I have been a steadfast Cat Person ever since childhood, as I grew up with up to six cats (and at one point there were 14, as two of the six had kittens) and was deathly afraid of dogs.

But here there be dogs. They are inescapable.

From the roof dogs that bark at any passerby or slight gust of wind (or just because they can), to the street dogs who roam the callejónes (narrow, steep pedestrian only streets) in packs, to the dogs on long leashes being walked down the streets—dogs are everywhere.

My fear of dogs began at about age 4, when I spent my days with a babysitter in her home. She largely ignored me, I assume to watch over the children who played games like Mr. Potato Head in the other room. I never played Mr. Potato Head. Instead, I marched tiny bobby pin people up and down the hills of my knees and listened to the clamor of the children in the other room as they sucked on orange slices at lunchtime.

One day we all walked to a corner store where they sold candy cigarettes, a fascinating confection that seemed like contraband. Across the street was a large black dog. I instantly knew this dog meant Danger with a capital D. I longed for the comfort of a few soft sleeping cats strewn across my bed.

Dogs were bad, so I avoided them. This strategy worked for decades.

Here in Mexico, dogs are inescapable.

However, even the street dogs eye me with hopeful concern as they pass me, headed for wherever dogs go. Beseeching eyes. Hungry eyes, not for the tender flesh of my leg but for a gentle patting hand or cup of kibble.

The dogs trust me, so I trust them. We have reached a detente. I am strangely okay with this. I am no longer afraid of them.

PS. I know the phrase is “dog eat dog world”, for which people often mistakenly think is “doggy dog”. But Mexico is truly a doggy dog world. From my kitchen window I can see at least 7 roof dogs, and hear dozens more dogs when they all start to bark in unison.

Yes, from time to time I summon a taxi, or more specifically an Uber (or DiDi, more common here), but those times are generally reserved for something special. A movie at a theater in the south part of the city, too far to walk, especially at night. A welcome ride home after a particularly nasty fall on the cobblestone street that resulted in a sprained ankle. Moving from one house to another laden with two heavy felines jammed together in a cat crate.

All other times, I walk.

I like walking. I’ve been an on-purpose walker most of my adult life. I’ve savored the hushed quiet of new-fallen snow amid the scrape-scrape of shovels clearing walkways and driveways. I’ve trundled various children through charming green-leafed streets in a jogging stroller while they happily consumed free bakery cookies. I’ve walked through the streets of Paris, London, Galway, Munich, and many more cities, not just as means of getting from one place to another but to feel the city’s heartbeat.

To me, walking is the means by which I experience a place. I see, hear, and smell things by walking that I would not by faster means.

Sidewalks here are … charming. And by charming I mean uneven, rough, bumpy, often treacherous, and generally littered with unsavory things such as mysterious wet spots (I avoid these) or dog poo.

The main street that runs through El Centro (the center portion of the city) sports sidewalks that can accommodate generally two people across, sometimes three: these sidewalks are fairly narrow, and the width shifts from time to time as one walks depending on factors I know nothing about.

I like to walk quickly. I feel more alive when I feel my body moving through space at a brisk pace. Most people here, however, walk much more slowly. Couple crowded narrow sidewalks with slow-moving people, and it becomes a strategic endeavor to always assess the potential for getting past these blocks to my quick egress. It’s part game, part annoyance.

I’ve come to know where I am in certain parts of the city I traverse regularly just by the sounds: the squeak of the tortilla machines in the various tortillerías, the thwok-thwok of the butchers, unmistakable kitchen sounds of restaurants prepping for lunchtime. Not to mention the gas cylinder guy who yells “Gaaaaaas!”, the water garrafón guy’s cry, or the melodic whistle of someone selling something I’ve yet to decipher in my callejón. In the evenings the streets resound with bass beats leaking through open windows and doors from seemingly every restaurant and bar in Centro.

