Why We Left an Anthology of American Women Expats

by Janet Blaser

  A few years later I began bodyboarding, taking lessons from a local guy; that turned into surfing, something I’d always wanted to do but never had the time or money for. I was 55 when I started surfing on a surfboard, and it has filled my life with a delirious joy that’s unmatched by anything else.

  Then, suddenly, I saw more writing on the wall: change, big change, was coming again. My Social Security could start and I wouldn’t have to work anymore. I put my magazine up for sale and within six months it was bought by a Canadian expat who’s excited to take it into the future. It felt like I was done with Mazatlán.

  About a year ago, I moved to a tiny pueblo six hours south, on the coast in Nayarit, north of Puerto Vallarta. They say the population is around 3,000; most of the locals are related to one another in some way. There’s a small year-round group of expats, and maybe a couple hundred snowbirds that come for only four months or so, mostly French Canadians who drive big RVs here to escape the cold winters.

  It’s a much different life than how I’d lived for the past 11 years in Mazatlán and I often feel like I’m a “newbie” once again. I’ve had to learn anew where and how to register my car, get a phone line, pay my electric bill and register with this state’s immigration office. I knew two people when I moved here; one a long-term friend for 20+ years from California, who spends five months a year in nearby Sayulita; the other, his girlfriend, is a local woman who, thankfully, has taken me somewhat under her wing.

  I’m 62 now, and it’s awkward, at this age, to realize you don’t know basic things about how to conduct your life. Where can I get keys made? Which is the best mechanic? Is there a vet in town? Where’s the nearest bank? Is there dependable mail service—or mail delivery at all?!

  After more than a decade of living in Mexico, I’ve become a little cynical. I don’t rush to watch the sunset every night anymore, or think everything is great here, because it’s not. There are issues in this country too, not just in my everyday life, but in the systems, the culture, the politics, the deep-rooted dynamics between men and women, between rich and poor. And like that old saying, “Wherever you go, there you are,” well, here I am, still and again, with my own personal set of challenges to deal with. I find I have less patience with “newbies” who come here and think “everything Mexican” is wonderful; again, it’s not. I’ve also come to realize that all sorts of people come to Mexico, for all sorts of reasons, from all sorts of places. And just because we speak the same language doesn’t mean we’ll necessarily be friends, or even relate to each other. That was hard for me in the beginning, maybe because I’d come from a relatively small, close-knit community of like-minded people. Now I don’t expect to connect with everyone, and the friends I do make are precious. Quality over quantity, I guess.

  I still can’t find underwear here (tops or bottoms) that will do what it’s supposed to, or is made from the fabric it’s labeled to be, and have found most clothing that’s “Hecho en Mexico” is really low quality, as are many other products: kitchen utensils, pots and pans, towels, sheets, vitamins, shoes. I don’t buy into the way of thinking that there’s “more fresh produce here;” my experience as a food writer and with farmers’ markets taught me otherwise, that Mexico uses some of the highest levels of pesticides and hormones in the world, and in vastly unregulated amounts. All those pretty piles of tomatoes, onions and peppers? Commercially grown, full of chemicals. Unless you’re buying from a farmer who says it’s organic—and many of the smaller ones can’t afford to grow any other way—it’s not. I’m fortunate in that the area where I live has lots of small, organic farms and a thriving culture of conscious eating, and that’s one of the reasons I like it here.

  Yet for all the challenges, I can’t imagine living in the U.S. any more, despite the heartstring pull of grandkids (Three so far!) and the deep comfort of being around my adult children. When I visit, it doesn’t feel like home anymore; I am indeed a visitor. My kids laugh at my “Mexican accent,” whatever that means. I know I’ve changed—I see it in so many ways—and hope that it’s mostly for the better. I’m more calm, more accepting, more patient. I’m not as attached to material things (although I still get excited about Target, Ikea and Trader Joe’s) and am more open to plans changing or having to wait. When I think about who I would be if I’d lived the last 12 years in the U.S., I’m so grateful and so glad I didn’t, and that I’m not that person.

