Mexico City Update: Living in Three Worlds
It is surreal to say this … March marks the 10th month of living in CDMX.
My last update was in August, which means seven months of accumulated experience that I haven’t had the words for. Or more accurately, have had too many words for. Writing is how I process many things in life, so it felt like time to share an update.
This particular life, in this particular city, generates more to process than anything I’ve encountered in decades. The clearest way I can describe it is this: I am living in three worlds at once, and they overlap constantly, collide occasionally, and almost never fully make sense of each other.
The CDMX World
If you follow me on Instagram, you can get a sense of how artistic and vibrant it is here. But the photos and videos don’t really capture it. It is more like something in the air that has to be expressed as art in some form. Unless you are dead inside, the feeling is unmistakable. Visitors from the US have mentioned it, and in those discussions, the feeling is compared to parts of Austin or New Orleans. Or more isolated mystical places like Taos, Muscle Shoals, Jackson Hole, or Sedona.
Part of that art energy is being expressed as entrepreneurism. The entire city feels like an enormous marketplace, with an endless supply of coffee shops, restaurants, bars, boutique shops, etc. And the less noticeable but highly abundant number of entrepreneurs in professional services, health care, wellness and pretty much every other sector and industry.
Besides those various forms of art, my favorite thing to do here is to have conversations. I’ve connected with several other “local gringos” as well as made some good friends in the consciousness/mindful community. Interestingly, one of my deeper friendships is with my Spanish teacher, Phero!
I enjoy those conversations, but I especially enjoy conversations with strangers. Thanks to WA groups, the app TimeLeft, and serendipity, I’ve conversed with people from all walks of life.
A group of upper middle class Mexican professionals who in many ways were similar to the upper middle class in the US: well-educated, well-fed, well-dressed, and well-resourced. All of them have been to the US multiple times but are not going back because of the current administration. They peppered me with questions about Trump and how it was even possible that someone like him could get elected. It was interesting to explain the electoral college, gerrymandering, the deep influence of Christian nationalism, and the ineptitude of the Democrats (until recently) to mount some sort of resistance.
The conversations with the people I’ve met in the mindfulness/consciousness community are also similar to the same communities anywhere in the world. That community has its own universal language. I’ve met people from the US, Canada, Ukraine, Greece, Italy, Egypt, Syria, the UK, Belgium, Germany, India. And I’m sure I’m missing a few places!
The Mexicans in this community are somewhat amused by the international people; especially from the US. One of my Mexican friends in that community pointed out that you know something is for and by gringos when it mentions “cacao ceremonies”. She said, “To us, that’s like making a big deal about serving hot chocolate or coffee!”One particular conversation with a stranger will stay with me forever…
I was at a restaurant in Roma Norte recently and I noticed that my server spoke English with no accent, but he also spoke flawless Spanish to his team members or other customers. I asked him about it and he told me a bit of his story…
He was 32 and was born in the US to undocumented Mexican parents, which made him a “DACA baby” He grew up in San Jose, CA and learned English in school. Because he was stuck in a paradoxical “permanent temporary” status, he worked in the restaurant industry. He had worked his way up to managing a bar in San Jose. He had a girlfriend, an apartment, a nice truck. He had a social security number and paid his taxes. Last July, ICE agents showed up. He was on their list because he had a DUI in 2014. And although he had no legal issues since then, they arrested him. He was transported to a detention compound (he didn’t know where) for several weeks, which was its own hellish story. He was then loaded onto a plane and flown to Mexico City, a place he had never been and where he had no family or friends. The Mexican government provided some accommodations and transition support, and because he was bilingual, he quickly got a job as a server. Then he pointed out that speaking flawish English was a curse because every time he asked about it, he re-lived what happened to him. His story, amongst many others, is why I find the phrase “I don’t get political” so revolting.
There are challenges here, of course.
Learning the language is the most obvious challenge. I meet with Phero every week for 2+ hours of 1:1 tutoring, and have almost daily immersion situations. And, of course, Virginia and Andre, are very supportive. I’m steadily learning the language. More importantly, I’m learning how to speak it properly, not just memorize words. I am still more comfortable listening or reading Spanish than speaking it, but I am now able to put together longer sentences without resorting to Google Translate.
