Separation Anxiety

Don’t move to La Paz if you suffer Separation Anxiety.  I didn’t figure this out until we’d already moved here.  It might be too late for me but perhaps my experiences will help you.

You know who you are.  You dream of a life in the sun.  Near the clear Sea of Cortés.  Perhaps you want adventure. A sailboat. Scuba diving. Hikes in the desert.  Or maybe you’re looking for a laid-back life. A hammock and a good book.  Possibly living in a foreign country is the allure. A new language and a rich culture.  Conceivably, you want it all.  Who can blame you?  But if there’s the remote possibility that you have Separation Anxiety, don’t do it!

Alex and I had no problem driving away from our life in El Norte.  We didn’t miss our jobs.  And we assumed our friends and family would flock to La Paz for long visits, so we didn’t feel separated from them.  We had begun our adventure.

Within our first week here, I’d joined a Spanish class at Marina Palmira.  The students, mostly cruisers, entertained me with their travel tales.  I developed ties to these new friends.  Then one day, after we’d lived here four months, anxiety hit me like a virus.

Dave and Vickie mentioned that they were going sailing.  I asked, “For the weekend?”  Dave said, “No, first we’re sailing to Hawaii for a few months and then The Marquesas and later who knows?”

“When will you be back?” I asked. 

Vickie shrugged.  I tried to keep the panic out of my voice. “You are coming back, aren’t you?”

I felt as if I was six years old again.  Alone in our car in Boston.  My father had said, “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”  I didn’t know where he went or why he didn’t take me.  I waited.  And waited.  Was he lost?  I flattened my nose against the car window and searched the faces of each passerby but, until I saw Daddy’s face, I felt queasy.  Empty. Alone. 

Fast forward forty-eight years. I was sitting at Marina Palmira and the queasiness had returned.  I said to Yvonne, a classmate, “Dave and Vickie are leaving La Paz and might not come back!”  Yvonne said, “Judy, that’s what cruisers do.  They come for a week, a month or a year then many of them decide to sail away looking for new adventures.”

She might as well have been speaking in Martian.  How could they think of leaving La Paz?  And their friends?

Since then, boaters have sailed into my life and often, after a time, they’ve floated away, and I’ve tried to prepare myself by remembering Yvonne’s words. 

Cruisers may sail off, however, I expected stability from land-lovers. Their homes are made of concrete not fiberglass.  What could shake them from their lives here?

 Health issues are a major factor. Jorge and Marjorie were pillars of our ex-pat community.  They’d been in La Paz forever.  Almost as long as their historical home.  Saturday night meant only one thing to Alex and me – “movie night”.  Twenty-five people.  A collection of artist and poets. The ceiling timbers shook with talent. A cocktail of egos and a sprinkling of humility.

One night I said to Marjorie, “Do you realize that you and I are the only people in this room that don’t do anything?  We don’t write, paint or sculpt.”  She merely smiled and asked if I wanted more ice cream.  Later, a friend who had overheard whispered, “Don’t you know that Marjorie is a published poet”?  Later, Marjorie invited me to join a new Wild Poetry group that Lee Moore had formed.  “Me?” I asked.  Marjorie said it would be fun.  And it was.  I loved it.  And I loved them.  So when Marjorie and Jorge sold their house I was incredulous.  How could they leave La Paz?  And their friends?  My rational self accepted that health issues and family were involved but my damn little six-year-old still felt betrayed.

Family. Like the biological clock that can turn a formerly happy, childless  couple into frantic baby-obsessed individuals, a similar fixation may strike grandparents.  Without soccer games, dollhouses and playtime, they feel empty.  Alone.  So they sell their houses, promise to keep in touch, and leave La Paz while I sit on the warm beach feeling deserted.

Nevertheless, as quickly as people leave La Paz, others arrive. It takes something special to leave your birth country, your family and friends.  A drop of Gypsy blood.  But no blood or personality test exists to determine if one has “staying power”.  Some people move their bodies and belongings but leave their hearts and desires in El Norte.  They begin to complain about Mexico.  And, in time (if they can afford it) they return “home”.

Alex and I have had friends in each of these categories.  It’s been hard to see them go.  Some return to La Paz for a visit and it’s as if I can breathe more easily.

Luckily, Saturday has morphed from “movie night” into “Farmers Market Day”.  I meet friends. Chat.  And eat sweets. Last Saturday I traded hugs with Ginger, Helga, Yvonne, Sharon and Pat.  A normal Saturday morning.  Wait-just-one-minute!  Pat?  Pat Lowe-Bonner?  Pat who left La Paz and moved to Australia? Here for only three weeks? I had hugged her as if she still owned Casa Tuscany and we still saw each other three or four times a week including “movie night”.  In two weeks she’ll get on a plane and return to Australia and I’ll feel as queasy as if I’d hit air turbulence.

