Moving to Mexico

I was sixty-two years old, restless and bored.  Rabbits were attacking my garden and a fox jumped the fence at night to eat the rabbits. My water bill was $400/month just to keep the grass green for the rabbits to eat. 

I had been teaching piano lessons for seven years. I was good at it, and yet, none of my students ever prepared for their lessons. None of them!

I scheduled four recitals a year. At Halloween we preformed in costumes. At Christmas we came in our very best clothes. And still no one practiced. My fantasy was that one day I would be ninety years old, still sitting on that damn piano bench, saying, “Let’s try that section one more time, Honey.”

There was a fierce thunderstorm one afternoon while I was teaching. I sat at the piano, trying to be patient as yet another student stumbled from note to note. My mind wandered and I looked out the window to watch the storm. 

Suddenly CRASH!! Lightning hit a huge tree in my yard, slicing it right down the middle, taking out my neighbor’s fence and blowing bark halfway across the street. My lights went out and piano lessons were over for the day. I took it as a sign.

The next day I was having lunch with a friend.

“What’s new,” I asked.

“You won’t believe what I’m doing? I’ve probably lost my mind.”

“Tell me.”

“My husband and I are buying an old house in Mazatlán. We’re moving to Mexico at the end of the year.”

I wished her well, went home, and called her that same night.

“‘I’m going with you,” I announced.

“Where?”

“To Mexico.”

And just like that, I made up my mind. I had never been to Mexico. I didn’t know how to speak Spanish. I couldn’t find Mazatlán on a map. But I was ready for something new.

We flew to Mazatlán together two months later. My friend was closing the deal on her house and I was along for the trip. We stepped off the plane, greeted by hot, humid September weather. 

It was five days of pure magic. The food was delicious. The Mexican people, gracious and kind. We rode through the city in open-air pulmonias ~ golf-cart/taxis with music blaring in the streets. The ocean was exciting and beautiful. And the sunsets over the water every night? Simply breathtaking. I was hooked.

I asked a realtor to show me some property. We looked at a few small homes in the downtown section of the city. They were nice. They would have been ok.  “But do you have anything else?” I wanted to know..

“I have one more place. A large, single-story home that’s been empty for a while.”

 “It needs a lot of work,” he warned as he put his key in the lock.

The home was two blocks from the ocean. Built hacienda style, with rooms on three sides of the courtyard, the house took up half a block. The entire home was surrounded by a concrete wall that desperately needed paint and patching. A battered, wooden front door opened onto the street.

When the door creaked open, I gasped. I didn’t see a house that needed a lot of work. I saw two big mango trees on the side of a huge courtyard. And room for a fountain with water splashing and birds singing right in the middle of the patio. There were five bedrooms and six bathrooms and a kitchen that spanned the entire backside of the house. A banana tree on the back patio provided shade and fresh bananas. I was completely enchanted.

My home in Aurora ~ the one that the rabbits and fox fought over, with a tree split down the middle by lightning ~ was valued at $210K. This new home, close enough to the ocean to walk to sunset every night, was $130K. It was an easy decision.

My new life had begun.