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...

The time in between

I can't help but feel that I'm not really living my life as much as I'm sitting around waiting. A bit like in Leonard Cohen's song 

"Baby, I've been waiting
I've been waiting night and day
I didn't see the time
I waited half my life away...
(the song being waiting for a miracle)

I haven't been waiting half my life away yet but soon enough half my son's life. I'm glad he doesn't understand that we brought him to a world in a pandemic resembling a silent world war. A world in fear, panic and anger more or less completely locked down. All freedom rubbed away, forcing us to keep distance to each other while covering ourselves with masks. A  seven month old doesn't have much freedom in general. He is completely under his parents' mercy. This is probably why we don't remember anything from our first years alive.

I wonder how much we will remember from this quarantine when things go back to "normal" ... if it ever will. 

So this time we are living now in between our previous life and our future life, what is it all about?  Mine is a strange mix of everyday life. Cooking, cleaning, exercising and spending time with my husband and son. However with a strong need of escaping it all to a world that feels more inspiring, more interesting, more fun and more comforting...somehow.

I first landed on a new podcast that I fell head over heels in love with. It's called Heavyweight, also by Gimlet media. It's so wonderful to listen to these stories from people's pasts. Like small mysteries that slowly gets unravelled. The host has a pleasant voice, fun sense of humor and as well this soft side that put you to think about your own life. I got hooked 10 minutes into the first episode I found that was called Jimmy and Mark. Now I have gone through all episodes and I quite don't know what to do with myself. The next season only starts in the fall so I guess it's the time in between when I just have to sit around waiting.

So that's why I was so happy when my husband introduced me to a TV series called El tiempo entre costuras (the time in between the seams but the English translation being only The time in between). A really well made Spanish production taking us back to the time of the Spanish civil war and beginning of World War 2. It's just heaven to watch. The clothing, the actrors. Everything. And I was watching it in Spanish with no subtitles of any kind, so it was good practice as well. But yesterday we watched the last episode of season 1 and I don't think there will be more as it was finished filming 6 years ago. So there's no time in between, it's just the end. A really sad goodbye.

It means I'm back to my own life. Back to breastfeeding, diaper changing and watching my son standing up on his own, walking on his own with supporting himself against a sofa or bed or drawers. Ripping things out of the drawers, putting all kinds of objects in his mouth. In a loud voice expressing his opinion with words I can't understand. He is very much living in the present unlike his parents. He doesn't need to escape anywhere. To him the apartment is exciting enough and apparently his parents is good enough company so he doesn't crave for more.

The restrictions here in Queretaro are being tighten up when other countries are loosening them. We are still not even up in 150 cases of COVID-19 in a state with 2.3 million people. I can't help but wonder what is really going on. A human life in Mexico is not worth much. Children are kidnapped and women killed on daily basis without nobody doing anything. People drive like lunatics without driver's  license causing one deadly accident after the next and nobody cares. The statistics in these cases don't matter. We know what kind of president the country has, so the fact that people are locked up in their houses and the police now being allowed to give a ticket to anybody breaking the rules has to do with something other than people's safety. And yes I know it's as well about the hospital capacity but still, I just don't buy it. The only countries I'm willing to believe that actually does this because of safety would be countries like my dear home country Finland or Norway or Iceland perhaps. I know there are a lot of conspiracy theories out there. I wonder what the truth is and if it ever will come out. Will the history books later on write about the truth or will it be the version that is most convenient to keep us little humans ignorant and under control? Time will tell and in the meantime I will try to stop waiting around and try to live a bit more. It's the season of the red jacarandas now and I'm happy I got to enjoy them before the police had the right to come and arrest me. My time under the blue sky, between the beautiful red flowers and the solid earth made me feel very happy and alive.