Lost

My bag was stolen tonight. As stupid as it comes: I was at the fair, sitting at a table with some friends, I was up dancing, a kid came to sell them shit, they didn’t pay attention, my bag was gone.

The things that are inconvenient, and irritating, and expensive…but don’t really matter:
- My mobile phone, my new sim card, and about 100 pesos credit.
- My wallet, and in my wallet: some money, my debit card, some Metro tickets, my work ID card, probably some other cards I can’t even remember, scraps of paper with phone numbers on.
- My keys: including the keys to my apartment, my office, the womens’ group house on campus, a locker I don’t use, the house of the person whose dog I am supposed to be walking this weekend, and the house of the person whose plants I am watering while he is away for work.
- My digital camera.

The things that do matter:
- The pictures that were in my phone: the overgrown vegetable patch in my garden at home, with foxgloves, apple trees, and chairs stacked against the greenhouse; a rainbow over the allotments; my favourite picture of myself, sitting in a tree by the river in Cambridge, happy; the ‘Earth from the Air’ outdoor exhibition in Leeds; the sky over the city; the city at night.
- In my wallet: my corazon, a Mexican talisman in the shape of a heart with a particular importance for me; a squashed penny saying ‘I love you’, which I have carried around for years out of a strange superstition, even though the love is long since over.
- On my keys: the one from the Tate I bought on a school trip for art GCSE; the leather Parker keyring that my Dad bought me for a joke (I’d said who on EARTH would pay extra for a pen just for a stupid Parker keyring, and look what Santa brought me…), and which I have always carried as a momento of him and that silliness, whose texture and fit in the hand somehow comforts and cheers me; the friendship bracelet that has been wrapped around my keys, gone everywhere with me, since I was 14, and my friend Liz made us all one for our first DofE expedition.
- The pictures in my camera: I don’t even remember what these were of. I don't want to think about it.
- Buster, the little bat who has been attached to my bag since my very, very dear friend Fiend gave him to me.
- My little red bag itself, which has been many places with me, and which I was very fond of, which was a little part of me.
- A tiny book, which I had with me at Wychwood last year, my first festival, when I was working for Friends of the Earth, and where I wrote down all the things that excited and amazed me, all my impressions and feelings and thoughts, and which I’d never got round to taking out of my bag.

I know they’re only things. But tonight, I'm broken-hearted.

Give or take?

A couple of days ago, a conversation.
I stretched my hand to give friendship and found I had put my fingers into my friend’s wounds.
I saw that my seeking to make friends here might seem from another angle like a kind of greed.
Is it right to take a person’s friendship, to seek to become important to them, when they have an established life and you are a stranger and will leave, when you know the open doorway in their heart and that it is a difficult thing not to give?
We are closer now. I am good at sharing people’s sorrows; less so their joys, it seems sometimes. I hope it will not be so.

mystified

See, I was sure that mystefaction, or mystifaction, or some correct spelling, was a proper word. A word commonly understood by intelligent English speakers, almost synonymous with mystification, but with slightly different associations and contexts. It is an established part of my vocabulary. I would have happily used it at any appropriate juncture, in a sentence such as "To Lady Henrietta's myst*faction, the under gardener did not explain his previous rudeness, but instead began to dance a foxtrot upon the onion beds". In fact, I was just about to use it, in my diary, in a less interesting sentence. But Word and google both tell me it is not a word.

How can that be? The foundations of my understanding of the universe are crumbling! Help! Send words of comfort! Or dictionaries! (Which do, being comprehensive after all, contain words of comfort).

In the meantime, I suppose 'bewilderment' will have to do. Bah.

rainy day

Today:

• Watching a friend with a friend – affectionate, careless touches, teasing and smiling – illuminated. Feeling that I am not a friend at all. (And in a lesser part of my mind, inspired to give love so constantly and carelessly.)
• Lights flicker out; computer stays on; office stays gloomy. The generators roar and rumble in the genebank.
• I go to zumba (dance-based exercise class) but – of course – there are no lights – and no music. Without it, we jerk grotesquely and time crawls.
  Sounds: the stomp of feet and the creak of floorboards, thunder as the storm begins.
• Deep blue sky, drizzling rain, lightning.
• From my window, I watch the car I didn’t see, driving away, full of friends, or people I know. I contemplate another solitary evening.
• I think about what it will be like to leave Mexico. I know it will be difficult, that I’ll leave a part of myself behind again. I will miss people – but I am surprised when I realise how small is the number of people I will really, deeply miss.
• I don’t get round to doing any work, writing emails, catching up with sorting out my photos or writing my diary, or making banana muffins with my old bananas. Again.
• I do listen to an astounding play on the radio. It makes words run; throws them onto the fire to conjure brilliant images; fits them into the keyholes of the human heart.
• Somehow, the wind sounds like cats screaming in a fight.