Is it possible that the drop of Gypsy blood that drew us to La Paz will boil again, pushing us to seek new adventures elsewhere?  Will the biological clock strike and pull us back to family?  Perhaps health issues will force us back north.  Maybe.  Until then, La Paz is my home. My friends are my family. And until a vaccine is developed, I will suffer Separation Anxiety each time a friend leaves.

      

Tonight's The Night!

The Last Chance

Beth roamed through the large empty house.  So clean it squeaked of loneliness. She looked into the mirror above the dresser and her eyes narrowed with determination.  “Enough”, she told her image.  “Tonight’s the night.”

She picked up the photo of Ralph.  Young.  Handsome. Muscular.   And said, “Honey, forgive me but I can’t spend another night alone.”  She opened the drawer and gently placed the photo deep within.

She walked into the bathroom and filled the tub, reached for bubble bath, and instead, poured musk oil into the steamy water.  Slowly her body sank into the slippery liquid.  She felt a shiver of excitement, sighed, leaned back and imagined Ralph.  His warm body as he sprawled onto her side of the bed, their early morning runs, his loyalty and his death.  Eighteen months ago he had been struck by a hit-and-run driver as he fetched the newspaper in front of their house.  He died before she could reach him – before she could whisper one last time that she loved him.

 Anger and regret turned the bath water cold.  She stood and tried to shake-off the bloody memory.

“Enough”, she said aloud.  “Tonight I won’t sleep alone”.

She dressed like a woman on the hunt. Jeans with a tiny bit of wiggle room, a red turtleneck, and black boots.  No flowery perfume. Ralph had preferred her natural scent and had sneezed whenever she wore cologne. 

Beth drove to the outskirts of town. The road was familiar because she had already taken the same route three times that week. She had parked outside The Last Chance, had drummed her fingers on the steering wheel waiting for the nerve to open the door, but each time fear had glued her fingers onto the wheel and she’d driven home alone.  But tonight was going to be different. 

She pulled over a block away from the seedy, old concrete building, slammed the lever into “park”, pushed the car door open, and could hear the sound of a hundred hungry souls.  She took a deep breath and walked toward The Last Chance. 

Doubt slowed her steps. Beth thought, Sally better be right!  Short, plain Sally. She’d met Fred at The Last Chance and they’ve been together for three years.  And he’s totally devoted to her.

 Then she imaged her mother’s face if she knew that her only daughter was about to open the door to “a place like that; a haven for losers”.  The image of her up-tight mother worked.  Beth yanked open the heavy metal door. 

Every face in the place turned toward her.

She smelled desperation and loneliness.  She blushed; she wasn’t a woman accustomed to such attention. But being timid wouldn’t get her what she needed.  She strutted into the room. 

Beth felt the room vibrate with energy.  A trim guy with long hair openly stared at her.  She ignored him.  A blond stud winked at her; he was drooling.  She shivered in revulsion and was about to turn and walk out the door when she noticed him.  Alone.  Unkempt.  Old.  His head rested on the bar. He was the only one in the room who wasn’t begging for her attention.  She willed him to look up, and, as if she were the moon and he the tide, he lifted his head and met her eye.  And in that instant she imagined his past -- a youth spent with inattentive parents and abusive siblings, a long line of promiscuous sexual relationships, and finally his life on the streets.   

“Turn around and walk out that door!” She commanded herself.  But her heart drove her feet.  She walked toward him, suddenly bold, and whispered, “Hi, handsome, do you have a name?”  He raised an eyebrow. Beth continued, “Would you like to go for a walk?”  Hope leapt into his red-rimmed eyes.  “It’s going to be okay”, she said.  He got to his feet – slowly. She brought her face close to his.  He needed a bath.  Badly.  She fantasized about soaping his bony body.  Slowly, gently. And she knew that although he would never replace young, strong Ralph, chemistry was based on something deeper than a young healthy body. 

Beth paid his tab. She held the door for him and they strolled to her car. They sat for a moment in silence, and then she said, “Viejo, let’s go home.”

He barked and licked her face as they drove away from The Last Chance.  

Note:  If you have lost a dog like Ralph or if you have a sliver of space in your heart and the ability to properly care for a pet, there is a lonely, desperate Viejo waiting.  Willing to give his devotion, love and ready to bring joy into your life. For these animals it may be their last chance.