I walk to Spanish class. I walk to take my garbage to big metal chutes that lead to the level below. I walk to the grocery store. I walk to the mercado. I walk for exercise. I walk to see new parts of the city. I walk to meet friends. I walk to symphony concerts. I walk to restaurants. I walk to get a massage. I walk to buy a new backpack.

After living in this place where I must walk everywhere, I do not want to return to a place where I can not walk to get places.

Walking slows me down and lets me see and feel this place I now call my home. Walking connects me to this place in a way I could not if I did not walk. Walking helps me feel alive and a part of life here. I am grateful to live in a place where I walk everywhere.

But what of this heart?

Like I said, far too much has transpired. Sadness/depression, inward-dwelling, another near swipe at becoming unalive. Then: sudden clarity, deep knowing, easily making thousands of arrangements in a very short time.

Now: freedom of the spirit and heart. Love blooms where it grows.

Earlier today, a lifetime ago already, I read back to the beginning of 2011. A champion pattern-seer, I saw patterns in how I love.

I give my heart easily, freely. It is easy for me because I KNOW things inside people, and I see outcomes. I see this one and I feel it, so my heart has already expanded across the ocean.

There are, perhaps, downsides to loving this way. I say to that: it matters not. Whosoever does not wish this love, well, what can I do about that? Love heals so much, in all of us. None of us are immune to love’s balm.

And I have perhaps gleaned just enough humility in this lifetime to realize I cannot say, even with my gifts of sight and knowing, what outcomes may emerge from the receiving of such a love. I only know I share it gladly and freely.

And, strangely for me, I rest in calmness and acceptance about whatever happens next.

Oh, don’t get me wrong. I wish for things and I hope they come to pass. And if for some reason yet unknown to me they do not, of course I am not immune to the sting. But the cost to me of NOT giving my heart so freely is greater than the potential hurt from having given it.

Tonight I received a shamanic treatment focused on the high heart chakra. This chakra is located above the heart, hence its name. The treatment felt sweet and profound, and by the end I had clarity on an approach to take with my own work with people.

Lead with my heart, heart high.

I said to myself, it’s only a matter of time before all my fingers look like that: claws.

Growing up and for decades really, people told me I had “piano hands”. What’s that, I asked. Long slender beautiful fingers, elegant hands, they said. You should be a hand model, they said.

My mother had piano hands once. And then, later, she didn’t. Her fingers grew curved, her finger joints grew large. Just like mine. I’ve been inwardly grieving my bulbous arthritic finger joints for a few years now.

I can’t stop it, the onward march of time wreaked on my body.

My inner voice says I can change this, I can do energy work or Dispenza meditations and I can change this. But changing all that requires changing in my body and emotional state seems monumental to me now.

And I am so tired of fighting for my life. I am all alone and I don’t want to anymore.

I’m lonely as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.

I realized yesterday that I’ve been traumatized by the conditions of my new home. And I kept it inside and really had no one to talk about it with. I kept telling myself I would get used to it, that I committed to living here for a year and that I needed to make good on my commitment.

Yesterday I told my landlord I intended to move at the end of the month. My friend is leaving her apartment and even though it costs more than I’m currently paying, overall it will be a much better fit for me.

When my landlord left my house I sobbed uncontrollably for about 20 minutes. A huge letting go.

Back to the loneliness.

Part of it is from the worldwide situation. We are all (most of us) in our homes, sequestered from others. San Miguel has restrictions in place. So I’ve been mostly staying in my home except for some grocery shopping and banking in my first few weeks here.

Then I got Coronavirus symptoms. Now I have to stay in. Plus, I injured my back (I suspect a vertebral compression fracture) and walking around hurts.

All of that is adding to my essential inner loneliness. You know ? existential loneliness, the sense of being a separate being inside a separate body, forever separate.