It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to

Sometimes, The Sads take over. It’s not completely true that there’s nothing I can do about it, but, sometimes, there isn’t much. For the last week or so they’ve been circling: I’m not down yet (and maybe they won’t get me this time), but from time to time a Sad pounces and I’m helpless for a few minutes, or hours, or a day.

There are also some difficult things about living in a far away place. There are the obvious things: feeling homesick, lonely, in need of a hug and no-one to give it to you. And the fact that all the time I am amongst people I have to be friendly with, to be positive, fun, good company, self-possessed – not just because they’re my colleagues, but because they’re new people, people who don’t have any existing reason to like me or excuse times when I’m miserable or grumpy. Which means instinctively showing your good sides all the time – which is very wearing. And it also seems to mean that there’s a whole load of carefully-controlled and unshed tears just lurking under he surface, waiting their moment.

Which things mostly explain why last Friday saw me outside my birthday party, round the back of the gents toilets (my sense of the beautiful and poetic unerring even in distress), sobbing into the shoulder of my friend and colleague Marcelo. I felt – feel – kind of ridiculous for pulling such a stunt as running off to cry, but I simply felt myself unravelling, like Cinderella feeling her gown turn into rags and I couldn't stop myself. I’m very grateful for that shoulder, and consoling arms around me when I needed them.

It was tiredness* and anxiety and anticlimax and all kinds of loneliness and longing. Poor Marcelo was asking me what was wrong, but there were so many things I couldn’t say in Spanish. ‘Lonely’, for a start. He understood – assumed – that I missed my family (and friends, I added – but family naturally seems the most important to a Mexican) but I don’t think I managed to convey a sadness that sometimes just is. And how do you begin to explain a sort of hunger and longing that is partly homesickness and missing people, partly nostalgia for good times you can’t go back to, and partly a yearning for happinesses that you’ve never really had?

He told me not to feel lonely, because we are here with you.

And after the tears – and some cake – things did feel better. People were awfully good to me for my birthday. It manifested itself in unexpected gifts from the colleagues I’ve come to see as friends, in the astonishing chocolate cake my boss’s wife made, in flowers and a homemade child’s card. These are things and don’t matter in themselves, but I was so touched by kindness of them, and the warmth and affection from my little group. Which sounds contradictory, but these contradictory things did coincide.

After I blew out my candles and made my wish, I danced, took photos, dance, was in photos, danced and talked. And if I hadn’t been feeling better the dancing would’ve made me happy. It was a strange feeling, enjoying the dancing, and the party, and being feted, and the company of friends, feeling more or less happy, and at the same time being aware of sadness underneath. I picked up on one of my other friends feeling the same way – sadness underneath – and it was like a secret shared between two comrades.

When the post-work party drew to a close a group of us (Mexicans and not, guys and girls, 20s to 40s) went on to town where we discovered, to our surprise and delight, a club that is actually really good to dance. We settled ourselves in a sofa curved around a grotto on one side of the dancefloor, and I ordered a piña colada (a recent discovery to add to the list of alcoholic things I actually like. Along with Czech almond-flavoured mead, another story. I can still count them on my fingers though. And no thumbs) and everyone else ordered a bottle of tequila, which came with ice and limes and lemonade to mix it with (about half-and-half) and was poured out in front of us by the waitress. (Being led to a table and waiter service seems to be normal in bars and clubs here… they carry a torch or you to squint at the menu with.)

The DJ was brilliant – lots of rip-roaring salsa tunes that we’d be up and dancing to, mixed so that they segued perfectly and you didn’t sit down for three or four songs, then a perceptible break between songs to give you a chance to change partners or sit down. There was a live band too, who did a couple of sets. I danced with my friends Marcelo, Juan and Pedro, and loved it and enjoyed each of their different styles. (Marcelo is just married, but apparently it’s OK for me to dance with him as Sara knows me now – which is just as well as he’s the best dancer I know.) I danced with a strange Mexican for four or five songs without stopping – the DJ was in his groove – and when I went down everyone cheered, and I was abashed. As the evening wore away, some reggaeton (sort of hip-hop meets reggae in Latin America… I love it), the big popular tunes that you hear everywhere. And then, lots of hugs and good wishes later, home.

I made an even more appalling mess of my apartment, strewing stuff everywhere, and ate a slice of the amazing chocolate cake and listened to the radio and was happy.

So, for those who’ve asked, that is what I did for my birthday, and even though I was sad I was happy and it was good. On my actual birthday I didn’t do anything at all. Thank you if you sent me birthday wishes; if you sent them by post I’ll probably get them sometime in May, but I’ll have a very happy unbirthday when I do.

