I'm Not Helping

At the San Diego airport, on our way back to Eureka, I was browsing magazines at a newsstand, standing near another woman. "We look at the same magazines," she said, smiling, and we started chatting. She was on her way back to Oahu, where she lived; I explained I had just bought a house in Mexico.

She pulled out a house magazine. "Are you able to help some of those folks down there?" she asked.

I bristled. "Well, I like to meet people and connect with them," I said. "I don't know about 'help.'"

I didn't go into my soapbox, because I had only just met her and she meant well. But here's my riff on "helping." I am not living in Mexico in order to "help" people. I'm there to experience a different way of life, to immerse myself in another culture, language and world-view.

Besides, I could use plenty of help. In Mexico I notice, repeatedly, how inflexible and impatient and...don't tell anyone...arrogant I can be.

Of course I hope my being there will be positive for others; I hope I will do no harm. But I will be as "helped" as anyone will be helped by me. Even when I think of "service" roles I could play, like, for example, leading pro-bono workshops on goal-setting to the staff of a domestic violence agency, I don't think of it as "service." As soon as I call it service, I feel separate, like I'm a "good person" doing something for these poor folks who need me or someone like me. And they'd better be grateful, too.

Nope, doesn't work for me. I want to offer my skills, and I hope they'll be beneficial--but by the same token, I also want to improve my Spanish, get to know people, make friends, and learn from others. The benefits go both ways.

Back at Our Other Home

The flight out of LAX is bumpy. A few minutes after we're airborne, the pilot announces that one of the baggage compartments has not been fully shut, so we will have to return to the airport to close it. "Too bad we can't just open a window, bend over and bang it shut," I joke to Barry. According to the pilot, it's a simple problem, but it still prolongs our flight an extra hour. We try to call SuperShuttle in Eureka to alert them to the delay, but get a recorded message. By the time we arrive at Arcata-Eureka Airport, it's 12:30 a.m. and no SuperShuttle in sight. Fortunately, we know another couple on board who give us a ride to our apartment. The advantages of a small town.

It's freezing! A day earlier a huge windstorm apparently caused power outages all over the county. I unlock the door to our apartment and climb the stairs to the second-story living room. There they are! Our nuzzling elephants, the wall-sized print called "Elephants in Love," they who have been our living-room shepherds for six years. I ordered the print directly from the artist, Wallace Ting, in Paris. My eyes take in our home. The blond dining room table we bought at a discount store in Palo Alto. The rose-red rug I brought from a vendor in Kazakhstan three years ago, when I was there leading a series of trainings. The lime-green and violet desk and office shelves I painted after taking a Feng Shui class. Above the desk, the print of kimonos hanging on a clothesline that's tied to cherry trees. When I look at the kimonos, I feel like I, too, am a beautiful garment swaying gracefully in the breeze on a fragrant spring hillside.

.....

Now, we've been back in Eureka for three days. I've gone through all the familiar re-entry litanies: turned the gas back on, revelled in daily queenly baths, picked up the mail, checked my messages, visited all my favorite food stores, bought foods I can't buy in Mexico, pumped up my tires and taken my bicycle out for a ride.

I can't stop myself from comparing.

Our kitchen in Eureka, small as it is, works for me better than ours in Guanajuato. Things are more accessible here. I blame myself. I can't seem to measure the right elevations for shelves in Guanajuato, I keep getting it wrong. I talk to Barry. "We'll figure it out," he assures me. He loves technical problems.

It's so much easier to get furniture in the States, and it's usually less expensive than in Mexico. It annoys me how costly furniture is in Mexico. And bulky, and heavy.

There's so much more selection and availability of food here. I feel happy to have access to it for awhile, and frustrated that I can't have it in Mexico. I don't feel at my most creative when cooking in Mexico, because I don't understand a lot of the local ingredients. I'm not sure I want to learn how to cook all those chilis, anyway. I'm not in love with Mexican food, I prefer Asian. I end up eating a lot of lentil and split pea soup in Mexico.

It sure is nice to drink tap water and not have to disinfect vegetables. And to be able to just toss toilet paper into the toilet.

It's New Year's weekend and suddenly my days loom emptily in front of me. Of course I can't expect my friends to turn around their schedules as soon as I get home. But I want them to! I want them to be thinking about me and calling me and telling me they can't wait to see me! One person did leave me a message, but I want more messages, more people calling me.

I'll have to take the initiative if I want to see people.

I have coffee with a friend and hear about how good her life is. She has healed several misunderstandings with others. She tells me about the intimate women's dinner at a mutual friend's home that I missed, how much fun it was. As she talks, I feel tears build up behind my eyes. I'm happy for her. She has close friendships and the sense of community and belonging that I'm looking for in Guanajuato. That, uh, I looked for in Eureka. Will I find it in Mexico? Or will the cultural differences be too wide? Was it a mistake to leave Eureka? (Wait a minute--I haven't left Eureka. Or have I?) Everyone who moves to Humboldt County from the big valley cities of the south raves about the life here; they feel so fortunate to have discovered this eccentric, affordable, scenically wild pocket of California. Why is it not enough for me?

She asks me about my life in Mexico. At first I stumble and lose my way, not sure what to say. She persists. She sticks with me, she's really interested. Eventually I find my voice again and the details spill out. When I tell her we are thinking of driving our van down sometime this year, transporting our bikes and our portable hot tub (our "spa-in-a-box"), her face scrunches up. "If you take your van, it feels like you're really leaving. I don't want to lose you," she says. "I don't want to lose you, either," I say. There are so many people I have left.

After our coffee, I drive home in our dowager Miata. It's late afternoon in December, and ribbons of light pierce the mist over Humboldt Bay.