jezebelstable – Jezebel’s Table

Meanderings Across Borders

7-2-22

Watching my blonde-haired, blue-eyed, Mexican-born son as he effortlessly negotiates language, race, and class through play, I hold a sand dollar of hope in my cupped hands. Hope that children of the future like him will help change ingrained societal prejudices.

Where I was born, the natives were displaced decades ago, or assimilated into the largely Scandinavian population who inhabit Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

There were a few black children who came and went in our public school system, but other than that, diversity wasn’t something seen in the north woods.

For me, there will always be the unconscious/conscious notice of difference when it comes to race. It’s the framework in which I was raised.

I wish a different world for our son.

I sacrificed many things when I gave birth to Callan in Mexico.

My belly, split open like a ripe melon, our baby plucked from my womb, so he could be born in a new homeland. So that he might see the world through a different lens than his mother and father.

7-19-22

A note to my family; the smell of moss after an autumn rain in Michigan’s woods; the sigh of fresh water on rounded rocks; that particular gold of a northern Michigan summer evening.

I didn’t mean to leave you.

I have some adventures I need to see about.

Some things to do and see and experience

To help me

Make sense

Of this world.

7-27-22

Notes from The Coaster Amtrak train up the California Coast

All around me, a California divided.

Each train stop an encapsulation of how racial socio-economics segregate the United States. The beautiful coastal towns are white and blond. Affluence and skin color buy the best real estate. Homes with the best views. The best schools. Water. Healthcare.

On the outskirts—the margins—cling a motley group of middle class families. White, black, Asian, Hispanic. Their houses butt up to the tracks—a maze of neighborhoods on winding streets. Clinging to the edges of California’s nice neighborhoods as inflation grows, prices climb, gas goes through the roof, and there’s no parking for the cars necessary for jobs that barely hold down the rent-mortgage another month in a neighborhood that used to be affordable.

Those in the middle, slide down the economic scale every year as the wealthier grow richer.

I read an economic report today that said more people are spending only on necessities—nothing extra for their lives given in hard work.

64% of the United States lives paycheck to paycheck.

Juxtaposed against rising sales for luxury items.

Then there’s the rest of the population. The ones who’s numbers grow by the hour. In the same moments corporate offshore bank accounts funnel millions of dollars more than any one person or family will ever need, uncounted families disappear into poverty.

From the train I see homeless encampments—villages—small cities—where the folks who fell off the edges are allowed to make their homes because society doesn’t know what else to do with them.

The wealthy and homeless move around each other in this divided universe.

$500 shoes step carefully around sleeping bodies on the sidewalks.

The train moves away from coastal cities and suburbs. The landscape shifts to agriculture. A nation’s worth of strawberries grown and harvested by “migrant workers.” Men and women allowed to work the soil, but not to hold a place in society.

The train stops in cities named “Santa Maria” and “Santa Barbara.”

We disembark in a picturesque town edged in fields and vineyards full of brown-skinned workers. Cute downtown streets—boutiques, ice cream parlor, brewery, coffee shops—full of white patrons in hiking boots and Patagonia sweaters. A world away, from the reality on the margins.

8-25-22

I cannot follow a recipe

for anything.

It’s as though some part of me rebels at even

these

simple

rules.

9-15-22

I stand at my kitchen counter, cutting a fragrant, ripe, orange-fleshed papaya.

The sweet, milky aroma mingles with the tang of coffee and it’s pleasant, delicious.

Pounding wave sounds wash over a distant skill-saw whine, and occasional car horn.

Pelicans glide above rolling ocean.

It’s a blue, enticing pacific today—personality swings and mood shifts mirrored in color changes and wave strength.

I take a deep breath.

Then another.

This is a lovely moment.

I would say, I’m happy.

But the last two years have taught me to feel leery of such moments.

Tempting fates I don’t believe in but that seem to tangle my threads every time a sense of contentment crosses my heart’s threshold.

Callan is in school. His first day at a new location just outside Tijuana where I hope with every fiber of my being he’s learning and growing from the experience.

He’s only four, but this is his third school and I ache for consistency—for our whole family.

He’s so damn beautiful in his signature sunglasses and flop of blond hair.

“I’m international baby!” Callan shouted when he plunked into his car seat this morning.

A line he heard on a show somewhere.

“What’s international?” He said after a pause, brow wrinkled.

“Well, a nation is a country. The US is a nation. Mexico is a nation. Being from multiple countries means you’re ‘international,’” I explained as I buckled him into his seatbelt.

“You’re international,” I say again, looking into his wide, earnest blue eyes. “You’re from Mexico and the US.”

“I am,” he says proudly, definitively.

9-16-22

Once you realize how subjective it all really is—that’s the moment of freedom.

There are no rules, really.

There is no guide.

Life really is what we make of it.

Choice.

How we fear choice.

The blessing and curse of being human.

