Why We Left an Anthology of American Women Expats

by Janet Blaser

  14. “Rebirth”

  (A series of blog posts)

  D’ana Baptiste

  Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco

  I feel helpless. Gutted. No phone conversation or in-person exchange could ever, ever, get to the root of how I feel. Processing this abandonment will have to be done alone.

  For the first time since I started my working life, I’m not running a business and have no clue what job I’ll have next. I’m in a tunnel, the space between, a space created by default. On my fiftieth birthday, my business, my livelihood—what and who I was in the world—was ripped violently and suddenly away from me by people I loved and trusted.

  The wave of nauseating social media filled with lies and misrepresentations and hatred began to truly crush me. The vapid emojis, hollow one-liners and patronizing well-intentioned memes didn’t really help me feel any better. In fact, I felt guilty about not feeling better. I realized that moving through this “space” will have to be done outside of the realms of social media.

  Life has stopped. I am swallowed whole. I’ve disappeared into the belly of the whale. No breath, no light, no air, no reprieve. While I was busy cleaning up the mess of what had happened, I mistakenly thought my pain was just boxed up all neat and tidy; something I could store in my attic and forget about.

  But that’s not how this works. Contrary to popular belief and a culture that perpetuates numbness—I can’t move it or shake it or drink it or chase it or throw it or bury it. The only way out is through.

  I chose to retreat to Yelapa, Mexico to move through it. To feel and write and cry and sleep and walk and swim myself, breath by breath, out of the well of grief in which I was submerged, out of the public eye.

  These are my musings, the lessons I slowly learned from the people and the place that is Yelapa. These are how I renegotiated my relationship with yoga. These entries are my way of coming back to myself.

  Water Taxi

  The only way to get to Yelapa is on a water taxi, after flying into Puerto Vallarta. You can also travel around the small bay by water taxi, if you decide you don’t want to walk through the pueblo. (There are no cars and no roads in Yelapa.)

  Water taxis are not only a great way to travel, they also provide entertainment value. Especially when full of tourists. Part of my daily routine at the beach is to watch the travelers disembark the boat after it pulls up on the beach. One thing you can count on is that at least one person will fall into the surf, get wet, lose their flip-flops, soak their beach towel, watch their sunglasses drift away or get stuck in a spontaneous yoga pose halfway in the water.

  What’s amazing about this process is that everyone is smiling, laughing and even posing as they attempt to get out of this boat “safely.” Back in the U.S.A., if we fell while trying to exit a boat, we’d be furiously blaming and taking legal action, vowing to get even with the company who dared to get our feet wet. We’d demand safety measures, outfit everyone with a life jacket and helmet, hire people to escort everyone safely off the boat and petition for new laws against allowing companies to put people in such danger.

  Here in Mexico though, getting out of the water taxi becomes a part of the adventure. An immersion into a culture that does not provide safety rails. Here, we fall from the boat on our asses, in front of a beach full of people. Here, rather than getting embarrassed, we laugh along with the spectators and actually … have fun. We have fun falling. We laugh as we watch our flip-flops washing down the shore. We wave at the people on the beach laughing with us. We acknowledge our klutziness as we realize we’re entirely okay.

  Maybe we’re all craving a respite from surety. A rest from our guardrails and safety rules. Maybe we crave an opportunity to fall, even to be seen falling. Maybe we need a reminder that even when (or if) we scrape a knee or bruise a butt cheek, we’re alive. We’re living. We’re falling and we love it.

  Thoughts Upon Waking

  So here I am, crushed and annihilated and heartbroken. Alone in Mexico. I wish I could hire a doctor to surgically remove the heaviness. I wish I could lift it or hold it or throw it into the sea. I wish there were a shortcut to send these feelings off into the stars where I never have to see them or feel them again. But I can’t get rid of any of it.

