in my heels and hate everything and want to go home, or I can decide to jump in both feet and just embrace this – for the kids, for Aaron – he’s so excited about this opportunity and how it is advancing his career.  And it’s  important to make the most of this time for myself too – have to make it count.

And once I decided to “go with all my heart” and started to take stock of everything we’ve done and hope to do, I realized that there are many wonderful things about this place.  I love flowers and have always loved to have them in the house  and to spread them around – they just bring such cheer to a room and joy to the soul; I love that “the Earth laughs in flowers” (Ralph Waldo Emerson).  Here in Mexico, they are so inexpensive!!  At home I would often override the internal dialogue about them being so expensive and “do I really NEED them?” and when possible, purchase the discounted only-a-couple-of-days-left-before-wilting bunches…but here I can buy the fresh ones for a fraction of the price!  And fruits and veggies are very affordable (and because there are so many I don’t recognize, present an opportunity to figure out how to pronounce the name of the fruit first, then how to eat/prepare it and a strategy for enticing the kids to try it!).  “What’s the weather like today?” (some habits die hard:)) Our Canadian infatuation (bordering obsession) with the weather is losing it’s sense of drama as each day, when we peek out the window in the morning, it is exactly the same forecast!!   “Sunny and about 20 degrees” (it is ‘winter’ here right now, so it is apparently ‘cooler’ – funny to see the locals all bundled up in jackets and scarves!!)  We have decided to plan for trips to explore the country – the kids are researching areas they would like to go and we’ll spread the adventures out over a number of weekends.  We are embracing the language by enrolling the kids in Spanish immersion and looking for a tutor – we see no point in digging in our heels about learning the language when we will be here for 3-5 years – we want to work towards blending and being a part of the fabric of this new country as much as we can.   I so look to Aaron for inspiration here – he is so great at being in the moment and taking it all in stride and embracing where we are.  That’s always something I’ve admired about him – perhaps it was his early experiences as world-traveller that have informed his approach – he’s always “game” and rarely hesitates in new situations.  He always helps me to have perspective when my mind starts to race to all manner of possibilities in any given situation.  So glad we’re doing this together.

We are exploring new places and new foods and new mindsets and new cultural practices.  When on a recent tour of Ocoyoacac, the town where one of the Sanofi plants is, “where Daddy works”, we drove through a busy market area – very authentic, local flavour and sights – the kids were giggling somewhat uncomfortably in the backseat of the Nissan beater car we were loaned from the plant to get around until the paperwork can be arranged for a car of our own (shocking, I know, that contracts and paperwork are slowing the progress of getting something done here…). They were wide-eyed as we came to a stop beside an open-air butcher shop with about 10 semi-whole pigs hanging upside down, curing, ready for customers to choose the pig and cut(s) they wanted.  I can, with confidence, say that our little guys have NEVER seen anything like that, but here, it’s normal.  As normal as the many stray dogs searching for scraps and small kids wandering between cars, trick-juggling balls for pesos.   We meandered through tiny, cramped streets that you would think couldn’t possibly accept a bus, but on which a BUS was indeed barreling down this street towards us…quick maneuvers, potholes and noise and bright colours and great latin beats and large groups of people hauling their wares or recent purchases squinting in the mid-day sunshine, all added to the ambiance.  The clear, clear day boasting miles and miles of mountain landscape, so interesting and beautiful and raw. There is a beauty here, if only you stop having too many expectations and stop comparing it to what you know.  It is like apples and oranges – one will NEVER be like the other, and from this point of view we can learn to have more tolerance and to believe in and practice acceptance.

So, enjoying the plentiful flowers and decorating our hotel “home” with them, in re-purposed water-bottle vases to feel joy and more “at home”. And feeling hopeful again.