Looking out my Backdoor: It's a great place to live … but

Yes, it’s a great place to live (for me) but you wouldn’t want to visit.

I’ve been accused of having a Paradise Complex, but it is not true. I’ve been told Paradise is full of snakes and liars and have no reason to either believe it or not believe it.

Nope. I live in a dusty little cow-town, farm village in Mexico and though I often say I live in Paradise, I mean Paradise for me. For me. Amen. And Awomen.

When Dr. Landazari, eye specialist, who lives in Mazatlan, the Pearl of the Pacific, but performs his surgeries in ultra-modern Guadalajara, flew over Etzatlan to see just where in, er, where I’d moved, he asked me before he scraped my eyeballs, “Why do you want to live in that dirty little town?”

What could I say? How could I tell him, an unbeliever, that I feel at home here? After all, I grew up in a dusty little farm town. There is a reason the highway by-passed my hometown on the way to elsewhere.

Is Paradise an accident of geography? Is that how Heaven got to be up there and the Saints and Angels walked in clouds? Remember, the earth was flat back then, before it wrapped itself into a swirling ball.

So why not have Paradise be wherever one lands? Or the Nether regions if one is so inclined. You know, the fiery pit. Same geography.

I came here in 2016 with all the fervor of a woman in love. What’s not to love? I had a small house just the right size, a large yard, just the right size, and a town, a little dirty and timeworn, with shops that carried everything I needed, with diligent searching, if not everything I wanted. Goldilocks had arrived.

It’s a great place to live but you wouldn’t want to visit.

There is nothing touristy here. We don’t have sandy beaches, or any other beach. No river or ocean. No amusement park. No casinos. No movie theatre. No mall. No big box stores. No spectacular wonders of the world. No Wally’s World. No MickyD’s.

Streets are cobblestone. That will joggle your suspension system all right, both yours and your car’s. A shopping trip for basic supplies for a week might send you to a dozen tiny tiendas, or more. Houses are not insulated, not built to code (Code? What’s that?), windows leak, roofs have to be cleaned and sealed annually, and probably not more than a dozen people in the whole town speak English and why would they?

Those are some reasons some of you might not like it here. Nothing is familiar. Nothing is, well, comfortable. It’s foreign.

That’s why tourists go to all-inclusive, air-conditioned beach resorts on holiday. They are enclosed in a known world where the staff speak English; they provide zip-lines, day tours, and familiar food. Vendors ply the beach with cheap sun-glasses, printed tee-shirts, henna tattoos of geckos and braid your hair with beads. It’s comfortable. Safe. Meow.

OK. So how do I find Paradise in a dusty little village, far from the madding crowds?

Skip over the part where flowers bloom year round and temperatures are generally moderate, and fruit falls off the trees into one’s mouth, rather like “summertime, and the living is easy.”

My first visit here, I was crossing the wide street from the Plaza, slowly, my cane a permanent extension of my right hand. A young man, perhaps 16 or 17, ran across the street, gave me his arm and walked me across, helped me up the curb, said, “Adios, Senora,” and went on to join his friends who waved to me.

It happened right here, see where that stain is. That stain is where my heart melted into the sidewalk, where I became a permanent part of this village. It’s the People.

I’m older and physically impaired, read “invisible.” Not here. Teenagers greet me. Everybody says hello. Elsewhere, I am invisible. Here, I am at Home.

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Sondra Ashton grew up in Harlem but spent most of her adult life out of state. She returned to see the Hi-Line with a perspective of delight. After several years back in Harlem, Ashton is seeking new experiences in Etzatlan, Mexico. Once a Montanan, always. Read Ashton’s essays and other work at http://montanatumbleweed.blogspot.com/. Email [email protected].