Consciousness—we choose to see the world as it is, or we don’t.

Tipped scales against a horizon where the sun is always setting.

Tides, I learned, are a myth.

Really, the water bulges out as the earth turns. There is no rise and fall. No high and low.

Just an illusion we’ve built words and a romantic idea around.

9-18-22

Consciousness is a multi-faceted, sharp-edged jewel.

It makes it both possible, and impossible to fathom our own mortality.

My sweet, beautiful son, four years old, asks me why melons get moldy.

“It’s part of the cycle,” I tell him. “They’re returning to earth, where they came from.”

It makes sense in terms of a fruit, tree, or even animal, but is somehow impossible to contemplate our own place—or the place of the beautiful child before me—within the cycle.

Consciousness of our own mortality, or that of our children, is almost too much to bear.

Our awareness of rot, decomposition, is fearful and separate from our human bodies.

A thought only brought out in lurid books and media.

Relegated to the realm of darkness and the macabre, as opposed to a place within a larger cycle that cares not whether we are afraid, disgusted, in denial, or accepting of our place within it.

Regardless, our fragile animal bodies die and, if not disposed in another way, they decompose.

But why is this considered a dark, depressing thought to entertain, rather than perhaps a sense of satisfaction in fulfilling and completing our part in this glorious cycle we get to participate in as animals on this magical planet?

If not for consciousness.

It’s our own awareness, that makes peace of mind so hard.

10-9-22

I’ve lived in a diverse range of places: my lakeside family home; cabins in the woods; the old Nordic Bay Lodge hotel; dorms; a canvas wall tent for six months; a slew of camping spots and loaned beds and couches; three apartments on a tiny Mexican-Caribbean island and a home with a new baby and ten million mosquitoes; a lovely guest-house in affluent central California wine-country; a “hipster neighborhood” classic-cottage-style home in San Diego’s North Park with no screens on the windows and a bedroom the size of our queen size air mattress for $3000 a month; to our current brick edifice in Rosarito overlooking the cold, dirty, breathtaking waters of the far-north Baja coast.

Before being a nomad, I lived my entire existence in the same house. On the same piece of land. Within the same water-centric world. I can conjure a moment in that place as easily as breathing. The way chickadees call from a tamarack tree on a frozen winter landscape. Where to find morel mushrooms in spring. The aroma of rain-wet maple leaves on a fall day.

What will our son remember?

Callan plucks a gone-to-seed dandelion, and then another.

He hands one to me.

“Make a wish momma.”

We take a deep breath and exhale together, releasing wishes and dandelion seeds into the wind.

Baking Bread with Callan

1 tablespoon yeast.

Granules bounce from the measuring spoon into the stainless steel bowl.

I add sugar and warm water. The yeast begins to bubble.

“Momma!”

I’m startled away from yeast alchemy.

“Hi baby,” I say to the little, earnest, blue-eyed face looking up at me.

“Mess! Mess!”

His rice pudding has spilled, sticky grains of rice scattered around both our feet.

I leave the yeast to do its thing and clean up the spilled rice pudding.

3 cups flour.

Is this where I am in the recipe? Did I add the water yet?

Ok. 3 cups flour. Salt. Oil? Wait…

“Momma!”

“Yes love?”

“Mummummummum!”

“What do you need baby?” I ask, squinting at the recipe book, which is propped up against the toaster.

“Poop!”

“Poop? Oh dear.”

This actually means he’s already in the process of removing his diaper, and I have a matter of seconds before poo is on the floor, his hands, and on its way elsewhere.

“Ok! Coming love! Hold still! No! No! Not yet!” I say desperately as he pulls his diaper off.

I narrowly avert disaster.

Dispose of the dirty diaper. Wipe bum. Put on new diaper. Wash hands.

OK. Now. Where was I?

Salt, flour, stir. Ok.

“Up!”

“What sweetie?” I say, turning the sticky dough over and around with the wooden spatula my father carved for me. He carved “Rosebud”, my nickname, into the handle.

“UPUPUPUP!!!!” Says the imperious, demanding voice below me.

I pick him up. His wispy blond hairs tickle the bottom of my chin, and his little body is hot against mine.

“Me!” Callan says.

I put his little hands around the spatula handle, curling my hand around as a guide.

Together we turn the dough.

Just as my momma taught me.

Our hands holding in the same place my father held as he carved.

Callan looks up at me and smiles.

I’m sweaty, tired, and a bit irritated.

All that disappears with his smile.

I smile back.

The same way my momma did, in that favorite photo of the two of us from when I was Callan’s age, “helping” her in the kitchen.

“Tanks momma,” he says.

“You’re welcome my love,” I whisper into the top of his head. “Thank you.”