Well, fuck that. I know better. I’ve been allowing my beliefs to get away from me and run the show here. Fuck that. Fuck being lonely. Fuck thinking I have no one to talk to except the person who drove me to attempt suicide. Fuck thinking I am alone.

Time to make some changes.

Part of my house is open to the sky at all times. Picture two semi-circles on either side of a rectangle. The rectangle is the entryway and the stairs that connect the floors. The semi-circles are the rooms: kitchen and a large bathroom on the first floor; two bedrooms on the second floor; one semi-circle of a roof terrace on the third floor.

The steps are open to the sky. Next to my house are trees: eucalyptus and pine, and they shed things at all hours of the day. Especially when it’s windy. Part of one pine tree’s trunk stretches through one of the bedrooms.

Now I realize I simply must sweep the steps and entryway and second floor terrace every day. And that none of the floors will ever be “barefoot” clean, at least not to my standards.

In the evenings now there are thunderstorms. They roll through the valley and bring with them enlivening winds and sometimes rain.

I like to stand on the third floor, where I can just barely see the Parroquia through the branches of a tree, and feel the life of the wind. It reminds me of the days when I lived in Bellingham when on windy November days I’d walk down to the pier at midnight to see the waves lapping over the wood and feel the life in the 60-mph gusts.

Tonight after I swept the steps and terraces I stood on the roof terrace, eyes closed, feeling fat rain drops and the force of the wind. I felt the life force of the ground beneath my home and the people who once made their home there, long ago.

The other thing I did not realize before I moved in here was that the two neighborhood cats also have access to my house. They come down from the roof, probably after having first climbed the trees, and meow at my bedroom door at night. I wake to see eyes glittering through the window. Last night I failed to lock the other bedroom and found the havoc the cats wreaked after I refused to let them in my bedroom: a table turned over and a toilet paper roll shredded. This morning they still wanted in my kitchen, so I locked the door to keep them out. Unfortunately, I was unable to unlock the door to let myself out for some time.

I carry all my keys in my pocket now. Five keys for one house.

My worldly possessions arrived Monday, and I’ve unpacked about half of them. So good to sleep in my own sheets again! The other half will have to wait until I have somewhere for it to go: this house is shockingly lacking in storage.

Especially cat-proof storage. The neighbor cat saga has only served to remind me that I must kitten proof my house in the next few weeks before my kittens come home to live with me. Won’t THAT be interesting. They have an actual indoor tree to climb! And so many ways to get lost or locked in/out or basically into cat-mischief.

All I can do is to take the next breath. I’m breathing.

It hasn’t rained since I arrived in San Miguel. This isn’t too unusual, as the rainy season doesn’t start until a bit later. It’s been hot and very dry. Last night I had the ceiling fan at top speed to feel cool enough to sleep.

The thunder started about an hour ago. I listened with only half an ear, not daring to hope that the storm would come close enough to rain where I am.

The windows here are padlocked closed (???) so my only source of fresh air is the front door. Fortunately, no one comes up to my door unless they’re delivering something I ordered, so I feel safe leaving it open.

When the raindrops started I flung open the door. Already the drops had moistened the red brick tiles of my terrace. I stepped out, barefoot, let the rain fall on my body, and wept.

This, this aliveness, is what I came here for. I have waited now for over a month to feel what I felt from these sensations: fat raindrops hitting my body, my shirt getting wet from rain, cool air, the trees and plants gratefully accepting this gift while the roosters continue to crow.

I accept this gift. It is what I needed to begin to melt away the armor of my fear, my grief, my anger. It is the beginning of what I need to lead me to unburden my heart from all that it has carried these past 9 years.

Thank you, thunder. From you I feel power. Thank you, rain, from you I feel life.

Together, with power and life, I shall heal my wounded heart.

Before I turn the lights on, I close the window blinds, carefully angling them downward so that people below (I’m on the second floor) can’t see in.

But before I close the shades, I take a moment to look at the colorful panorama. I can’t look for too long lest I feel deep sadness at not taking advantage of the beauty here, of closing the world out when the sun goes down.

