A Week of Almosts

 Monday

Monday started off on the wrong foot. The sprained ankle. The ingrown nail. 

I woke up knowing she was still there. I’d been ignoring her for weeks, now. Or had it been three weeks? I don’t know. I couldn’t ignore it any longer. 

How do I know when I have a UTI? Yes, it’s the symptoms mentioned online: burning, stinging, the teasing and false alarms. I feel like it’s made of rust down there. 

“Guys,” I called my work, “Would it be a major inconvenience if I came in tomorrow?”

I am lucky they said yes. I used that time to:

• Go the pharmacy

• Get patronized by the pharmacist

• Buy weak antibiotics that didn’t cure the infection but did increase my tolerance

• Go to Segal, the cheap grocery store

• Grab a bag of groceries so heavy that my bike basket pressed down on the wheel

• Carry that enormous bag on my left shoulder as I biked home

• Do some writing?

• Make some kimchi. 

The day had a feeling of “Meh” about it. The vibes were stale. Not to mention, I was a block of rock because I hadn’t pooped all day. 

I can’t do my proper exercises when I’m this bloated, so I took myself on a longass walk up to Kondiaronk Beldevere to check out the full moon. Surely, that has got to be aspiring, right?

I walked past St. Hubert, where my ex-boyfriend lives. Probably with the girl he dated after me. I wondered how he was doing. I’m happy that I was over him, that I was happy not being with him anymore. But I also was jealous of the possibility of him thriving. Does he feel the heaviness of life, like I do? Does he feel anything?

I continued down Duluth, and just as the base of Mont Royal became visible and within reach, Musician Bro biked past with a friend. Musician bro who talked like Johnny Depp. Who washed his hair and teeth once a month and week. Who was supposed to be easy, smooth, and still managed to disappoint me when he wasn’t in the mood for intimacy one day. Who decided it wasn’t worth it anymore when I cried that night. 

Sigh.

I normally feel very powerful, running past slow people on the stairs that lead up to the belvedere. But today, I was one of those slow pathetic people. 

The city was bathed in violets and silvers. An encyclopedia of lives, stories, businesses, adventures. I took a moment to sit down and be still with it. 

To my left, a group of friends pouring wine into plastic cups for each other. To my right, a family sharing inside jokes. Closer to the balcony, this guy held a girl by the waist as they both looked at the sky, leaning in for the occasional giggle and kiss. 

I zipped up my hoodie. It was getting chilly. 

The moon will be my friend. 

I had something no one else here had. I had an app called Stellarium, which shows the positions of the planets, moons and stars, accurate by the second. The moon’s head would be visible at exactly 8:44pm. She should be fully above the horizon by 20:57.

I snuck into the chalet to use the toilet. “Did that door open for you?” I asked two boys. Or had my eyes imagined it? All the other doors were very much locked. I would know because I went around. 

“It did,” the nicer-looking one told me, “But I don’t think it’s supposed to,”

“Shhh,” I smiled as I sneaked inside. I had to move some heavy chairs placed on the other end. He helped me. 

When I came out, I stood on the rocks like a child. The boys talked to each other. I wish they’d have talked to me. I wish people were more inviting to new friends. They already know I’m cute and funny. 

Anyway, my friend the moon would be here any minute now. 

Except, she wasn’t. 

The moon, in full Scorpio fashion, decided to hide. Make us wonder where she is, what she’s thinking. 

Is that just as attention-seeking as the Leo Moon? I waited and waited until she was completely above the horizon. Is she behind the clouds? Is she behind the building? I don’t know. 

                              

Why was I feeling sorry for myself when I had friends asking to see me? I opened my WhatsApp group “Period Sisters” to let my girls know I’ll come over to meet them. I said goodbye to the sky and skipped my way down. 

They were already at the bar before I got there. I ordered something delicious, and then another, and two more beers. We talked about parenting, travel, and my bowel issues.

I went through more of my messages. 

One friend was having a rough day. He had to face some debt that had finally caught up to him, all while trapped in a foreign country.

Another had termites raining down his ceiling. 

Maybe tomorrow will be better for everyone. It already was, for me. 

Friday

I was glad Friday was here. I had spoken in a previous post about how spring has kept us in limbo, and now things were finally cementing. The weather was finally properly hot, and I had my appointment at the Mexican consulate. Will my work visa go through or not? 

I will talk a bit about the process of getting a Mexican work visa. I want to write on this blog more regularly, to document my experience, and I suppose this is as good a place as any to start. I hope I keep up with it. I’ve slipped off before. Maybe ya’ll can hold me accountable. 

Leading up to here, it was long and arduous. Multiple interviews, weird online questionnaires, them getting documents approved from their end, my visa date getting rescheduled. I felt like I was pestering them for information that should have already been given: Which grade will I be teaching? When is the school year starting? What are the hours? What’s the dress code? When are the summer holidays, exactly? 

I accepted their vague answers, printed out the documents as instructed (double-printed, in colour), put them along with my diploma and passports into a neat folder that makes me look like I’m actually professional and organized. I wore my cream button-down blouse, navy slacks and sensible loafers. I got to the interview 30 minutes early. 

The receptionist told me to have a seat, and her colleague will call me. 

I pushed my straightened pony-tail off my shoulder as I sat down. Everyone else was dressed like they’re sitting on their beaded couches, ready for their afternoon telenovellas. Mexican Teyzes. Wtf was I trying to prove? This kid with curly hair and pink lips came up to me and started speaking to me in Spanish. He was a proper doll. 

I did as told: kept my ears awake.

“Para visa? Para visa?” he called out. 

I assumed it was someone’s name. Looked around to see who it could be.

“Para visa?” he said again. My brain clicked: visa. He was saying two different words. 

I got off my chair, went to the counter, and started explaining, “Sorry, I thought you were calling someone else,”

“Visa. Visa.” 

“Yes, but”. I didn’t go into explaining to him that when a person hears foreign words, it could be a proper noun, a verb, anything.

He looked through the documents I handed out to him. 

“Have you been to Mexico before?”

“Yes, a few years ago for a week,”

“Where?”

“Tulum,”

“That’s not the real Mexico,”

“I know,” I nodded, “Now I’ll see the real Mexico.”

He shuffled through more documents, 

“Why do you want to go to Mexico?” he asked,

I figured I’d start with the goody-two-shoes answers:

“The school I’m working at, our values really align and -”

“Values? What’s your religion??”

“Um, when I say value, I don’t mean religion, I mean -”

“What’s your religion?”

Fine, I thought. “I don’t have a religion. I just believe in being a good person.”

“Okay, but private schools in Mexico are often religious,”

My shrug was small, “We didn’t talk about that in any of the interviews. We just talked about what’s best for a child’s education.”

“Alright. Have a seat and we’ll call you.” Bro was keeping me in the dark. 

“Perfecto.”

Was Mexico going to be full of people like this? Snappy, close-minded. It reminded me of Turkey, where voices were more coarse, eyes rolled more visibly. 

The second guy who called my name was having a much better life. I’d seen him talking to another woman earlier. His smile was as calming as the blue of his suit. 

“I don’t see a problem with your application,”

“Gracias,” I said, “I worked hard on it.” 

I was told to have a seat again. The first guy called me, “Congratulations. You can pick up your passport on Wednesday. 

I walked home in the sunny heat. I should have shoved my cotton dress in my bag, I thought, so I could change out of these trousers and have a cold beer on a barstool. Oh well. 

I came home, sent out some emails, and started writing this. And just as I’m wrapping up, ready to run over to my precious celebratory beers, I hear thunder. 

It’s literally raining down my parade.