An Unconventional Life

A breeze ruffles the guaya tree leaves. Shiny-eyed grackles and mockingbirds cackle and trill, interspersed with mourning dove coos.
Isla sounds.
My husband has the baby, and other than the occasional dog noise, the house is still.
I’m splayed across the kind size bed, body adjusting to the absence of the other, tiny body usually attached, or so close. My mind slides slowly over conversations, moments, memories. A disjointed, non-chronological microfiche.
Some jump in consciousness conjures remembrances from my early twenties—days in the Elmer Johnson Road cabin with The Rock River Farm crew. There are moments, such as this, when my mind struggles to fully grasp the magnitude of difference between my life then, and now. At twenty-three, what I believed my future would look like versus the reality that came to be.
An eight year relationship and marriage; a divorce; a two and a half year abusive relationship; a time of healing and joyful independence; a new beginning, marriage, and son.
It’s hard in many, many ways, from missing family to cultural differences, but I love our pirate life on this strange island in the Caribbean that is Mexico, and is also not.
It’s an interesting crew who wash up on these shores and make a home here, but for the most part they have a good story to tell and a light of perseverance and strength that’s too rare these days.
Callan is growing up in a community of mostly aunties—strong, hardworking, interesting women, and men, who love my son and will help us teach him to be a good man.

I missed an entire Upper Peninsula summer last year because I was very pregnant, and then home caring for a newborn. Returning to Michigan for a visit after missing it so fiercely, everything feels sharper, more acute. I’m overwhelmed by aromas: sweet milky milkweed; warm grasses baking in the sun; perfumed lemon lilies; seaweed-water lake tang; and all that abundance of pine needles, fields, forests of leaves and wildflowers warm beneath a July blue sky.
I don’t have to remind myself to take deep breaths. Instead, I nose the air like a hound, teasing out individual aromas like the orchid-delicate perfume of catalpa flowers, or the faint talcum hint of daisy.
I know I loved and noticed these aromas when I lived in Michigan, but perhaps they weren’t as vivid, masked by close proximity.
In absence, such remembrances sealed into our beings become more vivid—memory stones polished by much handling.
It’s raining, the air turned cool in a moment, petrichor lifting upward as the dry ground exhales in relief.

Because last winter was so cold and long, I didn’t expect the accosting hordes of pests that are wreaking havoc on local forests and gardens alike. Army worms have chewed the leaves into a shadow of the deep green they should be this time of year. When it’s very, very still you can sit in the woods and hear the pitter patter as the worm’s tiny mandibles chew and their poop falls to the ground.
Perhaps in response to global warming’s strange weather patterns or the destructive caterpillars, but everywhere I notice trees heavy with seeds. The cedar outside my bedroom window is loaded with little green nuts soon to brown in late summer sun.
Maple tree branches hang low, stems laden with as-yet green twin seed pods, waiting for the right wind to helicopter them to the ground in their bid for regeneration.

These are things I notice. The Upper Michigan environment is such a part of me. Named, handled, studied, and familiar. After being away, changes become more acute.
My dad’s garden is a fraction of what it should be as the flea beetles chew carefully tended seedlings down to nothing. But it’s mid-July, so there’s plenty of time to recover. Dad carefully attends to each plant, helping ensure their survival. The UP’s late growing season makes for an overwhelming, wonderful, glut of produce at the end of August. Sweet corn, broccoli, potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, green beans, cabbage, spinach, onions, zucchini, and the list continues.
It’s all so familiar, I slide back into this place with a wiggle of glee and joy. Familiar, but also more dear for the absence and longing.
Nowadays, I often ponder my dual blessing and curse of loving and being a part of two such wonderful, but far distant places.
How different they are, and yet each holds a part of me. It’s a beautiful incompleteness, but painful too, because no matter here or there, some little piece is missing.
Maple leaves and sea grapes. Guava trees and apples. Freshwater and salt.

“It’s an unconventional life you’ve built for yourselves,” Ryan’s stepmom, Ellen says to us.
“Thank you,” Ryan and I reply in unison.
He smiles at me in the rear view mirror. I return the smile. A world of words in the meeting of eyes and a turn of lips.
We’re in the car, entering the outskirts of Cancun, returning from an afternoon visit to local cenotes. The traffic is light, but still hectic as lanes are ignored and mopeds, buses, and cars maneuver around one another in orchestrated chaos. I don’t drive in Cancun. I’m ok in city traffic, but I simply don’t understand the rules here. I suspect no one really does.
Ryan does a wonderful job, but it takes a lot of concentration.
In order to reach the cenotes, we drove our car onto the car ferry—a three story boat complete with passenger lounge and decks to watch the undulating turquoise waters below. Moments like this it hits me that we have to take a boat to get anywhere. That I live on an island.
Living in the UP often feels like living on an island—surrounded by water, isolated from access to urban areas, communities of interesting characters. Isolation necessitates innovation, and I see many similarities between my two homes, despite being worlds apart.

