Hope for improvement

I'm starting to feel that I'm due to leave the country. I'm running out of patience. Mexico is an absolutely beautiful country but boy oh boy do you need patience if you want to live here.
We only have a few days left and then we are off to Montreal. Another place that requires a lot of patience. But at least the issues will be different, so we have that to look forward to.

It has been lovely to walk around a bit more. Wearing a mask is still obligatory. Mostly you can just put them on when you go inside stores. It's only down town in the historical center they ask you to put the mask on in the streets. It's interesting how in restaurants you don't have to wear a mask but if you go in an out of a bakery you have to wear a mask and you can't bring your baby with you. To be a single mother would be really hard right now. Thankfully I'm not.

I have ordered margaritas mostly in all restaurants as that's what I missed the most. Well that and not having to do the dishes after I finished eating. 

So as for why I'm running out of patience... It's all these little things. Like going to a new bakery close by. Wanting to buy a baguette you had a few days earlier. One that was a bit healthier and better tasting than the average bread here. Well you go there but they haven't made the bread yet they say but that in an hour you will be able to get it. Well you wait an hour and add an extra 15 minutes just in case and you go back. No bread still. Again, come back in an hour. Seriously? Like I don't have anything better to do with my day than wait around for these people to bake a bread. The name of the place is Esperanza, hope. Perhaps it stands for hope ... of improvement ... hope that somebody else will open up a better bakery. This is the same place they didn't let me in because I had my baby boy with me. I was asking them to walk 20 meters and get me a baguette as the cash register where I was standing when having the conversation was right by the door. Five employees standing around and nobody could actually give service and go and get the darn baguette for me. So when they actually feel to bake the darn bread, they refuse to sell it to you. 

And then there's Aeromexico trying our patience. So far they have canceled our flights once and changed them twice. We have to stay the night in Mexico City and they refuse to pay the hotel for us. Even if our original flight wouldn't have required it. Something tells me that it's even going to get worse, so I will keep you posted. Customer service ... hope for improvement. 

I have however decided to enjoy the last days here and not get worked up about things I can't control. 

I will follow my son's motto in life and take one step at a time and keep on smiling.

Life is what happens

Pray to the forger of the sky, to forge the sky to be bright

Beg the weaver of the sky, to weave grey into clear

Glowing velvet from the darkness

To plait yearning to be beautiful

A chain of silver from longing

To strike the light to the black of their hammer

It was to these words my son came to the world. They were sang to him in Finnish.

We recently got to celebrate my son's 9 months and it happened to fall on the same day as we had our 6 year anniversary with my husband. 6 years as a duo, 9 months as a trio. 

This song is the song I turn to when I need the blood to pump in my veins. If I'm exhausted but I still need to keep on pushing. We had reach the stage of labour when I was ready to give up. It just felt so hopeless. I remember my husband asking me "Is it time for Rammstein?" I answered him "No, it's time for Ruoska, put Alasin". My son came out so fast that the doctor barely had time to enter the room. I was very grateful for the capable nurses. 

Poor heart in its chest

Beats its chains

Even though it pulls in rage

The link will never break

It sounds a million times better in Finnish and it reminds me of the strength we have inside of us if we just believe in it and don't give up. It's amazing how strong our bodies are. How the heart keeps on beating not matter how we push, pull and stretch. Especially when we are pregnant we understand to appreciate this machinery. We feel more in-tuned with ourselves but at the same time we let go of trying to control things because it's not really in our control. A very liberating feeling. Kinda like the one when you're a passenger on a plane. You can make sure to sleep, eat and go to the bathroom to feel better but it's really up to the pilot if the plane crashes or lands safely. During pregnancy, you can exercise and eat healthy but you put your and your baby's destiny in the hands of Mother Nature. 

We can push our body for quite some time and it just keeps on taking it. Rinsing the system over and over again. Repairing the damage. Pumping new fresh blood. Until one day it has had enough and just stops. 
Last week it stopped for a Finnish woman living in Montreal, she was only 49 years old. The body didn't care that she had 3 daughters left without a mother. It just decided that enough is enough. I can't even begin to imagine the sorrow her tree daughters are going through and the challenge of recovery they have in front of them. Life can be so cruel in so many ways.  

Life can be so many other things as well. Here in Queretaro people are starting to feel a sense of freedom and relief. That's what our trio is going through at least. Today restaurants, stores and parks are allowed to open up. Already on Monday I felt a sense of relief when I got to wake up and head to Zumba class. Just to see some friendly faces again and talk about the 3 challenging months behind us, felt really good. We all kept on smiling and laughing even if we kept saying things like; "we lost our work and don't know when our next salary will come in". "One day at a time". "Step by step". I feel this is what we all keep on repeating like a mantra to ourselves not to freak out. 