  Living in Mexico has also made me humble. I don’t see how else you can survive here, without a healthy dose of humility each day, in almost every exchange. You learn to expect that you’re going to make mistakes, and the only way to learn and move forward is to do exactly that: Learn and move forward. After all, I’m the foreigner here; the clueless one struggling to use the correct pronoun in a simple sentence.

  This past spring I visited my grandchildren for a month; it’s the longest I’ve stayed in the U.S. since I moved. The youngest, not yet two, loves the Disney animated film “Moana,” that’s based on a Hawaiian creation myth about the island of Maui and is more sophisticated than you’d think. Often we’d snuggle on the couch and watch it together, and one afternoon, I realized suddenly the lyrics to one song: “You may hear a voice inside ... And if that voice starts to whisper, to follow the farthest star, remember that voice inside is who you are.”

  That song had always pulled at me, and I never really understood why. Once I heard the lyrics, though, I got it: That’s what drew me to Mexico; that’s what I’d heard: That voice inside I’d somehow, thankfully, had the courage —and the chutzpah—to listen to.

  Janet Blaser has been working as a writer, editor and publisher for almost 30 years, at daily, weekly and monthly newspapers and assorted other publications and projects in and around Santa Cruz, California. She moved to Mexico 12 years ago and has never looked back.

  From her current home in rural Nayarit, Janet is learning how to be retired and a grandmother, surfing whenever she can, tending a wild garden and doing a bit of freelance writing here and there. The idea for this anthology came from the peaceful luxury of finally having time to contemplate, create and just “be.”

  21. “Poco a Poco”

  Cat Calhoun

  San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato

  The kid from next door was over at my house and we were playing at top-speed like kids in their single-digit years do. We were tearing through the house when an image on the television my father was watching stopped me in my tracks. Neil Armstrong was saying, “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” Neighbor kid was unimpressed, but I was mesmerized and felt like I was glued to the living room floor. My dad took me by the hand and I sat on his lap, watching with him as history opened before us.

  After that, we never missed a launch, a splashdown or a televised transmission from Earth’s tiny pocket of outer space. Even as a child, I was constantly amazed at the expenditure of energy it took to break out of this planet’s gravity well, followed by the relative ease of movement that came after the escape. This has been my experience of moving to Mexico as well.

  Though my wife and I had talked about moving out of Austin, Texas for several years, we’d never mustered the energy to get it going until the U.S. election of 2016. We watched in horror as the map turned ever more red. Though we had both obviously lived through Republican administrations and congresses in the past, this was different: the rhetoric of intolerance and hatred fueled this election and it was frightening. This became the rocket fuel we needed to break out of our gravity well of comfort in the United States.

  The morning following the election our planning began in earnest. The bones of the plan included selling our house and our “stuff,” saving as much money as possible in the meantime and then leaving the country. Though there were many places in the world we could have gone, I’d had a long-time love affair with Mexico. I’d majored in history in college with a special emphasis on Mexico, and I’d followed it up with multi
ple trips across the Texas/Mexico border, mostly to the town of Guanajuato. Two months after the election my wife and I made our way there and she fell in love with it, too. We came back home after a 10-day stay and began to put our plan into motion.

  “Poco a poco.” We’ve heard this over and over again since we’ve been in Mexico; “little by little.” Over the course of the 15 months it took us to complete the move, this is how we progressed: poco a poco. We updated our house for a better selling price and donated or sold our combined century’s worth of acquisitions. We learned all we could about emigrating to Mexico, read expat blogs and researched where we wanted to land upon our arrival. While the original fear served as a powerful booster rocket to launch us out of “someday” and into “let’s get this done,” it became clear early in the process that fear was not a sustainable fuel source for the day-to-day tasks needed to move out of the country. We deliberately shifted our focus from “running away” to “moving toward.” We became excited about learning Spanish, immersing ourselves into a new culture, living on less and having more time to enjoy each other’s company, create art and travel.