We drive to the little town of Puerto Morelos, and turn right onto the Ruta de Cenotes. All along this paved road are cenotes of different shapes and sizes. Cenotes are naturally occurring pools of water created by the porous limestone and collected rainwater. The pools are blue and deep—connecting underground through rivers and tunnels. The water has a hint of salinity, and the pools are round, giving them a decidedly womb-like feel. The waters feel sacred to me—a meeting of the above world and below world.
The cenote we visit has a cave and an emerald above-ground pool with waterfalls and a rope swing. Cenotes are the closest thing I can find similar to the lakes and rivers of Michigan—fresh water that cradled my body, washed my tears, and heard the confessions of my heart.
At the cenote pool, I lay on my back and look up, into the leafy jungle canopy. With my head underwater, I hear little of the voices around me and can almost imagine myself alone. Dragonflies and damselflies of all shapes, colors, and sizes, dart above me. Somewhere below, subterranean rivers run.
I raise my head from the water, and the first thing I hear, is my son’s laughter.

After breakfast this morning, I recite my list of things to do aloud to Callan, “Sweep the floor, do the dishes, writing, shower…Phewwww, lots to do little man!”
“Could be worse,” Ryan says from the porch.
I walk outside and take his face in my hands. Look him in the eyes. Give him a kiss that says all the things.
Callan and I wave as Ryan pulls out of the driveway on the four wheeler—not your average commute to work. He’s off to clean out our old restaurant as we prepare for opening in our new location. Our business that began as a side job making and delivering burritos out of the house is becoming a viable future. Twelve years of schooling, three English degrees, and my husband and I own and run a burrito business in Mexico.
Lots of fodder for a writer.

Callan turns from waving “Adios” to daddy, and returns to taking his coconut in and out of a kitchen pan, and stirring invisible food with a plastic measuring cup.
I return to my desk, and continue writing.
I’m learning to accept the fact that a balanced life, for me, means a foot in two worlds. I’m also unlearning feeling guilty and anxious about stepping away from what, for most of my adult life, I believed was my path.

I take Callan to the beach almost every morning. He runs in and out of the waves, pokes at tide pools, and browns his bare body in early day sun.
I gather up a handful of sand, and as the grains trickle through my fingers—remnants of coral and shells from thousands of years before—I whisper, “Gracias Madre.”
Gracias. For this sweet, unconventional life.

The Rickman Family on The Isla Mujeres Car Ferry

Perspective

It’s all about perspective, you remind yourself…

This little essay is dedicated to my father, Douglas Mills, and my husband, Ryan Rickman.

They teach my how to be a good parent and how to be grateful for what’s around me day to day.

I’m so thankful my son has men like this to be his guides in a complicated world.

***

When I think of things I want to teach my son, the ability to be thankful is one of the most important. It’s so easy to move through our days mindlessly, never noticing what we wear, eat, drive, sleep on, live in, etc. etc. The necessities of daily life can become sunglasses in a dark room to all we have to be grateful for.
Throughout my life, my father has initiated what began as a prayer before dinner, but has morphed into a time of connection, and thankfulness.
The four of us around the antique claw-footed wooden dining room table: me, my mother, father, and little sister. Our plates are full and ready to eat, but first our hands slide into each other’s; my hand into Laurel’s, Laurel’s into Mom’s, Mom’s into Dad’s, and Dad’s into mine. Where once we would’ve bowed our heads in prayer, now we take deep breaths, look each other in the eyes, smile. We look down at the food on our plates: venison, potatoes, carrots, cabbage, lettuce—all harvested by our family. In this moment it is not just food or dinner on our plates, it’s an abundance.
We turn to daddy.
“Thank you for this food, and the hands that prepared it.” He intones softly. He squeezes my hand, and the little squeeze goes around the table. Momma’s eyes are full.
Such a little thing— a little moment, but it seems to me that moments of thankfulness are one of the homes for real happiness: the ability to be grateful—to truly see the bounty. It doesn’t negate struggles and hardships, but provides a new perspective, and through that perspective, a new path to joy even in the midst of struggle.

Your heart races as the list of chores mounts.
Your phone pings with another message—plans you’ll have to cancel if you’re going to catch up on all those emails and the freelance work.
You haven’t showered, or eaten yet, and there’s only so much time until the baby wakes up and needs to be fed.
Feeding is a moment to pause, and you try so hard to take deep breaths and be in the moment, but you’re so tired, and just from where you sit, you can see a dozen chores that need to be done.
Right now, all you can do, is hold this boy child to your breast and breathe.

It’s all about perspective, you remind yourself:

There are crumbs scattered across the table, because you fed people here. Food you prepared nourished your husband, your son, and others.
The living room is messy because your son played here, joy lighting his face as he swept all his toys across the tiles.
In this spot in the kitchen, the floor is carpeted in hair where you swept only hours before; this is where your sweet dogs leaned against your leg, seeking and giving love.
You wash endless dishes because you have money to buy food, and food in your home to cook for family and friends.
You’re tired, but when you lie down to sleep, there is a bed to sleep in, clean sheets, a pillow for comfort, and the arms of your loving partner to rest in.