So I glance around at the sky and the silhouette of the building across from me against the pink-purple-orange, then twist the lucite stick that closes me in. I tell myself that when I move to my long-term place things will be different. Then I will sit on my terrace sipping aguas frescas and breathe deeply of the twilight.

But for now there is no twilight terrace, no sipping of aguas frescas, and I must close the blinds.

Only after the blinds are safely twisted to the closed position do I turn on a light.

Now I apportion pills into a waiting mug on the table. The mug is made of white pottery with blue designs painted on it. It’s probably handmade. There’s a whole set of them here.

Melatonin for sleep. L-theanine to rest my brain. 500 milligrams of magnesium to relax the muscles. A Biotin tablet, because it’s chewable and tastes like fruit. I save that for last, a treat.

It takes about two hours for the melatonin to start to kick in.

Now I count the hours.

Sometimes I’ve already chosen a movie to watch. Movies mostly last about two hours. I bought a collection of Wes Anderson movies and there’s one I’ve yet to watch. Over the weekend I rented a movie for 99 cents. I have some comfort movies too, Enchanted April and Sense and Sensibility, but sometimes the familiarity just feels too sad.

Sometimes at 8:00 pm everything feels too sad.

I don’t know why I think that at 8:00 pm I only have two hours to fill. Too many nights I toss and turn, reading from my phone’s library app, until 3:00 or even 4:00 am. Those are the nights I wonder if I will ever sleep again.

I debate when to shower. 8:00 feels too early to change into jammies, but then again, why not? But if I wait until 10:00 I’m afraid the shower will wake me and keep me from sleeping, so if I’ve put it off until then I decide I should just wait until morning.

Sometimes those intended morning showers turn into the next night showers, or even the day after that showers. Who really cares, anyway? I don’t go anywhere or see anyone.

All the hours earlier in the day are spent waiting until 8:00, waiting until I can start my night, waiting until I can start the ritual that eventually leads to sleep, to oblivion. Right now I have 5 and a half more hours to go until 8:00 pm.

Years of being scared. Years of pushing aside my Self in exchange for what I thought was safety. Years of walking on eggshells, always guarding against saying or doing the wrong thing. Years of hypervigilance, of learning to memorize everything and everyone in my surroundings and do whatever it took to ensure my safety.

A few nights after I moved into the AirBnb I rented for this month, I saw something dark and prickly-looking on the closet floor next to my suitcases. Turned out it was a scorpion, a big one (3 inches). I hadn’t seen a scorpion in over 30 years, and never one that big. I slept with the lights on until the housekeeper came and smashed it with a spatula and then took it outside. People have advised me to check my shoes before I put my feet in them, and to check the bed before I get in it.

When I first got to Mexico I walked a lot. I had appointments to see several rentals and I had promised myself for months that when I lived here I’d be walking, not taking Ubers everywhere. Even though Ubers are inexpensive here (about $3.00 a trip), they would add up and besides I can use the exercise and want to feel a part of my community, so walking it is.

Walking was scary, though. Instead of carrying a purse that could easily be grabbed by some guy on a motorcycle like the last time I was here, I shove my coin purse with some bills and a credit card into my pocket along with my phone, and then shove my hand into the pocket to conceal the fact that there is anything in my pocket.

Every time someone passes me on the narrow sidewalks I wonder: will they grab my arm and take my phone? can they tell I have money in my pocket? is it better to have my hand in my pocket or does that draw more attention to the pocket?

I think now that the only person who pays any attention to my pocket is me.

