Life In Between
The city that slowed me down
I meant to pass through Mexico City. Instead I learned its rhythm: coffee, a mirror by the door, a forest at the edge of town, and yoga with strangers.
· Mexico City
Mexico City was supposed to be a stop. A few days between other places, a list of things to see, then on to the next suitcase.
It didn't work out that way.
The first morning in Cuauhtémoc I put on the yellow dress, checked myself in the mirror by the door, and went out to find coffee. That was the whole plan. I found the coffee. Then I found a second café, then a street with jacaranda petals all over the pavement, then a bench where I sat for longer than I want to admit, watching dogs walk their owners.
But the city has its own speed
I kept trying to rush it, and it kept saying no, gently. Lunch takes as long as it takes. Nobody hurries the afternoon rain. By evening I'd given up on the list, put on a leather jacket and my glasses, and gone out to sit somewhere with music. I took the glasses off for one photo and put them back on for the rest of the night, because I wanted to see.
Another afternoon, in a white dress, I found a garden full of old tree stumps that someone had turned into chairs. I sat on one in the sun, and for a while I didn't think about anything at all. That had not happened to me in months.
So I stopped making lists
What surprised me most is how close the quiet is. One Saturday morning we drove up into Álvaro Obregón, and the city just ended. Concrete turned into pine forest, the air turned cool, and we climbed onto a rock above a valley so green it looked painted. Below us, somewhere, were twenty million people. Up there it was only wind and a bird I couldn't see.
I left in April with that rock in my head. In June I came back.
Coming back
Same neighborhood, a different mirror, striped socks I would not wear anywhere else. This time I didn't bring a list. I brought comfortable shoes and the plan to say yes to whatever came first.
On Sunday morning I joined a yoga class in a big courtyard with red walls and arches all around. I knew nobody. We all wobbled at the same moments, laughed at the same moments, and at the end everyone lay on their mats looking at the clouds like it was the most normal thing in the world. Maybe here it is.
After class I sat barefoot on an old stone bench in a garden, and nobody asked me to be anywhere.
The day before, I'd worn a blazer and white boots under an arch of flowers, feeling very elegant. Some evenings it rained hard for exactly one hour, and I watched it from the window with tea, listening to the street go quiet and then loud again. Both felt like the city.
I used to think slowing down was something you did on vacation. Mexico City taught me it can also be something you do on a Tuesday, between coffee and nothing in particular.