It's been eight years now living here in Mexico City, but I still find it strange when I think about it. To be writing this at the dining table on my old laptop, feeling the chill of the early afternoon creeping in from a window opened ever so slightly. Unless you're living in Baguio City in the Philippines, it's not usually commonplace to write "chill" and "early afternoon" in a single sentence. Of all the things I miss from the Philippines, it's the humidity that has to be last on the list. It's the kind of humidity that's unrelenting, the kind that sticks to you wherever you go. There's no escaping it.
Just like there's no escaping this feeling of strangeness that I mentioned to begin this blog post. If you told me twenty years ago that I'd be living here in Mexico City as a permanent resident with my Mexican wife -- and speaking passable Spanish at that! -- I wouldn't have believed you. I would have said you were bonkers. Twenty years ago I was trying to get out of my newspaper job after I found out that my dad was right all along -- journalism rarely pays. Well, it had been paying me for a little more than a year before the checks started arriving late. And I was getting tired of going to the payroll window of the office and demanding that they'd pay me on time because I was actually a pretty good employee and would submit my stories on time. In a few months I'd get another writing job with steadier pay, but that's another story.
I'm writing this on a break from work, and my cat, Willow, just jumped over the laptop. That's also another strange thing about my situation right now -- I actually own a cat. I've always been a dog person, ever since I got my first dog at the age of four or five, until I rescued my last one from the streets of Talisay City, Cebu, while cycling one day in the Philippines during the height of the pandemic. I was home for the wake and funeral of my mom, and then COVID happened, and everything was closed down. That time in my life was also a strange one, being away from Diana, who had to stay here in Mexico, and grieving the death of my mom. And not to mention, trying to make sense of the pandemic, something that nobody could have expected they would experience in their lifetime.
So I bought a bike. And I pedaled my way through the deserted streets, trying to grieve and trying not to miss my then girlfriend (now my wife) and trying to make sense of the strangeness of it all. And as I was traversing a bridge, that was when I saw a tiny puppy that just narrowly missed getting flattened by a passing truck, and I sprang into action. That puppy is a healthy, full-grown dog now, which I sadly had to leave in the Philippines when I got the chance to fly back here to Mexico. But Daisy is under the good care of my dad and my brother, and I take solace that she's safe and sound and well fed.
I have a bike here too. I bought it almost a year ago during a day Mexicans call Buen Fin, when online discounts are the norm. I got a very good deal from a website, had the bike delivered here to the apartment, but while I was assembling it with my wife we noticed that a few parts were missing. So we left the bike in its current almost-completely-assembled state, but not quite. I'd been meaning to take it to a bike shop to finally have it assembled, just buy the missing parts from the shop, but that day has yet to come. Meantime, the bike has been gathering dust in the corridor, waiting for its chance on the road.
Strange is not bad. It took me several years to realize that, but I'm happy I did. I just turned forty-one, and I'd like to think that I've finally embraced my strangeness wholeheartedly. Many years ago, when I was in a jeepney bound for work, an old man seated across me kept staring at me. I knew he was weirded out by my stretched ears and my lip piercing. A few minutes before I was set to disembark, he snarkily told me that next time I should just wear handcuffs to complete my look. Not a few passengers in the jeepney broke in laughter at the old man's comment. Needless to say, I was embarrassed, but I couldn't think of something to say.
I'm pretty sure I looked strange to that old man. But now, even with the same piercings -- and with both arms also covered in tattoos -- I just laugh at that incident. At this age, I no longer care that much about what other people say. But even more than that, I feel that I've come to the right place. Here in Mexico City I've seen more pierced and tattooed people than in the Philippines, even though over there these kinds of things are also becoming more common. When I was new here and hardly spoke a lick of Spanish, it felt stranger, sure, but be that as it may, I never really felt like a stranger.
Sure, I miss home. I miss my family, I miss my friends. I miss the food that I can't easily get or cook here, because of the scarcity of ingredients. But somehow, now, Mexico feels more like home than the Philippines. I don't know when I started to feel that way, but that's precisely how I feel.
It's strange, I know.