  Before a rocket leaves earth, aeronautical engineers work hard to make the craft as light as possible so that it can leave the ground and reach orbit. Like those engineers, our task before leaving was to seriously lighten our personal payloads. While we could have simply put our stuff in storage, rented the house out and walked away, we were looking for a total lifestyle change which included living with less in order to have a more mobile lifestyle.

  It took a tremendous amount of personal effort, a few squabbles, many doubts and reassurances, a lot of planning and an increase in our respective spiritual practices to complete the move. To further complicate matters, my mother-in-law segued from independent living to assisted living during this time. Because my wife is an only child, care-giving and arranging care fell to us. We not only moved ourselves, but my mother-in-law too, which meant we had to sell her stuff, acquire her visa permanente, and find assisted living in Mexico that would accommodate her physical and emotional needs. This meant changing our target location from Guanajuato City to San Miguel de Allende, as there is no assisted living facility in Guanajuato.

  Even after all our efforts, the paperwork we needed for my mother-in-law and the cats wasn’t ready by the time we closed on the house sale. We lived in two temporary houses in Austin before the paperwork was done. We finally drove away from Austin, owning only what was packed in the car, about six weeks after the final sales and donations were finished.

  So now I sit here at my kitchen table in San Miguel de Allende on a cool, rainy morning while my old friends in Austin are enduring the usual scorching summer heat and drought. While life here definitely isn’t Disneyland and not what I imagined it to be, it is nevertheless amazing. Since coming to Mexico I find that I have more free time to enjoy my life and to create. I have rediscovered art, after many years of denying myself time to sketch and create because so much needed to be done all the time in order to sustain a small business and an income that paid the Austin bills. I walk more. The city I now live in is more compact than most in Texas. I can walk to Centro (downtown) in 20 minutes, or I can take a bus for seven pesos (currently about $33 cents). If the weather is bad or I have a lot to carry, I can hop in a taxi for $50 pesos (about $2.50).

  I eat better, too. I relied on a lot of processed foods in the U.S. because they were easy and faster and that worked better for our hectic lifestyle. Now I walk to the mercado a few times a week and load up on an incredible amount of fresh foods for just a few dollars. Because life is more relaxed here, I have the time to cook delicious meals made from fresh produce. I can feel the difference in my body. I have less pain, more energy and better digestion now than I have in decades. I’ve rediscovered my love of cooking and enjoy my time in my traditional Mexican kitchen with its delightful views of the city and the mountains beyond.

  A few days ago I was sitting on my terrace painting a couple of pieces of furniture we’d bought on a trip to Michoacán. The paint was going on in thin coats and I had a moment of the old “hurry up and achieve” panic, but it was more from habit than necessity. Then I remembered, “poco a poco.” There is no rush. Take it slow and steady and you’ll get it all done without stress. I think this is one of the things I love best about Mexico. And it just might be the biggest reason I never intend to live in the United States again.

  Cat Calhoun currently resides in San Miguel de Allende where she lives with her wife and two demanding cats. She is a licensed acupuncture professional with a masters degree in acupuncture and oriental medicine. Cat and her wife, DeLora, write a blog about moving to and living in Mexico and the personal and spiritual transformations that have ensued. Read more at http://www.mexiconofilters.com.

  22. “NYC to CDMX”

  Diana Kurland

  Mexico City, Distrito Federal

  To say why I left America, or, actually, to say why I moved to Mexico, we need to go way back to where I was born and raised: the San Fernando Valley, a 45-minute drive northwest of Los Angeles, California. I lived a lower middle-class life with my mother, a schoolteacher, born and raised in Scotland, and my father, who was from Brooklyn and worked as a salesman in a department store. I had mostly white friends except for a couple of girlfriends of Mexican descent. These girls never spoke Spanish to us, at school or after. They did speak Spanish, but only at home with their parents and grandparents, as the climate at the time and even today in some places is that the U.S. is an English-speaking country and it was, and is, the only language that should be spoken in public.