We have never had much control over life but I think we all have thought we did. Uncertainty is what we all have had to befriend. 

As for our trio. We are so far all in good health as far as we know and we have tickets back to Montreal in about two weeks. They already got canceled once and perhaps will so again but we keep on hoping that the plane will land us safely on Canadian land again. One day at a time ... now we are still in Queretaro and will enjoy the city a bit more until life will reveals its plans for us.

The right to live and breathe

This week I can't help but wonder why certain things get so much attention in media and why it spreads like an epidemic on social media. It's been all about how black life matters. It definitely does. I completely agree that we all should be equal no matter what the skin color or gender. Not to forget about animal rights either. All life matters. I just feel that if we all are only focused on what is happening in the USA, al lot of other lives gets forgotten. 

Like here in Mexico, can you Mexicans please go out and fight for female lives? Every day 10 women get murdered brutally. They get kidnapped, raped, sometimes skinned to death. It's absolutely horrible how frequently this happens. Now during COVID-19 it has gotten even worse. Because it's often by a family member. The term women include girls yet to become women. They never get to grow up and see what an unequal life they would have had in this country. How about we all go out in the streets and shout about this? Female life matters!!!

And to my Canadian fiends. The worst mass killing of the country's history happened now in April in Nova Scotia. There wasn't a beep about this in social media. These 22 lives clearly didn't matter. Justin Trudeau barely mumbled something about it. Probably only because amongst the dead there was a police woman who got called in on duty. I have tried to find more information about this ever since but it's like it has been hushed up. A white male going about the neighborhood killing who ever was in his way. Completely normal and acceptable apparently?? At least the killer got killed, so some kind of justice was served.

The policeman who killed the black man in Minneapolis hopefully will be put to serving his time in prison along with the 3 other policemen who were holding the victim down. Unfortunately the justice system they have in the USA has let other policemen in similar cases free. It's absolutely horrible. 
Here in Mexico a man got killed by the police, in a similar way hold down by several police men. He wasn't wearing a mask in public. Well, that's one version of the reason. I'm guessing it was for something else. He most likely won't get justice either.
I think it's good that we all stand up and speak for justice but my opinion is to do it locally. Buy local, fight for your citizens locally, fight for your animals locally, nature and climate change locally. This way change might actually happen. Little by little it becomes better. If you in Finland publish a black screen on your social media for a man in the USA, I'm sorry to say but it doesn't much matter. 
If you post something regarding unjust police treatment in Finalnd or perhaps one of the Nordic countries you have a better chance of contributing to a change for the better. 
This is obviously just my humble opinion that I needed to get out of my system. 
Yesterday we had the police telling us to wear a mask while driving in a car on our way to the pharmacy. Did I do what they said? Absolutely, I didn't want to die. Do I think it maid sense? Absolutely not. How on earth am I supposed to spread COVID-19 to people from a car that has the windows up and driving at least 40 km/hour? I don't have those superpowers unfortunately.


As for good news happening here in Queretaro. They finally understood that babies need clothing and they took off the plastic and tapes and gave us access to clothing necessities in the supermarkets. 

I was very grateful and happy to be able to buy a first pair of shoes for my sweetheart. 

My son is not quite yet ready to start driving but I promise I will force him to wear a mask if he does. I have understood that a drivers license however is not required? (I'm obviously joking)

They are now discussing of slowly opening up some parks here in the city. So maybe if we are lucky, next week we might be able to sit down on a park bench. I keep you posted of this great event.

Puzzles

I have seen a few instagram updates of people's jigsaw puzzles now during this darn pandemic and I have felt so envious. Back in Finland I loved to put together puzzles. Either 1000 pieces or 1500 pieces. I had a big coffee table and dining table, so it was easy to always have one going. And I lived alone during 4 years, so that helped as well. I still remember my favorite puzzle from my childhood that I would do together with my dad. That one was perhaps a 200 pieces. It was in a glass jar and in one corner there were hazelnuts. I don't remember the big picture but I clearly remember those nuts as they were my favorite pieces. As a child, life is all about the little details.
Even as a teenager I wasn't able to take in the big picture of things, I guess it's the lack of perspective. That's one thing I love the most about growing old. Your lens widens. You have the ability to put things in perspective and zoom out to see the scenery. The beautiful landscapes. 
My good friend and I met as teenagers in St Malo, France. We were there for a 4 week language course. I was 14 and she 15. We went back to celebrate our friendship a few years before turning 30 and I remember how we both were amazed about how little we had really seen of this cute town. We both remembered similar things, what are bikes looked liked and the roundabout where we would meet up on our way to school. We remembered the school and the streets close to the school but we had perhaps seen 35% of a town that is not very big to begin with. It was a mind blowing experience. If a puzzle would have been made from my trip when I was 14, it could have looked like this.

