Roses, Thorns and Flour

If your adolescent years spanned the ‘80s, you may have a certain power ballad in your head right now.  Go with it.  Nostalgia.  Mmm, so good. How about some ‘Warrant?’  “Kheaven isn’t too far away-ay-ay.” Clapton? “Would you know my na-a-ame? Cleve Chris-toph-er-son, Kevin? ß[insert cracking, falsetto voice here.]”

I don’t speak Spanish.  My wife is a guru—a Spanish/El.Ed double major in college; Spanish Immersion School teacher; seasoned traveler.  And my kids have all spent their school years in Spanish partial immersion classrooms with some of the most gifted teachers I’ve ever seen.  But not me.  I struggle with language acquisition mightily.  I don’t even do English so well.  I don’t read much, my grammar is horrendous and I’ve always had a jingle-linguistic way of communicating verbally – heavy on words/phrases that I make up, puns and tangents that often derail efforts to deliver points of original intention altogether. And then there’s the beat.  I have a constant rhythmic funk beat pulsating through me, which – for better or for worse – puts my blood around my body (most certainly a good thing) and helps me flow w/ a giddy-up that, can be fun to witness, though is also, often out of place.  So, I’m out of my element here, in so many ways.

There are aspects that are familiar and beautiful.  The roses.  For me, it is my work.  I love what I do, I love who I do it for and I'm blessed to have a director and a group of administrators who were open to this whole deal.  I leave our condo at 5:45am every morning and take a 26-minute walk to a “digital nomad workspace” before the sun rises.  It is a fantastic space [pictures provided] – both in amenities and location – and it is quiet.  I have found I have the place to myself until 8:30am when the same woman comes in to clean.  The first “fellow nomad” normally arrives shortly after 9:00 and I’ve never seen more than 6 people in there at once.  I’ve only seen one other American nomad, but we’ve never made eye contact.  She seems nice though.  The bathrooms/showers are co-ed, which was odd the first time, but perfectly normal every time since. The space is connected to a hostel that has a pool that I could use (thus the showers), but I don’t like to be wet when I work on a computer.

There are thorns, too.  A big one for me relates to my health.  I have a magnificent health history, which has taken some big turns in the last 8 months.  I had a horrendous concussion on Dec. 17^th, 2018.  January of 2019 was a bad month, but we got through it.  Cataract surgeries in June.  Type I Diabetes dx in July and a tear of my right bicep tendon in August (about a week before we left).  This was piled on top of some other long-standing chronic afflictions.  The melding of medications and diets for Crohn’s and Diabetes has been difficult for me, especially when I don’t know what I’m eating much of the time (more on “flour” to come).  I am also trying to remain helpful/functional w/ moderately compromised use of my dominant arm.  If it weren’t for Ed Spohr, Eric Runestad and Pete Hanson coming to my rescue to move some heavy furniture, I’d probably (a) not be here yet; and (b) would be w/o my right arm entirely.  Many thanks to those dear friends.  Most things – both sentinel events and everyday happenings – have both the glory of those rose petals and the perils or its stem.  One such sentinel event occurred this past Sunday.

The Christopherson Seis just returned to Cancun from a wonderful weekend in Isla Mujeres.  We were about to get on the highway to journey back to Playa del Carmen.  I was driving.  At the top of the on-ramp was a stop sign, and beyond it were two lanes of fast-moving traffic.  There was no “acceleration lane” either.  Additionally, there was no “single file” protocol.  The car behind me pulled up alongside me in an effort of getting on the highway before me.  I was fine with that.  I used him as a shield, then got up to speed as quickly as I could.  Within minutes, a police officer pulled up alongside of us.  He looked us over briefly, THEN turned on his lights and motioned for me to pull over, which I did.  I didn’t understand a word he was saying (see above). I basically stayed quiet as Tricia spoke to him.  She told me that he was saying that I would need to come back to Cancun the next day to pay my ticket.  I told her, “I can’t miss work tomorrow.  I’ve got some big meetings that I have to be present for.”  So, Tricia then went down the path that we were told about before we came down here:  she asked if there was another option and he eventually said we could pay him half of that amount right now instead.  We had a lot of money on us, but showed him only an amount that came close to what he asked us for.  He said that was good enough.  He took our cash and we were on our way.  It was a fantastic experience.  Don’t get me wrong – it was terrifying, anger-inducing and something I hope to avoid in the future (but it WILL happen again).  But – strangely – we wanted this.  We wanted our kids to know what it was like to be the “other” in a culture.  This was racial/cultural profiling, plain and simple – and as white Americans, we never have to deal with it – especially Odin, Soren and me. You are not doing anything unusual or wrong, but you are penalized all the same. Because of what you look like.  An awful and fantastic experience.  

Other examples: instilled work ethic w/ palpable consequences should you laze out of ‘em.  The kids have a rotation of setting the table and doing the dishes.  You don’t do the latter THOROUGHLY, you’ll wake up to a hundred ants in the kitchen.  If you don’t want sand in your bed, then wash your body—again, THOROUGHLY.  You don’t link sunburn? Lather up.  Frequently.  Always.

Flour.  Things look similar (flower), but they are oh, so different.  Very different when you really look at it/think about it.  And it seems so common (flour), but yet is totally foreign. Let’s start w/ a non-food example, yeah? The stifling heat.  It reads 91 outside.  No problem.  We’ve dealt with that before.  But not with this ever-present humidity. And not every day.  Every. Day.  It is oppressive and it makes everything more difficult.  Like breathing.  And of course, the food. What is this? Where do we find this? How many carbs are in this?  As a Type I Diabetic, I pretty much need to know this now.  And medicine.  Where do we get it? Our insurance doesn’t cover us down here, spare for emergency situations [and only then, a small portion].  I didn’t know much about insulin back home—now I have to educate myself in a foreign place w/ a pharmaceutical industry that I don’t know if I can trust (but can see, by the prices, that they thankfully DO differ in their desire to rake as much off the top in a $ sense anyway). The taste.  Everything I try seems to be the best thing I’ve ever had, so that is HUGE plus!

So much more to say, including tales of some fantastic people we’ve met – the “Gayle Force Wind” post can’t be too far away.  Closer to it every day – but let’s leave this as a blog entry and not something to be sent to the publisher to be bound.

Any curiosities?  Throw ‘em at us.  We’re here for your convenience.  Kind of like a Seven-Eklevin Store.

-K