  I wake up to the memory of the 13 people who, a year ago, began planning to steal my business from me. In a series of secret meetings and with a lot of pressure and monetary reward promised, the instigator of this devious plan convinced two-thirds of my staff, men and women I felt were my family, to stab me in the back. They agreed, because if they didn’t all do it then no one would get the financial reward to help her steal my yoga studio right out from under me. My life’s work.

  They staged a “lock out” on my fiftieth birthday so they could spread the lie that a beloved studio that had served the community for 12 years had closed for good. They believed I would go under within a few days, without enough teachers and support staff. They encouraged the community to stop supporting not only me but all of the instructors who chose to stay. They systematically spread egregious lies, telling students I’d gambled the payroll away, or didn’t pay them or that I was losing my mind. They defended their very non-yogic actions by claiming they were doing this for me because they loved me.

  I was publicly humiliated. My integrity was impugned; my reputation slandered. It was particularly unfathomable and shocking because the people who set out to destroy everything I’d invested in for the last 12 years of my life were the very same people I thought of as family. People who’d celebrated my birthday with me a week before the planned walkout.

  I wake up every morning wondering how they spent time with me, hugging and dancing and laughing with me, without giving away what they were about to do. Long-time students/friends/colleagues I’d gone out of my way to support and accept. I never saw it coming.

  I wake up every morning wondering what I did to warrant this level of betrayal. And then I move from wondering to intense waves of self-doubt. I doubt my ability to be in this world. I feel stupid. I feel worthless. I feel expendable; wadded up and thrown away.

  All of this remembering occurs before I open my eyes. I force myself to notice where I’m at today. The ocean is there for me. She’s constant, she’s real and she’s inviting me into her warm embrace. A quick swim will do me good, so I run down the stairs to the water, and dive in.

  Doors

  I spent the day in Puerto Vallarta today. Started to notice the way every door seems to have its own personality. Lack of uniformity here leads to quiet expressions of singularity. The buildings themselves seem to exude an interesting history; an invitation to step through the door and find out what awaits me.

  People leave their doors open more often than not, and tend to hang out in their doorways, beckoning my gaze toward their open door, welcoming a glimpse into their transparent lives. I notice how people here aren’t putting on an act. Their smiles are real and their laughter, genuine. Their willingness to include me makes me want to know them better, each of them in their own unique way.

  As I walk through the neighborhoods it dawns on me that it’s not complex understanding I crave, it’s simple connection. I love being in the presence of someone who isn’t trying to sort me out, define me or best me. I love experiencing the shy wave from the old man smoking his cigar, the playful hola from the little girl on the sidewalk, the quick story from the shopkeeper selling me a fan. The interest they show me makes me feel like I matter to them. People here seem simple only because they lack pretense.

  I believe a lot of Americans see this culture in a one-dimensional way; dismissing it as “too simplistic,” as if there’s nothing to learn here. As if we’re still missionaries out to bring all of our knowledge and superiority to them, these “simple” people.

  But here, even the doors prove that theory wrong.

  Sounding Time

  Water taxis bounce over the sea
this morning to wake me. I realize it’s 7:30; the first taxi of the day is headed out from the pier. The sky is still dark. Every day there’s difference in where and when the sun shows herself. A natural, non-fabricated change that introduces difference softly, reassuringly, not harshly.

  I roll over to wake and feel the thick, salty air move through the mosquito net. With no TV and spotty internet, the sunrise becomes a major attraction, one I don’t want to miss.

  Wrapped in my warm blanket, coffee in hand, I watch, I listen, I feel and begin writing. It’s cold today. My hands keep cramping up. Small snails have appeared on the rocks along the shore. Jellyfish are visible in the gray sea; billowy clouds cover the sky. The rhythm of the horses, mules and donkeys carrying their workloads is the perfect backdrop for my musings.

  It’s 8:30 a.m. now, and I know this because the water taxi is stopping to pick up passengers from Playa Isabel, a small beach just steps away from my casa. People bound for Puerto Vallarta jump in, braving the surf, because everyone gets their feet wet getting into and out of the water taxi. It’s an adventure I’ve loved from the first time I had to do it.