Soon I’m going to move into a longterm rental. I’m surprised how many aspects of this move still cause me anxiety. I’m worried, for instance, about the lack of storage and that I’ll have to buy furniture to keep my clothes and things in. Where will I get the furniture, and how, during this quarantine? I’m worried I’ll be living too far from the center of town. I’m worried that it might be noisy with barking dogs nearby. I’m worried that the other people in the compound (there are 5 residences in it; some casitas like mine and some are more like apartments or lofts) won’t like me. I’m worried that the bed won’t be comfortable. I’m worried about how and where to buy cleaning tools to clean it with before I move in. Those are just a fraction of my worries about this.

Plus, I live in a different country now. Not only do I speak less of the language than a toddler, but there are customs and cultural aspects here I have yet to learn. I’ve dipped myself into a huge vat of newness. Right at the same time I let go of something that was 9-years familiar.

Add to all my personal fears and traumas from years of past fears the general collective fear that now grips the world re Coronavirus.

That’s a lot of tygers to contend with.

[Speaking of tygers, I’m going to adopt two kittens as soon as they are old enough to come home with me. I have worries about that as well.]

Here I go. I’ll be okay.

** I wrote this thinking that “Here There Be Tygers” was in usage on old maps for when the mapmakers came to an untraveled place, and marked it as dangerous, assuming it was rife with ferocious wild animals and other fearsome things. When I went to verify that I was correct about the phrase before publishing, I had a huge “d’oh!” moment when I read that “Here There Be Tygers” is the title of a Ray Bradbury short story, which I read many times when I was growing up (it’s also the title of a Stephen King novel but I wouldn’t have known that). I still think the metaphor is apt.

When they started in California I was in a mad rush to pack my earthly belongings, get my car repaired to pass the smog test so I could sell it, and then get across the border to Mexico before it closed. The orders followed in Mexico soon after I arrived.

Stay at home. Don’t go out. Don’t risk infection, yours or anyone’s.

(I have to say, people seem fairly casual about this here in San Miguel, or they did the last time I was out and about, which, let me see … counts on fingers … was actually about a week ago.)

All across the world, people are meme-ing about their difficulties with isolation. And I know isolation is difficult. Studies show that people stay healthier when they regularly see other people and maintain friendships.

But for me, isolation is life as usual. I’ve pretty much always been sort of a recluse.

Oh, I’ve had friends. I am naturally gregarious in many situations. But I like my alone time. I’ve always been this way.

Growing up, my idea of a great day was an afternoon curled up on my bed with two or three cats and a good book.

As an adult, I treasured time spent with my children: reading stories from our huge library of Waldorf-style books, going on our daily walk (with a stop at the bakery for a free butter cookie), tending our summer vegetable garden, building cool train track layouts with Nathaniel’s Brio track for his Thomas trains, baking something yummy, or just playing silly games together. Together, we were alone.

Sometimes I imagined becoming a nun. Not for any religious reason, but for the solitude.

And now I have moved to a new city, in a new country. I moved here alone.

I sit now in the bedroom of my rented AirBnb apartment looking out at trees, the surrounding hills, and the occasional butterfly. I hear birds and chickens and sometimes dogs barking. I have Netflix and Hulu and Facebook, and I have a fat turquoise journal to fill with my thoughts, fears, hopes, and musings.

Sometimes I feel the ache of loneliness. At those times I tell myself the story that no one will ever like me, that I will never have friends. I know while I’m telling it that the story is a lie but I know it is also a potential truth. I fear it will become THE truth.

For many years, I did not like myself. I was given constant messages that I should be different, better, more. The messages told me that who I was ? my essential ME ? was not good enough. They made me doubt everything I ever knew about myself and to crave the company of the messenger. I believed those messages for so long and so strongly that eventually I wanted my essential ME to no longer exist. I wanted to die and I tried to make it happen.

One day I was shown a metaphorical door, and I walked through it. I am safely on the other side now.

On this side of the door, I see myself for who I am. I am not perfect and will never be so, but I like who I am. If I make changes, they will be for me and not for any other reason.

This time of isolation is my opportunity to spend a lot of time with myself, to heal, to dream, to just BE. I own the recluse in me.