Good Human

The end of the day approaches and I cast my thoughts like a net, back across the hours, fishing for accomplishments to make me feel satisfied.
I take a deep breath as a breeze stirs the leaves above my head.

My sister said to me recently, “If I’m not doing two things at once, I feel anxious.” A truism for me as well.
We joke about our daddy’s “Puritan work ethic.” Our father doesn’t know what to do with himself without multiple tasks to complete. He plants a massive garden and spends most of Michigan’s few beautiful summer months, back bent, tending to the needs of soil and harvest. He hauls wood, shovels snow, hunts, fishes, and attends to the multi-faceted other tasks rural living requires. And if there’s nothing immediate needing his attention, he creates a project. Anything to feel like he’s done something “useful” with his time.
Lately, I’ve been pondering what “useful” and “accomplishment” mean.
What does it take for me to feel as though the day has been worthwhile, and therefore I can relax?
Are these pressures coming from society? My family legacy? Myself? All of the above?

Daddy preparing a purple cabbage he grew. It spent the winter in cold storage, and is now being prepped for salad.

Some of this sense of anxiety is definitely rooted in the aforementioned Puritan work ethic, whose mythology is so woven into the American psyche, we don’t even realize it. It’s tied to a capitalist push to “have something to show for yourself,” in order to gain approval from society, family, spouse.

It’s these urges that separate us from animals—a mindlessness in action enviable to humans as we often equate being free of such anxieties as living a more full life.

In my English classes, I used to analyze an Annie Dillard essay with my students called “Living Like Weasels.” In it Dillard says:

“I would like to learn, or remember, how to live. I come to Hollins Pond not so much to learn how to live as, frankly, to forget about it. That is, I don’t think I can learn from a wild animal how to live in particular–shall I suck warm blood, hold my tail high, walk with my footprints precisely over the prints of my hands?–but I might learn something of mindlessness, something of the purity of living in the physical sense and the dignity of living without bias or motive. The weasel lives in necessity and we live in choice, hating necessity and dying at the last ignobly in its talons. I would like to live as I should, as the weasel lives as he should. And I suspect that for me the way is like the weasel’s: open to time and death painlessly, noticing everything, remembering nothing, choosing the given with a fierce and pointed will.”

We use everything from drugs and alcohol, to adrenaline, to meditation and yoga in attempts to free ourselves from these ever present anxieties.

We have consciousness, and so this instinctual life Dillard idealizes in her essay is impossible. We cannot “forget about it.”

With consciousness comes a disconnect from our animal selves and the instincts inherent therein.
We’re not sure what it means to be a Good Human, because it’s complicated.
This is separate from the notions of morals/right & wrong.
Being a good human is caught up in other things like pleasing society, becoming famous (and therefore potentially timeless and “immortal”), and in today’s world, keeping up with social media trends.
I think social media adds to the anxiety, as there’s always the pressure to post photos of interest or portray a certain “lifestyle” to a wider audience.
It’s exhausting.
No wonder we’re anxious.
I struggle against these notions, trying to find a balance between the human-constructed world I live in, and follow instincts that are just as, if not more, true. Instincts that urge me towards rest when the day is done, but another part of my mind is often determined in another direction.

I experience these anxieties even more since becoming a mother. With a baby, it feels like the expectations upon me are even greater, as they now extend to the little person I’m nurturing into adulthood.
Sitting in our soft blue arm chair nursing our son, the anxieties often voice themselves.
I look around at the floor that needs sweeping, laundry pile, tidying, dishes, freelance work, and feel my heart rate rise.

I take a deep breath and muse on what else I accomplished in the day that I’ve overlooked.

Did I keep my nest, if not tidy, at least clean?
Did I nourish myself/and or my family?
Did I do something joyful?

When asked, I’m certain most people would say these things make for a fulfilling and productive day as a human, but it takes regular practice to change the day-to-day mindset that says these things are not enough.

Someone said to me recently, I’m certain with the best intentions, “So, are you just doing the stay at home mom thing, or are you doing other things too?”

I know they didn’t mean any harm, but I couldn’t help sputtering at the implication of the “just.” Especially as I considered all the little and big things I’d accomplished over the day: the bed made; floor swept; dishes done; baby clean, happy and fed; soup made for dinner. Hell, I’d even showered.
I felt satisfied with these things at the end of the day, but still that “just” rankled, and if I’m being honest, still does.

The ever-lovely Betty Harkness on her 91 birthday.