  I can now differentiate other sounds. I can tell when a water taxi bounces past, or when a fishing boat slowly floats by. The sound of the surf on the rocks changes at low or high tide. The intensity of the crashing of high tide is easy to hear.

  The ocean doesn’t drown out the songs of the parakeets, the arguments of the crows and the remarks of the jays but by this time of the morning the birds are quiet. The seagulls, however, squawk all day long. A heavenly sound; one I’ve grown to embrace. The turkey vultures, perched on top of black rocks, have full conversations.

  My mind is full of wonderings now. I wonder if pelicans make any sound. I don’t want to Google the answer. It’s not about knowing the answer. It’s about letting myself stay in wonder. Curiosity feels good to me, so I let it lead me for a while. Having no answers empowers me somehow. When people ask me what I do, who I am, where I’m going next, I feel the pressure to offer an appropriate answer. The answer of a 50-year-old. A responsible adult.

  So I say, “I don’t know.” And my soul smiles. This is a time when I sound like a mess.

  The 9:30 a.m. water taxi has just pulled up to Playa Isabel. This marks my day in the way the alarm at 5 a.m. used to. There’s no clock here, so I keep time by water taxi. Which means it’s time to walk to town for breakfast. I still want to know if pelicans make noise.

  The Path

  The path through town, although literally set in stone, is cobbled and uneven. The width varies, sometimes only wide enough for one person and then opening up again. The path is impeded daily by various elements.

  Dogs and cats, sunning themselves, stretch out for me to step over. Piles of wet cement often greet me as I get to the edge of the pueblo. A delivery of eggs or bottled water or cases of beer may show up to block my path. The four-wheelers, the mules, the horse shit and the dog shit (although it gets cleaned up daily) are also present to keep it interesting. The obstacles keep me alert and give me the opportunity to actively engage with my surroundings.

  There are natural and daily obstacles here that feel benign, and yet when looked at from our antiseptic, totally measured and manicured lifestyles can seem threatening. Back in the U.S., it’s easy to check out. We’ve uniformed everything. We demand smooth highways, even sidewalks, level floors. We value consistency above all else, confusing this for integrity. We end up ossifying and become hardened in our need for uniformity. We get rigid and set in our ways. We celebrate those who are the best at being rigidly who they’ve defined themselves to be because it feels reassuring to go to bed and wake up with exactly the same person.

  What is much truer is that we all wake up different. I wake up as a different person than who I was the night before. Last night I finished a book that opened my mind in a way it had never been opened before. Last night no coatimundi woke me. Last night the earth rotated to give me a new and unique relationship with the sun and the moon this morning. The sky shyly offers another glimpse of herself to me.

  This morning the tide is low; there are new snails covering the rocks along the shoreline. The current is flowing in a decidedly different direction than it was yesterday. Today awaits. The cobbled and obstacle-strewn path through the pueblo invites me to walk with both eyes open, blinders off, guard rails missing, safety measures non-existent.

  Sleep

  Tonight, there’s a palpable sense of peace and security I feel as I prepare to sleep alone in my open palapa. I feel “safe,” even in the knowledge my heart is truly broken; sometimes I feel the sharp edges in my dreams. While the initial splintering occurred in an instant (followed by a spectacular and very public free fall) I spent six months scrambling for footing that continued to crumble like sand. I lost my foundation. I lost peace of mind. I lost my name. And I lost a lot of sleep. When it first happened, I would wake myself crying every night for months, becoming so accustomed to my eyes leaking that eventually I slept through it, only to wake to the evidence of dried salt on damp pillows.

  Here in Mexico though, I’ve noticed that I’m sleeping through most nights. My nightly ritual is to say goodnight to the moon and the stars, put the extra blanket on my bed and climb under the covers. There’s not one good strong light bulb in any lamp next to the bed—and they still attract bugs—so I rely on a headlamp for the minutes I can actually stay awake to read under the relative protection of my mosquito netting.

