ESTOY CONFUNDIDA---I'M FLUMMOXED!

I have been alone for 20 days in Mexico. It happened by chance but I was glad to have the time. I had wanted to step out of my life for a long enough time so that I stopped panting. 
No schedule, no time assigned to anything or anyone.

Guess what? Mostly I liked it. I did not leave the house except for two trips for groceries.
I did not encounter great meaning or a spiritual breakthrough. Those I do in my day to day life!! Nope. I slept lots. I read continuously. I never had a meal without a book in front of me.
I watched lots of Netflix. The Americans was compelling but I always swore I would never watch it again. Truly felt like a bad addiction to the dark side. So I would lighten up with Modern Family and Project Runway. If feeling snobby, I watched The Mind of a Chef. Then I'd have a bowl of cereal for supper.  

In between vegetating I did have moments of outrageous contentment and moments of odd despair. They passed. 

I'm flummoxed because I have culture clash looming. I have not spoken much English during this time alone. I am fully embedded in the extended family next door. I have lived alone with my own rhythms and my own mess. I have not cooked. I've eaten with the next door neighbors. I have an empty refrigerator and like it. I have not had a note of music or any TV during the 20 days. Never entered my mind. I loved the quiet.

My husband joins me in two days. I've forgotten how to accommodate space and rituals. I don't want his Buddha altar in the fireplace.  I don't want the dish drainer on the left side of the sink. I never want an alarm to go off in the morning.
You know. Two people again. 

As my re-entry I went to a Birthday party with my neighbors and all of their extended family.
It was out in the campo. I served food and held babies and bemoaned Trump's wall.
I danced. I gossiped with and about everyone. I have known these people for twelve years.
I am comfortable and feel like family. And yet no one is schooled. The houses are humble, mostly cinder block and every once in a while I wonder who of my friends and family would like to join me. But, I trust you would because here is joy and connection and laughter and all generations in the same space having fun. Of course, you would love it. I forget that it is not my 'culture' and then get surprised by my own.

I will write to my  family soon after I finish this. I am tired of distance and FaceTime conversations and limited face to face time together. Where is home? Who is family? How do you live fully in two homes? Mostly living in two places is an abundance of different beauty and riches. Sometimes, it's confusing.

Time for a little Netflix and a bowl of cereal.  And , while writing this, I almost missed an extraordinary sunset. That I know would be dumb.

IN MEXICO--A PERFECT FIVE MINUTE STORM

I am alone in Mexico at our home in San Miguel until my husband joins me in ten days
I had a moment happen to me late in the afternoon yesterday. It felt that way--like it happened to me.
It was a nice moment.  I had cooked dinner (which I don't do often when I am alone). I had cleaned the kitchen( which I don't do often when I'm alone). I had poured a glass of wine (which I don't do as often as I should when I am alone) and headed out to sit on the 'balcon' to enjoy. I didn't bring anything to read (which I don't do often when I am alone).

So I sat and sipped. It was the exact moment when the sun does its best work. All shadows were dappled. I looked out at pepper trees and palm trees in the mid-distance. The sparkle was just right to make every tree look like it was hung with tinsel (the old tin tinsel) They were streaked with a blinding shine. 

Next I heard a piano. A real piano, not a keyboard. We live above a popular hotel, Villa Xichu,
that often has weddings and quinecenera celebrations on the week-end. Let me just say that there is no sound system as loud as a Mexican party sound system. I once retreated to the closet to sleep and had a guest seriously ask if we couldn't pay to make the party stop!! Not so much arrogance but desperation. 

So the piano was puzzling and lovely. Then the opera began. Gorgeous accomplished voices rose to the balcony like a private serenade. In my pajamas with my wine and surrounded by beauty I had exquisite music appear.  My clacking battering humming birds (did you know they're not nice birds) arrived and just sat on their feeder. Next a sub theme of one bell sounding joined in. (The trash collectors announce their arrival with a lovely incongruous bell. Next the church bell joined in clanging to announce a Lenten Mass. It's not a great bell but it's 'our' bell and we love it. The chapel was built in 1540 and holds 100 people if we crowd in. Finally the mourning doves provided the descant. The kids choir at the Mass could be 'just' heard. A private concert for my balcony pleasure.

The moment hung fire for about five minutes. Then came applause and trucks with grotesque mufflers groaning and roosters crowing and a siren and a goat bleating and a Pollo Feliz
advertising truck blaring a Happy Chicken special sale. The phone rang. One symphony was over and another had begun. Both muy Mexicano.

Later I learned there had been a competition for young Mexican opera talent and I was hearing the winners perform. 

SUNDAY NIGHT BLUES

I'm writing on Sunday night because my Monday is jam packed as I get ready to leave for Mexico. I will spend the first two weeks on a personal retreat and so won't write again until March 27th. Retreat means read, read, read, eat popcorn, sleep, sit in sun, meditate, 
ruminate, cogitate and sedate with a little Mescal. And see what emerges, what comes clear, what gets restless, what gets calm. Like that.

Here is the burp that plagues me tonight and was triggered by a comment of a colleague.
My colleague had a college roommate from North Eastern Europe (can't remember which country) and she said to my colleague, "You Americans have such a deep disease. I don't know how you stand it." My friend asked what the disease was. Her roommate answered, "Loneliness of course. You all stand alone and lonely. Separate houses. Separate lives. Old parents alone. I feel the loneliness in this country."

Ugh. She named a feeling I choose to block out. Here is my burp. I am lonely on Sunday nights. I want to have had all of my grown kids and their kids for dinner as obligation and pleasure. I want the fights and the laughter of my tribe. I want to be the Matriarch of
the family not of a concept of a family. I hate the displacement that college and loves and work created. Along with divorce. 

I intend no blame to my spread out kids. I left my family hometown and my parents in Indiana to come to Maine for my big crazy family adventure here. And they were gracious and loving as I left and then forever after, a little lonely. My mom would tell me about baby showers and and wedding showers that she went to alone where all my cousins and their moms would be. 
She wouldn't linger on it for fear of burdening me. We were very close regardless. I do smile as I remember her saying, "Maybe you wouldn't love me as much if I lived closer." She was wrong. It would have just been different. Being able to take family for granted is the gift of safety and connection that comes with geographic closeness. Less special heightened love.
Normalcy is so soothing.

So I get Sunday Night Blues.
Do you?