Insight of the day

 Insight of the day

Starting with an aside, I am fast getting blinder from old age.  My left eye has always been unreceptive to correction, so now it is relatively worse too.  I actually found ‘dime store’ reading glasses at a strength of +4, which makes things clearer for the right eye, but as a set, everything is blurrier.  It makes it so much harder to read the computer screen.  This is just an added distraction.

What I am actually realizing is more along the lines of preparation.  Looking back since I sold my farm, in 2023, I have been downsizing.  This is not by selection; I have been systematically robbed, generally.  Which means, that which is occurring in preparation for my future is not by conscious plan, but rather because I am blind to the spirit and unwilling to surrender.

I now am living in a borrowed house.  I have been complaining about it since I arrived here.  It is way too cluttered by a dead person’s things, along with the next door relative who borrowed the place for a few years and left more stuff.  The electricity is old and cannot power a fast cell phone recharge (using a cable with two C ends).  When I plug it in, nothing happens.  If I start cooking in the kitchen, using for example a water kettle and microwave at the same time, the fuse blows for the kitchen power.  The kitchen sink water has very little pressure, and no hot water.  In fact, the hot water faucet has no water at all except at selective scheduled times; I have trouble remembering the schedule.  And so forth; the list is long.

What turned the light switch on in my head was making a good spaghetti sauce.  The counter work space is quite small.  Storage for china and dry goods is almost none existent.  I did manage to bring one of my own cupboards here; it is at the opposite end of the house from the kitchen.  I walk the distance often, when food or drink is concerned; fortunately, the distance is not great.  The work counter is so limited, that when I prepare a complicated dish requiring more than for, say, beans and rice, I just don’t have anywhere to put things; I am tempted to put on the floor the dish with the chopped onions while I am grating, or mixing herbs, or chopping.  The curious dogs threaten the hygiene of the process.  To make things worse, I decided to water a dry tray of a seed starter kit, rather than throw it away when it turned up in my packed boxes, too late in the season.  Now it is October, the tomato plants have green balls struggling to survive inside the house, not to die of cold.  The basil plants, which belong in a sunny kitchen window box, are crowded against the tomato branches as close as possible to the tiny piece of sunshine that enters in the morning; that is on this same crowded counter top.

Here are the steps to the denouement.  First, I am blocked from obtaining Mexican citizenship.  If I had that, I could receive a small monthly pension to supplement my subsistence social security check.  I could get a card at the local convenience store; this card makes it possible to transfer money around, like for buying things on line, transferring money to and from personal loans; and myriad other conveniences that I would discover if I had it.  Not having it gives the feeling that I am still an outsider; after 8 years here, most of it with permanent residency status.

I thought I might like to live in Mazatlan.  Well, I knew I wouldn’t, but the trusted guy who has been robbing me systematically over a year, rented this apartment for me in Mazatlan, so I decided that maybe I was wrong, and I would give it a shot.  I survived there a few months before giving up. The landlord still owes me the initial month’s deposit, and supplies for agreed upon improvement.  I tried to change my drivers license from Durango to Sinaloa, where Mazatlan is, to comply with the law.  I could not, for lack of a certified copy of my birth certificate.

Mexican Federal and State laws use the Certified Copy of the birth certificate in many transactions.  I do not have a certified copy of my birth certificate.  I was born in New York State, but when I, over the past five years, have tried to get a copy of that document, using the established processes, I failed over an insurmountable technicality.  These requirements have been added to the process, paranoia lest some alien steal a native-born’s documents and use them for nefarious purposes.   I have gone through many steps.  First, following the on-line application with  instructions and forms.  Then going through the agency Vital Check.  Lastly, an Albany based lawyer.

When the Universe says ‘no’, it really is simpler to just hear it and accept it.  It saves time, energy and money.  And maybe this revelation to my destiny might have come sooner.

And in between my return from Mazatlan and my acceptance of this current tiny cluttered house, I trusted  yet another man here who, after looking at this house, said I would be more comfortable in an empty house he owns.  I believed him with little proof.  While he hired a worker to fix the house up a little, by remounting the water tank on the roof, and installing the solar boiler I had bought, I proceeded with the lengthy process of covering the crude and crumbling living room cement floor with granite, offered by such a nice man named Michael Angelo, right here in this same tiny village.  Granite does not come cheap.  The process took a month, and cost me USD$1,000.  By the end of the month, I would come to realize that the house was unlivable without thousands more invested in it.

By now all my savings are gone.  I am seriously contemplating selling the car I bought in Mazatlan.  A used car, I paid too much for it.  I do not think I could find a fool who will pay that much.  The car is five years old.  I do not know if the paint is the original, but it is terrible, and chips off easily.  In order to sell it, I will have to have it painted, which will probably cost $1,000 US.  I had a car, an SUV convenient for the life I lived on the farm, but now too big and beginning to need serious repairs.  I sold it to a nice man in Canatlan, who needed it for his family.  We made a deal, he would pay me 1500 pesos a month until it was paid off.  I don’t mind living like the other old ladies in this village, depending on younger neighbors with cars to help me get grocery shopping done.  Of course, these younger people are all related, and have a moral/social obligation to help these elders.  This is missing where I am concerned.  There is the bus, the schedule for which is unreliable as it is long-distance service, and a hefty walk back home from the bus stop with a loaded bag of groceries.  The money I gave to the orthopedist for a shot that he said would relieve my knee pain for a year was not well spent. 

Bless you for sticking with me through this depressing summary of my quixotic journey.

Here is my conclusion.  I am downsizing, and learning to live very efficiently, neat and tidy, preparing to move in with someone, or enter a community.  At last I will find a cohort.

I have been blocked from becoming a citizen.  My friendships have been ephemeral.  In spite of living in a house among a cluster of houses, I am still alone.  I try to get the reciprocal cycle of visits going, but no one comes to my door.  I am not included in community events, except when they need money.  These events often have a vague starting time.  Whether I contribute or not, no one ever follows up to make sure I attend.

I have not found suitable housing.  Aside from the clutter that prohibits my bringing in my own furniture, I am not being included in the communal society; I have lived among these people for eight years now.  In spite of my gifts, I have not found an area where I can be of service.  I feel excluded, shut out; I do not belong.

I do not accept that as what I had planned for the last part of my life.  I believe there is something more, a more fulfilling and engaged future.

Now I see the light, and I can with intent prepare for the future that awaits me. 

Let’s check back in six months, and see if this is just one more delusion.