 And here would be the picture of our trip back as adults.

The sales of jigsaw puzzles have gone up tremendously during the last few months of the pandemic I understood from one of the podcasts I listened to. The president of Ravensburger for Noth America was interviewed. And he described the demand as infinite. I believe him. This would normally have been my choice of activity as well and I have always appreciated this German brand. With an 8 month old, it's not possible. So I have had to find other ways to get the little puzzle solver in me satisfied. And that's why I'm so truly thankful to people producing interesting podcasts. I spent the two last days listening to a podcast called Wind of change

  
It's a puzzle lasting for 8 episodes and has everything to do with the Scorpion's song Wind of Change, CIA, KGB and the end of the cold war. Really interesting and well done. Got me thinking I should read about my own country's strategies during the cold war. After all we were there brushing up against the iron curtain. I don't really remember what we learned in school. Most of what I learned in school are puzzle pieces I magically managed to lose. They probably got sucked up by the vacuum cleaner, or something. 
The podcast was an intriguing puzzle and you don't have to be into German rock music to appreciate it.
As for the pandemic struggles here in Queretaro, well I'm starting to be mentally ready to leave this madness. I tried to get in to a grocery store called City Market yesterday. They wouldn't let me in because I didn't have gloves on. A mask is apparently not enough for them, nor spraying alcohol on me. I should start wearing gloves now as well. They lost a client yesterday and for every other day that will follow. I'm not stepping inside this store anymore.

It is a true puzzle to understand the pandemic restrictions we have here. Not a good quality beautiful Ravensburger jigsaw puzzle but one of these poor quality ones that just puts you in a bad mood and makes you want to burn every piece and the box along with, while blasting good old german rock music. One can only hope the wind of change will start blowing this way soon as it seem to have done in Europe. 
  

Hecho con gusto, hecho en Mexico

To give a follow-up to my previous posts... our TV series obsession with Velvet came to an end. It went from too much drama to completely insane. Pregnant women pushing each other down the stairs and similar over the top dramatical things, so I fast forwarded the series to the end. Call me naive but I want to watch pleasant things if I turn on the TV. Beautiful surroundings, beautiful clothing, beautiful people. I leave crazy bitches and stupid asholes to other people. Not my cup of tea.
And as for the wine section... well we still get to buy wine thankfully, so I went to the store that sells our local sparkling wine. And bought 3 bottles. It feels so lovely to consume delicious sparkling wine produced only 65 km from our doorstep. 

I equally enjoy the fact that I get to drink coffee produced in Mexico. However it's not quite as close to Oaxaca from here. You have to add 650 km to the 65 and you will see some coffee plantations. And I have yet to visit that place in person.

My husband took up baking some weeks ago. It started with bread and then he moved over to vanilla cake, so he asked me to buy vanilla. I knew Mexico is famous for their vanilla but I didn't know that is the only country who has the real deal. The orchid plant can grow in other countries but for it to produce the vanilla pod, a special bee is needed and that one only lives in Mexico. Any other real vanilla, like for example the one cultivated in Madagascar is artificially pollinated. So vanilla is Mexico's gift to the world. A nice gift indeed. Unfortunately the reality nowadays here in Mexico is that a lot of criminal activity is linked to the production. It takes very long to grow so along with saffron it's the most expensive spice in the world and therefore very juicy to steal. 
As my husband started baking and we started having ingredients at home I decided to bake the only cake I ever make... kladdkaka, I guess it's a kind of mud cake in English. Fast, easy and darn delicious and for the first time ever made with products within more or less a 1000 km from my doorstep. Cacao here in Mexico is cultivated close to the Guatemalan boarder, so unfortunately a 12 hour drive away. I don't know how local you can call that but at least it's made with products all within lovely Mexico. We have the Aztecs to thank for the vanilla as a spice and the Mayans to thank for the cacao. So I'm really in a good place to justify baking this cake, despite all the calories that comes with it.

May

It's been over 2 months now in complete lockdown. Last time we went out to sit on a terrace and being surrounded by people was the 15th of March. It was in Tequisquiapan and we went to buy our sparkling wine from Freixenet Mexico. 

We could have gone to where they have their production of the sparkling wine but we wanted to take a walk in the town so we just went to their bar and store in the heart of Tequisquiapan. Here you pay the same price for the bottle when you take it home or consume it on their terrace. In other words a lovely, lovely, lovely price. It was a wonderful day. The sun shining and people smiling. A street artist playing music and people dancing. Very every day Mexico style. I was so caught up being happy that I forgot to take pictures, except this one.

