Quality of life

I was siting at 100%. I woke to take a tea on my balcony and marveled at the view. Directly below I could see into secret courtyards scattered with caged parrots and little white dogs, popular despite the fact they always look dirty.
I let my eyes wander the miles of sprawl, where colors melt into one another and stretch to the mountains that take away my breath and not only because they suffocate Mexico City by hoarding the pollution, battling to escape.

I sat and began to read but my 100% standing led to reflection and one conclusion: the fabric of my life is quilted with friends and strangers. The laundry lady who has always known my name and the water man who refuses a tip for carrying 20 liters to my apartment and the woman who starts making my carrot and orange juice concoction before I can say "buenos dias" and the friendly man from the tienda de abarrotes on my walk to a house that should be the plot of a sitcom who sells me random vegetables and caguama refills. Each has his or her greeting and each imbues my life with a sense of community.

Then there are the idiosyncrasies of those closest to me that makes me chuckle during live showings and after the fact. The way a friend talks differently to certain types of people or a love and extensive knowledge of domesticated animals or fake animosity that turns to support as ghosts materialize. These side stories are not peripheral at all. It seems people tend to gauge their life by the big moments, big changes, good or bad, but these, the little everyday bits and pieces, are the wherefore of life and embracing them is the key to joy with pleasure. And joy without pleasure ain't no fun, ain't no fun, ain't no fun.

Boing!

I left my apartment to greet Mexico, cloudless and cold, on this November morning. Near a corner taco stand, a disheveled man walked up to me, grabbed an empty Boing bottle from the establishment's stash of returnables and hurled it in the street.

"Va Mariana!," he yelled as the bottle splattered into glass shards, no doubt destined for neighborhood tires.




I continued undeterred but slightly alarmed. I am reminded of a decade old memory:

I was running the loop of my neighborhood on Lookout Mountain; I pushed through an epic hill to find a copperhead, the width of a grapefruit, sunbathing in the middle of my path. Now, any child of the Appalachian Mountains should be able to tell you that the fatter the snake, the older and, consequently, the more venomous. With few options and little reaction time, I acted as if nothing had changed. Just kept going.