  The waves lull me to sleep as soon as I settle in with my book. The sound of the ocean roars into the open space, washing away any potential “review” of the past. My mind settles into silence, and in that space right before sleep, I find my name. My perfect and true remembrance of me is allowed here. As I sleep, rolling over into another shattered piece of my soul, I am comforted by the salty, thick, night air and the Mexican blanket that I’ve come to believe has love woven into it.

  No Walls

  A palapa is what people live in here in Yelapa. Open-air casas without walls. The ocean crashes right at the foot of this palapa. The ocean breeze keeps the mosquitoes from congregating. The sun wakes me up eventually and gradually. It’s cold every morning, refreshing as I face another day of heat, so I wrap myself up in my beach blanket, snuggle up to my coffee cup, stare out into the abyss that is mama ocean, and an hour goes by.

  This is my new way of practicing presence. I keep my eyes open to watch the pelicans dive, the magnificent frigates (and they are magnificent) hovering, the shimmering sardines jumping out of the sea to paint the surface silver. I wait for whales and dolphins to surface and play. To see a whale breach, to hear the sound of a huge tailfin slapping the sea’s surface. To witness the grace of dolphins as they traverse the bay. To feel completely connected.

  You can’t miss experiencing the world when there are no walls to block it.

  Pie Lady

  I’ve started to consistently live in this different mentality of “You don’t know if you’ll ever get to experience this again.” It’s why I dive into the waterfall rather than simply observe its majesty. Why I kayak by myself even though it scares me. Why I don’t mind living with lizards. And it’s why I eat pie on the beach.

  Yes, pie on the beach. Warm, freshly baked, lovingly offered, pie from the famous pie lady of Yelapa. She and her family walk with Tupperware containers full of warm pie offering it to us tourists in our chaise lounges; those of us who come to Yelapa to eat fish and guacamole and drink tequila shots, but who return again and again for the pie.

  And since she sells eight flavors (apple, banana, cheese, chocolate, chocolate coconut, coconut, pecan and lemon meringue), I of course indulge every day. I can’t say I didn’t gain any weight, only that the weight I did gain was well worth it.

  She’s not going to be around forever and I may never make it back to Yelapa, so I’m going to keep enjoying these tastes of heaven for the pr
esent moment.

  Stairs

  Here in Mexico stairs have their own personality. The stairs I walk daily to and from the beach (a la playa) require my full attention. I’ve started to get to know each step and have even named a few of them. One is tall and wide, another only half covered with cement so one side is higher than the other. The next step is so short your toes hang off it, and the next step shallow enough to have me teetering precariously for a moment. The next step feels deep in comparison. As though I’m stepping into an abyss. Then the stair seems to rise up and meet my bare foot, reassuring my body that it was there all along.

  Each stair offers itself up to me to be known and seen and understood. Each step requires my full presence. The stairwell, a mish-mash of personalities, the very opposite of “formula,” keeps my mind checked in. This to me is the perfect walking meditation. Perfectly manicured Zen gardens, fabricated labyrinths, smooth sidewalks pale in comparison.

  Self-Help

  I know that when I go back to the States I will unwittingly fall into that dangerous game of either/or. I’ll allow myself to be pigeon-holed, sorted and labeled. I’ll feel guilty and ashamed for feeling “negative” emotions like grief, depression, sadness, anger or horror.

  Here, it feels entirely possible that we as humans are capable of feeling all the feelings. Here I witness my capacity to hold a myriad of emotions quite gracefully, all at once. And I want to cultivate that part of me that can hold it all and feel it all. I’m afraid of losing this feeling when I return. It makes me not want to return. Because feeling happy and sad at the same time, peaceful and wild at the same time, makes sense when I’m here. I need this to keep making sense.