Last week, my Grandmother, Betty Harkness, passed away. She was one of the kindest humans I’ve ever met.
Grandma was my babysitter from the time I was born, and went on to nurture my sister as well.
My father’s father died when I was six, and I never knew my mom’s mother, who passed away from a brain tumor when my mom was only 29.
The Harkness’ were adopted family—we all adopted each other.
I can’t recall an earliest memory with Grandma and Grandpa—only a wonderful bundle of remembrances glowing warm like the sunset from their west facing window, tinged with aromas of fresh-baked bread, and echoes of Grandpa’s laughter.
Their lives were simple, and good. They lacked materialism, found fascination and conversation in the every day, and lived by a code of kindness I attempt to emulate in my own life.
Visitors never left their home empty-handed—Grandma believed in a loving version of hospitality not often seen these days; a loaf of fresh bread; jars of pickled beets, canned green beans, pink apple sauce; or lightly frosted pumpkin cookies.
The love between Grandma and Grandpa was kind, funny, steadfast, well-worn, and always present in the room when they were together. They were married over seventy years.
As a child, I remember watching him tease her in the kitchen, driving her to distraction and annoyance with his antics as she tried to cook. Her frustration made him laugh as her tiny hands batted away his big, teasing fingers getting in the way of whatever she was cooking.
“Clyyydeee!” She said in a drawn out, pointedly annoyed voice.
“Oh Betty,” he’d respond with a well-practiced, satisfied smile before making an escape outside, or into his chair in the living room.
Sitting in their living room was a small pocket of warmth and simplicity away from the complicated world. Grandpa liked popcorn without salt and butter. Grandma served us rice pudding in green glass goblets. Grandpa let us brush his nonexistent hair and laughed as we laughed. Grandma, despite being so tiny, always seemed to pull you in for a hug.
It was tradition to wave goodbye as we drove away from their house. As the car started down the driveway, we looked to the picture window, and Grandma and Grandpa’s smiling faces were always there, side by side, their love a blessing for the journey ahead.
Grandma and Grandpa worked incredibly hard, but they also found time to sit and enjoy a card game, a good conversation around the kitchen table, or a quiet moment on the porch on a summer evening.
They seemed to have found a balance between their hard work, and taking time for rest, conversation, and contemplation. They found joy, and worth in the small, good things their days consisted of.
I believe that by the time they passed away this year at 94 and 92 respectively, their lives came to represent what it meant to be a good human.
One can never know what goes on in the minds of others, but from my perspective, it seemed that Clyde and Betty felt useful, content, and joyful; secure and at peace in the goodness of homemade bread and an afternoon nap after shoveling the driveway.

The Harkness’ and the Mills’, St. Patrick’s Day 2018–the last time I spent with my grandma and grandpa.

I am deeply saddened by the deaths of Grandma and Grandpa Harkness, but as opposed to others who have passed on, the grief is tempered by the knowledge that they lived well. Their lives, while simple, consisted of working hard, providing food for themselves and others, and finding joy wherever they could.

I take another deep breath, and I work to focus and center. I remind myself how tiny my little life is in the grand scheme of things. I find comfort in the notion that, in the face of volcanoes, tectonic plates, black holes, and other giant phenomena, me not getting my entire “to-do” list for the day finished doesn’t make me less accomplished as a person. And neither does not traveling the world by the time I’m forty; or not knowing six languages; or getting my PhD; or writing a book…
I cooked a good dinner for my family. My child is full, clean, healthy, content, and asleep. I have time to make popcorn and continue reading Jane Eyre for the third time.
For tonight, this is more than enough.
And that, is Good.

The Rickman Family enjoying some Soggy Peso dock time.

Ebb and Flow

By the time I get out the door for work at 8:30 a.m., it’s already so hot and humid condensation forms on my forehead in the few steps I take to the four wheeler.
I settle the black helmet on my head, shift to reverse, and start the machine with a roar and purr. I back out of the gravel drive, pull down the dirt alley, and onto the paved street. Motoring down the road creates a breeze that feels like the only thing keeping me from spontaneously combusting from a combination of sun-heat, humidity, and pregnancy.
I love the quad. Not only is it a new kind of freedom to have my own wheels here on the island, but I love how it feels to drive. Surprisingly enough, I never drove one while living in the Upper Peninsula, as many of my peers did, but here on Isla it’s my everyday ride.
My eight month, pregnant belly is a curved-moon shape waxing toward full.

Nine months pregnant and still driving the quad :) — Nine months pregnant and still driving the quad 🙂