In an overlap with my inner world, I have to gear up mentally every time I leave the apartment. I deal with varying degrees of rejection sensitivity. Similar to imposter syndrome, you can’t think your way out of rejection sensitivity. In fact, thinking about it just makes it worse. It is an entirely different kind of social anxiety, because what makes me different is so obvious.
I have written before about the other challenge: the noise. There is big city noise, then there is the Mexican version of big city noise. In particular, there is a school across the street from our apartment. So every morning there is a traffic jam as parents drop their kids off. And every morning there is a cacophony of honking. I have felt the urge to make a big sign that says “¿Qué chingados tocas el claxon, cabrón?” (you can translate that for yourself) but that is more of a dark humor coping mechanism than something I’d actually do here.
My Inner World
The challenges mentioned above certainly affect my nervous system and so does the constant stimulation of being here. I’ve found that if I don’t de-stimulate before going to bed, I sleep like shit.In the US, my nervous system was deeply embedded in The System. The rotes, the routines, the particular flavor of American stress were just a thing called “life”. Here, my nervous system has been separated from The System, making it much more raw and sensitive. Further, I don’t have the same coping mechanisms, healthy or unhealthy. If I’m feeling down, there’s no truck to jump in and drive around with the windows down listening to sad country music. Nor is there the “retail therapy” of the temporary dopamine hit of same-day Amazon delivery of shit I don’t need. And I’ve yet to find my oldest soothing device, fig newtons.
There is a different kind of present moment awareness here. Rather than sitting in silence, it is more like riding a horse or a motorcycle. The conditions force a state of being present, which can be quite exhausting. In the US, I could drop into contemplative practice precisely because my surroundings were so known and so stable. Here, I have to work extra hard to create that kind of stillness, which remains something I struggle with.
From a spiritual perspective, I find myself grounding more than seeking; a need for stillness that far exceeds the restlessness I dealt with my entire life. In the US, even the restlessness was somehow comfortable; a known companion operating inside a known system. Here, without the old coping mechanisms and without the familiar cultural container, I’ve had to find ground in a more fundamental way. I create more, explore more, find the edge of things more. In the 10 months of being here, I’ve had more “firsts” than at any time since my early 20s, which says something about what a comfortable American life will do to your sense of aliveness if you let it.
The US World
Recently, my CDMX world and the US world collided. The property terrorism that happened after the government took out El Mencho prompted a lot of texts from family and friends checking on our safety. I pointed out that CDMX is a long way from where that happened and that the clickbait headlines saying “Mexico is on fire!” were sensationalist and also revealing of a prevailing US media bias about Mexico. I also pointed out that a lot of what was considered news was actually AI generated, likely by the cartels themselves. That is just one example of what could be called “educating yourself”. Which is also why the conversations here with Mexicans about the US have been so fascinating.
It is surreal to be working on client projects, being on Zoom calls with clients, promoting Massive offerings in the US — all from a coffee shop in another country. Or to be doing those things all day in our apartment, then going out to walk to the market or to the gym and immediately be immersed in Mexico City. It is as if our front door is a portal. In the US, work and life occupy the same cultural atmosphere; same language, same references, same background hum. Here they are genuinely separate worlds for me, and the switching between them is disorienting.
It is also strange to be witnessing US current events from here. In the US, I was inside the weather; reacting, absorbing, getting pulled into the daily churn of it. From here, I watch it more like a documentary. The distance has not lessened my grief at the collapse of civility and the rise of authoritarianism. However, distance has helped me see the machinery more clearly, which makes my writing sharper and the bullshit nearly impossible to tolerate.
Three Worlds, One Calling
I will confess that there is, at times, a strong temptation to just check out and isolate myself from all of it. I am in one of the most alive cities on earth, building something purposeful with Virginia, doing work I believe in. Checking out would be easy and, honestly, pleasurable. But spiritually, I can’t. For reasons that only God (or your preferred term) knows, it is my calling to be a voice, to blend my work with my convictions. The essays, the frameworks, the defiance, the conversations about conscious entrepreneurship; none of that is separate from what is happening in the US right now. The witness is the work, and I’ve spent too much of my life building toward this to trade it for insulation. Further, checking out is a worse sin than apathy.