  In middle school, starting in seventh grade, students were required to choose a foreign language, either Spanish or French. To me it was obvious only Spanish made sense. So, there I was on day one in Mr. John McClintock’s Spanish 1 class. I don’t know how any of the other students felt, but I was enthralled! I had a feeling that Spanish was going to be the key to another culture, another world.

  I continued my study of Spanish through high school and college. Every class was exciting for me, and I minored in Spanish with a major in sociology. My mother had leftist politics in Scotland and brought me up with concern for the less fortunate, which is how I viewed Mexicans when I was in college in the San Fernando Valley. My friends and I were supportive of Cesar Chávez and his efforts in the farmworker’s movement of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s.

  After graduating from college in 1972, I moved to Boston. For five years I rarely spoke Spanish to anyone. I then returned to California and decided to get my teaching credentials, which I did with a master’s in special education (deaf and hard of hearing). Deafness is a minority disability, meaning there were fewer teaching positions available when I graduated. So when I saw a big ad in the local newspaper seeking bilingual teachers for the Oakland Public School District I applied, was evaluated as to my ability to speak and write Spanish and was hired to teach first grade. I was thrilled!

  That first year was difficult, as I was learning how to teach and doing it in two languages. What I remember distinctly was how sweet and respectful my young students were. Their parents, often illiterate in their native language, had high aspirations for their children. As the “teacher” I was often invited to family get-togethers. I taught in the students’ primary language while providing an hour a day in English. This was one of a number of different ways bilingual education was taught in the California schools. A third of the class were English speakers.

  After three years of teaching in Oakland, I moved with my children to Albuquerque, New Mexico. Surprisingly, there was no bilingual education there, and I taught my Mexican-American students only in English. When I would get an occasional child from Mexico I would use Spanish with them.

  I taught kindergarten and first grade in the poorest part of Albuquerque. In terms of grids, that was the Southwest, where there were chickens and even an occasional horse in the yard. I felt like
I was in Mexico and had some of my best teaching years there.

  I moved with my children back to California in 1998 and taught again in Oakland. In 2005, after I’d received my nursing degree, I began working as a nurse at Highland Hospital, where I saw some of my former families from my teaching years.

  In 2009 I moved to NYC with my youngest child, who’d been accepted to Pratt Institute to study fashion design. I stayed in Manhattan for the next seven years, working as a nurse in the psychiatric ER and then detox at Kings Country Hospital. There I encountered some Spanish-speaking people, mostly from Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, and I was the go-to nurse on my units when they needed a translator. I loved that and was fond of the patients I took care of.

  By 2016 I was of retirement age but continued working an additional year when my daughter gave birth to my first granddaughter. I wanted to be around her for a little while. Retirement in New York was out of the question, though, due to the high cost of living. Plus I’d grown weary of the very cold winters there.

  The only country I considered for my retirement was Mexico. This was because Mexico was close to the United States, where I have family in both New York and Oregon. In addition, the weather is, for the most part, warm and sunny, which was like California where I grew up and is what I prefer. Cost of living was, of course, a major factor as well. I have Social Security and a pension which allows me to live well in Mexico and not have to constantly worry about money as I did in the States, even when I was working. And, finally, though these reasons are all about equal, there was the Mexican culture; the language, the art and architecture, the music, the food and the warmth of the people, even toward strangers.

  About a year prior to moving, I went to Mexico to look around. I visited Oaxaca and loved it but felt like it was so indigenous that I would never feel I belonged. Puerto Escondido seemed really poor to me, with lots of people begging on the street, and I didn’t want to be a “wealthy,” relatively speaking, expat in their midst. Plus the waves there were super-strong so my plan to swim daily didn’t seem realistic. The only other time I’d been in Mexico was when I was 20, for a short visit to Mazatlán; a friend got stung by a scorpion so the trip was aborted after two days, as he insisted he needed an American doctor. I’m sure he didn’t. Mexico City seemed good; I stayed in two different, beautiful Airbnb’s. But I thought I wanted a smaller town or pueblo, and Mexico City seemed too big and congested for me.