I take the speed bumps more slowly now.
My rides to work, as they were in Michigan, are time for myself. Time for deep breaths; a moment alone to reflect, or not; time to notice my surroundings; taste the day; take note of interesting things: the bursting forth of my favorite peach-colored hibiscus tree across the street from the nighttime milkshake place, a fluffy black street dog marking its territory, the bright pile of dragon fruit on a vendor’s table.
A pregnant woman on a four wheeler elicits interesting looks from tourists and locals alike. I just smile and wiggle my fingers in a little wave.
I turn down the familiar street maze, always taking the slightly longer way so that I can drive along the Caribbean. The shimmer and movement of water calms me—it always has. Whether it’s Lake Superior, the Laughing Whitefish River, Big Manistique Lake, or the Caribbean Sea, moving water stills and calms unease and anxiety trapped like a caged bird in my chest.
Local dogs trot purposefully down cobbled streets, their pace and upright tails denoting important missions not to be interrupted.
I pass fruit and vegetable stands with little pyramids of zucchini, carrots, and bright red radishes that rode the ferry over from the mainland early this morning.
Pigeons scuttle and take flight as I round a corner, heat making them slow.
A flash of bright plumeria aroma wafts over me and is immediately replaced by the stench of an overflowing garbage can.
I catalogue and collect each detail, holding them up for inspection like pieces of beach glass—comparisons to other commutes to work: snowstorms; deer dodging, changing season’s leaf budding, unfurling, and falling.
Sometimes I can’t help but laugh aloud at the changes, differences, absurdities from one incarnation of my life to another.
In Michigan, when I lived alone in my cabin, I used to love cutting a hard right part way home on my commute—trading blacktop and yellow lines for winding gravel roads and the thrill of dodging puddles and potholes.
When I was safely off the main road I’d crack a roadie, turn the radio up, take a couple puffs off my onie, and press foot to accelerator.
The gravel road, four wheel drive vehicle and me became one entity—curves and bumps no longer obstacles but part of a terrain that four wheels and me were an extension of.

Windows down, music up, it was some of the most free I’ve ever felt.
It was a high I craved. The moment the car stopped, the realities of bills, loneliness, and work in the morning caught up and slipped clammy hands over my shoulders.
I needed those highs to balance the lows—driving fast; tiptoeing naked through the yard and down to the river for a breathless swim; showing up alone, head high to the bar.
These glorious moments were often followed all too quickly by moments of sadness and loneliness so acute it was almost a physical blow.
Staring out rain-streaked cabin windows, worry about house needs weighed heavy on my head: firewood, would there be enough to pay the bills, that leak in the roof, and on and on. Loneliness and pain from the recent past pressing against my eyelids.
In the midst of it, there’s almost a deliciousness in the pain. It reminded me I was alive as much as those moments of exhilaration. Intense, exquisite loneliness and independence the balance beam I walked day to day.
Up and down. High and low. Ebb and flow.
Two years later some part of me sometimes, almost, misses those peaks and troughs.
The rest of me is thankful for the steady day to day joys that are my life now.

When I first moved to Isla, every little detail thrilled and interested me. I was fascinated by each nuance and felt like my smile would never unstretch.
Day to day sneaks up before I even realize. Imperceptibly the transition occurs—what was at first so exciting and unfamiliar becomes commonplace and normal.
My walks down the dusty alley to and from what was, at first, my boyfriend’s apartment, then our apartment, and now the apartment I share with my husband, went from a thrilling stroll down a Mexican island alley, to my daily walk to and from home.
The foods that were, at first, exotic, unfamiliar, new, have become day to day fare: tacos pastor shaved succulent and glistening from its grilled meat cone; fresh mango, dragon fruit, and Guyana from the corner fruit stand; street tacos of every carne topped with pico, salsa picante, and crema de ajo.
Riding across the island on a moto, arms around my handsome man’s waist, I poke and pinch myself—reminders of how blessed I am to live on this magical island—inhabit this space with my sexy husband, our hilarious dogs, amazing friends, and all the individuals who also call Isla home.

It’s so easy to become complacent—to take for granted the space we inhabit, people we love, small moments of joy.
I’m learning yet another way of happiness—day to day joys simple, small, and often tucked away in little pockets of gratitude: bedside picnics, watching a lightning storm from the roof, swimming with Ryan in turquoise waters.
The intensity of my days at the cabin—highs so high and lows so low, have calmed to steady swells carrying me forward.
A strong, lonely, independent laughing girl running alone and barefoot through apple orchards and over wild violets adapting in two years to a happy pregnant wife on a Caribbean island and a son soon-to-be born.
It’s happiness ebbing and flowing on a whole new tide.

I listen for the four wheeler’s engine purr and press my thumb harder on the accelerator.
Ryan wouldn’t approve of me driving so fast, but the road in front of me is clear, and to my left, the Caribbean sparkles. The hot wind against my face smells of salt and promise.

Left Foot, Right Foot

*This essay is dedicated to Ryan Rickman and Daniel Vogel, who remind me to breathe, make me laugh, and love me.

A minute ago, the world was too much. Burdens heavy enough to break Sisyphus pile on like pyramid stone. Bankruptcy, weighted relationship past, family-society-personal pressures mount and disappear on currents of Caribbean breezes and the voice of a man I’ve let myself fall in love with after wrapping independence around my shoulders like a mink coat.

Cenote Zaci — Taking the leap—jumping into cenote Zaci.

