Summer 2007.

After several months we managed to meet quite a few people of the local expat community as well as the Mexican community. Sunday mornings brought two options: One, going to Mass at the Catholic Church in the center of town. Loved watching the kids in their best attire, boys sitting on one side of the church and the girls on the other. All singing in synchrony and surrounded by their mothers, fathers, and grandparents. The whole community holding hands while singing the Our Father, always brought tears to my eyes. Or, the second option was to go to el Arca (local community center), where Robert Hall leads Dharma talks covering Buddhist principles about life. Which always
got the mind and the heart talking. As well as, created food for thought. Both good options.
After a beautiful July, the temperatures started rising. The morning walks required only shorts and a tank top, a hat and big sunglasses. The evenings were equally warm but pleasant to sit outside and for us girls, nice to be able to wear a cute slinky summer dress out to dinner.

However the middle of the day was best spent at the beach swimming, or inside in a cool corner reading a book.

It became harder and harder to sit outside to work, past 10am. The sun would beat too hard and the flies started to arrive in packs and with a vengeance.

The computer became one of our best friends. It could be used inside, in a cool room and it would put us in contact with the rest of the world.

Keeping in touch with the rest of the world is a big theme to discuss in my “Year in the Life”. Internet connections here in Baja are intermittent and totally inconsistent. We tried Skype with our friends and family. So we could call and see them on the screen. However the image wasn’t so hot and the sound even worst. I remember having a conversation with our friends Oskar and Carmen and they kept telling me I sounded like a bird, they could not understand a word I was saying. It was all chirpy.

We tried keeping in touch with most of our friends, family members and colleagues, and it became increasingly difficult to do so.

There were several things going on: the lousy internet connection, the guilt and anguish in falling behind on the e-mail thread, attending the opening at a gallery, the local fiesta of the Pueblo, the local bocce ball night or just plain “I am going to see the surfers at Pastora beach” tonight. The intertwining new and old coming together. How do we keep our worlds, our many lives overlapping each other… or not.

Here is where my worlds started to collapse. I started to feel that my quest to “live for today only for today, for the moment” was being compromised.

How to keep it simple… how to keep the guilt at bay…. how to keep the massive web that forms the loving relationships of so many years still growing, still nurtured.

I hit a wall.