Up a creek without a paddle
This morning I woke to a country that is no longer my country, a country where I feel like a stranger, where I no longer understand the language, the customs or the customary. I’m broken and grieving and trying to figure out how to move forward in a place I no longer recognize, where I’m bound by birth and personal economics, unable to leave and no longer wishing to stay.
How does one survive as a stranger in their own land?
When I was young, I lived in Mexico for a few years. Mexico, while a beautiful country filled with warm and loving people, is also deeply problematic. I’m not going to list those problems here. You can look them up.
I lived there a stranger. An Estadounidense. A güera. I knew my place. I would forever be a foreigner. I had no power. I had no vote, I had no voice, I had no say. I went along to get along.
To live like that, you must create a bubble, sometimes opaque, sometimes transparent. A bubble with a hard shell from which you can see out, keep watch, be vigilant against threats. A bubble in which you move through your life and hope it protects you from the worst storms while allowing in sunlight and joy when it happens.
Living like that precipitates a floaty feeling. Even while you shop for dinner in the mercado, where you have a passing friendship with the butcher; even while you’re having dinner with your friends who are patient with your bad Spanish; even while you’re paying your electric bill or walking on the beach or going to the doctor, it feels surreal. It feels tractionless. Like your wheels are forever spinning on ice.
Today I feel that way in my birth country. In my exhaustion, confusion and grief, I’m already building a bubble for my life, trying to figure out how keep myself and my loved ones from the harm I feel coming. Today I can’t think of “actionable items” to make a change. Not today, when I feel so powerless against a citizenry that has become—or maybe always has been—unfathomable in their views and choices.
I have no advice for how to navigate this trauma and make things better. Today I can barely keep my head above the tide line of anxiety. Maybe tomorrow I’ll be able to figure out what might be done to mitigate the coming storm.
But today, I’m floating, a stranger in my own land, up a creek without a paddle.