* Significantly contributed to by me deciding it was necessary to bake layered banana and guava cakes with cream cheese icing, a FOOT wide and in total four inches high – that’s a behemoth, not a cake… what IS wrong with me?

a fun evening

I have just seen a cockroach on my cooker.

Some choice swearing later, I am currently taking everything out of my cupboard, looking at the nearly-full packets, and going "hmm, I don't think they could've got in this one".

Shopping list:
cockroach killer
storage boxes

(I also accidentally stirred some chickpeas with the wooden spoon I'd been trying - unsuccessfully - to bludgeon the cockroach with. I sort of went off the chickpeas.)

The forces of oddness

I spoke to my little brother today (me eating my lunch, him eating his dinner). He is growing a spider plant in a teapot for his Spanish teacher.

I am proud.

Fume

My hateful big job is done. The steamrollered feeling that comes of working every day, every evening and some nights for two weeks has almost passed. Thank you very much for bearing with me (assuming I haven't been ceremoniously struck out of any address books).

Too, spring has sprung here: the air is warmer (except in my icebox... I mean office... but you can’t have everything), the evenings are lighter, and the sunshine is golden.

So I am feeling really quite human, and I have some big long blog entries to write about exciting things I have done.

In the meantime, however, I am rather fuming about something…

Today I met a man called Git. This is what he is, so this is what I shall call him. I did consider calling him My New Least Favourite Person, which he also is, but that is a bit too unwieldy.

He has just arrived here to do some volunteer work while he writes his PhD thesis. Now, you can tell that he is one of those people who exists solely to make other people feel bad about themselves from the fact that he feels the need to do something to “keep himself occupied”, writing a PhD just not being enough.

Git and I having just met and having no particular conversational ground I asked him if he is staying in the accommodation block (the single rooms which exist for short-term visitors, in addition to apartments and houses). The answer is yes, but he is trying to move out soon.

Which led us on to where I live. So I mentioned how I’d thought about moving out too, but what with the rent being paid for me, and the five-minute walk to my office, and the fact that I don’t drive and have a horror of commuting, and the free wireless internet, and not having to worry about gas and electricity and all that stuff, and the laundry and the cleaning being done for me (though I didn’t mention that bit, it’s sort of embarrassing being quite so cosseted) it just doesn’t make sense for me to move out. Even though I’ve agonised over it.

And Git said, “The only problem is you’re missing out on Mexico, but Oh well.”

And the “Oh well” there clearly said “well you’re missing out on really living in Mexico, but that doesn’t really matter for an unadventurous, pathetic grunt like you”.

Now, possibly I am hypersensitive on this issue, but only because I really have agonised over it and part of me does feel like I’m missing out.

The thing is, I couldn’t live in Mexico City – it would be an impossible, crazy commute without a car. So what I am missing out on is living in my local town or one of the villages up in the hills. Both of which would be cool in different ways, and the commute would be conceivable, but on the other hand it’s not exactly difficult for me to get there from here by bus or taxi if I want to hang out in either place.

So am I missing out on being part of a Mexican community? I guess I am. But I’m not convinced that moving out and living on my own somewhere would suddenly make the difference and I’d develop an exciting new circle of friends.

I have sat and listened to friends of friends singing heartbreaking and uplifting Mexican folk songs. Almost every day I eat lunch with my Mexican colleagues/friends and they tease me about taking me out to eat brains and how delicious eyeballs are, and we play ping-pong and I lose less badly than I used to. I have taken part in a pre-Hispanic ritual with weeping Mexicans (one of the things I’m going to write about). I buy fruit and fish and cheese and bootleg music at the market. I dance to norteño and salsa music with Mexican colleagues when we hold Friday after-work parties, and play appalling pool, and eat tacos.

But, you know, Mexico, it’s passing me by.

It’s true that I don’t go out carousing much in the evenings, and I’d like to carouse more. Some people seem to arrive in a place and immediately accumulate a circle of cool, up-for-it buddies to go out drinking and dancing with. I don’t have that knack, I just don’t seem to work like that and I have no idea how to and I am a little bit jealous. But would a new house make the difference?

Bugger Git for reopening this particular anxiety.

Also, Shakira (who I love and would LOVE to see live, especially here in a Latin country) is playing on my birthday. In London. Since learning that the things in ‘Ironic’ are not actually ironic I’m a bit afraid of using the term, but nonetheless I believe that is an example of irony at its finest.

Spleen vented. I will now go away and sort out photos and compose proper posts and start catching up with my mountain of emails. Oh, and clean out my hamsters.

And make a voodoo doll of Git.