“How did you do it?” They ask by the dozens, pouring off boats from Cancun. Flown in from stateside and global destinations.
How does anyone move anywhere?
I made a decision. Packed my life into a storage unit and gave the rest away.
Sold the car.
Put the house on the market–the one two years ago I swore I’d never part with.
Organized logistics: putting bills online, Mexico phone plan, get my puppy, Bea, on a plane and across borders.
Sleepless nights cloaked in anxiety.
Find a new home for Mr. Kitty. After eleven years together, losing him tore a hole in my heart. My cabin-dweller, confidant, snuggle-buddy, constant companion, couldn’t move to Mexico at age twelve. My fuzzy friend found a last-minute perfect home and now makes someone else’s life a bit less lonely.
Bea paperwork came through.
House was rented.
Ticket to fly and a red service vest for Bea so she could travel at my feet from Chicago to Cancun–the little dog from Peshtigo, Wisconsin.
I haven’t been that excited since I was a child on Christmas Eve.

Excited to leave the cold; start new; sleep without fear of my ex; live in a community as strong and strange as I am; make a life with a handsome musician and his big white dog.
Excited for change; to not move snow for months; learn a new language; scare myself; challenge myself; laugh again like I used to. Or perhaps, deeper. Longer.
After being alone so many days, nights, hours; not seeing people, speaking to another human for days if I didn’t want to. Lonely always licking the edges of my consciousness and sometimes waking up to choke me. Other days, taking the alone and wearing it like a crown, running naked into the river, bare toes tipped in crushed strawberries. Laughing, while otters played and rolled in a river current coppered by cedar tannins. Some nights, I’d lie awake listening to owls and coyotes call and loneliness seemed a distant ghost. Some nights. Some nights, I burned phone lines missing friends, company, a lover in my bed.

Nights on Isla are full of people–conversations with individuals from all over the world who want the story of a girl from small town Michigan who moved to a little island off the Yucatán coast of Mexico.
I sleep in a king size bed with my boyfriend, our 125 lb. yellow lab and little Bea. Traffic noise is muffled in our back-alley apartment, but I awake often to unfamiliar sounds of dogs barking; golf carts and motos putter and purr; the air conditioner’s cold whirr.

I walk into water so bathtub warm I can’t tell if I’ve stopped sweating yet.
I’m still working to find my niche–writing, food, editing, volunteer work, waitressing, catering…anything to make some money, but also searching out that thing that fits.
It feels closer now.
Less amorphous.
Solidifying in the silhouette of a family here, and behind that a community, and at the center me and all the paper doll layers coming together in 3D.

Last week, I awoke in the dark wee hours of morning when the big thoughts come to claim you and I missed my cabin so much it was hard to breath.
Missed the inhabited stillness.
Just as the ache turned to tears, I heard sweet-satisfied-sleeping dog sighs, and Ryan mumbled, “I love you” in his sleep, as he does half a dozen times a night, and I loved it all so much I couldn’t imagine anything else.
It’s confusing, how to fit the disparate pieces of self that make up “Rachel”, birthed and forged in rural Upper Michigan, to this Mexican island home.
All the fall season’s of my life have been made up of duck hunting, readying firewood, frosty-evening saunas, last harvest canning, apple picking and cider press churning. The first snowflakes falling.
Where does my ability to can pickles, tomatoes, beets function here?
My skills tracking a wounded deer, foraging fiddleheads, building a fire on a cold winter day?

They say time heals all wounds. The quick march of days on Isla seems to be doing just that. The changes are subtle, and I take note of them one by one with some surprise.
Tense lines on my face begin to fade.
My skin, prone to stress breakouts, has cleared.
Painful aches in jaw, neck, and shoulders from holding my body in tight anxiousness have eased, leaving a comfortable fluidity in my limbs I haven’t felt since I was a kid.
For the first time, I smile with my teeth–full smiles of joy that reaches my toes.
I cry less.
Wake fewer times in the night afraid, heart pumping, fists clenched, a scream held in my throat.

Two poles, north and south, stretch my rubber band heart.
Walking down Hidalgo’s main drag, a day or a week ago, I experienced a moment of awareness so strong it took my breath away.
Hidalgo, Main Street of shops and restaurants I’ve seen shift and change over the last seventeen years.
That night, a day or a week ago, I took my usual stroll down the cobbled street to El Patio, where Ryan works.

That night, as I approached the restaurant, I heard Ryan’s voice arcing out through the noise and chatter, clear and true. Familiar and joyful, the song’s words and that sweet voice spoke my heart.
If you told me, a cold Michigan-November-year ago that I’d be walking down this island street listening to my handsome man sing, I would’ve either laughed or cried.
My ideas for the future are a universe away from a year ago.
This man, our dogs, a family.
In the past, when days were long and hard, my brother used to say to me: “Left foot, right foot, breathe.”
Some days, that’s all I could do.
Left foot. Right foot. Breathe.
Step by step.
Here I am.