We both had our blue converse shoes on that we had bought a few weeks earlier. We were thinking we would buy our little one a matching pair a little later when he would be in need. We are getting close to him needing his first pair of shoes now but we can't buy them for him as no clothing stores or shoe stores have the right to be open. The supermarkets that carry some clothing don't give access to that section. The government say it's not a necessity, so they forbid them to sell clothing. It makes zero sense to me. Since when has supermarkets been selling haut couture? Seriously? If I buy clothing at a supermarket it's because I desperately need it. It's a pair of socks, because my feet are bleeding or it's a pair of underwear because I'm in my period and I was unprepared. 
Now since we have a baby I have bought highly necessary things for him. Well before this insanity started. Everybody knows babies grow out of their clothing in a rapid pace. This is our first child. We didn't know how he will grow and what he will need at the age of 8 months. We all know May in Montreal and May in Mexico is a bit different. And if things would have gone the normal way, we would be in Montreal by the end of May. I read a funny thing on Facebook. Why this month is called May in Canada. It may snow, it may rain, it may shine. That's true for Finland as well. This year it did all that already half way through the month. In both countries. Here it's still warm and sunny. We may get some rain in a week or we may not.
It's really easy to be frustrated as there is no logic to this battle against COVID-19 here in Mexico. I think they have the wrong people in power who finds pleasure in forbidding things just for fun. Today will be a day of groceries for the next 1,5 weeks and I don't look forward to seeing what sections they have closed off. May it not be the wine.

Velvet for Mother's Day

In Mexico Mother's Day is celebrated on the 10th of May. In Finland and Canada it is celebrated on the second Sunday in May. This year the 10th of May happened to fall exactly on the second Sunday. So my first Mother's Day as a mother was a perfect match.  The country where I was born, the country where my home address is and the country where I reside in for once agreed on something. And my guess is that all 3 countries were telling mothers to stay home. I did.

I woke up to the sun shining and my son smiling. What more could a mother ask for? Well, this mother had been up watching a TV series called Velvet until 2am, so I asked for a second cup of coffee to wake up properly.

I decided to add some chocolate to my coffee moment to celebrate my accomplishments for the last 8 months. You don't have access to proper Finnish chocolate here, so I had to settle for Swiss chocolate instead. As I had been glued to the TV the night before, I took a much needed shower after my coffee. Half way through the shower, just when I had shampooed my hair and started rinsing it I looked down on the floor and found my son crawling around in the soap with his diaper and t-shirt on. My husband was still sleeping as he takes care of our little energyball during the night. After a somewhat complicated shower session my son was ready for his nap and I got to go up on the roof terrace and enjoy some alone time.

 This is normally the time of the day when I work out but this day was special, so I decided to put on a white dress I had bought for our wedding day. I wore it in the evening when I was in the mood to dance the night away. I happened to be wearing it as well on the day I had my miscarriage two years earlier, so I felt it was a good dress to remind me of my fortune to be a mother.

As I was enjoying the view and dreaming about the cold sparkling wine in the fridge, I received a message from my friend in England. She is as well a mother, in fact the mother I celebrated two years ago here in Mexico. She told me not to feel guilty but go ahead and open the sparkling wine and celebrate a bit on my own. So that's what I did.

When you are a mother you learn to seize the day... the hour... the minute...each second. Any alone time you can get, well you grab it. We all know husbands and children wake up eventually. And that's normally the time of the day when things don't necessarily go your way.

We had a lovely day in the sun. Enjoying drinks of our own preference and in the evening I got some cake I had bought the day before. (Only one parent is allowed in the groceries here and I prefer that it's me.) The size of the cake explains pretty much my confidence in Mexican pastry. 

There were lots of bigger cheese cakes but I was too scared to waste our money on them. This one was quite okay after I added fresh raspberries, maple syrup and some chocolate. Perfect size as well. We ate it while we dove right back into Velvet. A Spanish drama series about a fashion house in Madrid in the 50's. It's a little too much drama but highly addictive. I personally prefer classy murder mysteries but we needed something to console ourselves with when "El tiempo entre costuras" came to an end.

My first mother's day actually lasted for two days as my husband woke up the next day to a weird gentleman mood and kept on serving me food, wine and what have you while I was mostly glued to the TV. 

One of my favorite characters in the TV series is the designer Rául de la Riva, a very handsomely sparkling gay man with a very nice sense of humor.  My favorite line of his would go something like this in English. 

"We artists we don't commit errors we just change our mind"

Today it's back to working out and we have forbidden each other to open the TV. The workout went well and as for the TV we will see if we are able to keep our word.

My first mother's day was a really nice one despite the lock down and the darn pandemic. I got to enjoy my alone time and my time together with my two sweethearts.

This was my first Mother's Day as a mother and I can only wish I get lots more...