Selling all of our furniture, our cars, our artworks curated over a lifetime.
Selling all of our furniture, our cars, our artworks curated over a lifetime, and donating everything else in order to fit our life into two suitcases and a 5x10 storage unit is not as straightforward as I imagined.
When we finally get on the plane my nerves are ringing like a fire alarm. I sit in my tiny coach seat, nothing to sell, nothing to pack or move or clean, and I don’t know what to do with myself.
My studio is wrapped up tight in climate controlled storage, my suitcase lies in the belly of the plane with (theoretically!) everything I need, and my guitar weeps gently in the overhead bin. I am going to Mexico to take stock of my life, to figure out who I am, and to do what I want.
My first draft said “to get what I want,” but it seems I don’t care that much anymore about getting things. I just care about doing. In the end we will lose everything we’ve got and every person we love. So what do I want to do with the time I have left?
On the Dallas layover we gorge on a middle eastern buffet recommended by Omar, our taxi driver. “I eat there every day,” he says, which is all we need to hear. After this it will be all Mexican all the time, so I put three meals worth of lamb, chicken curry, roasted eggplant, dolmas, tabbouleh, avocado hummus, and tahini on my plate and eat.
The next day we descend through the low clouds towards the green hills of Oaxaca. The cab ride from the airport makes me cry. I love the ragged beauty of this place, the sense of history and persistence and ancient refinement, and I love the people.
We arrive at our place and Paulina and Julián welcome us with blistering warmth. I revel in the fact that I can follow about a fifth of their dancing conversation with June, and even throw in a few broken phrases of Spanish.
I am so, so tired. But I feel like I can rest, and tomorrow get to work.
