The Postscript

I explained to the baker (to the best of my ability) that I had a meeting at 2:00 and I would love to bring “sweets” to the meeting. The meeting, I added, was with Americans. (There will also be several Canadians, but I decided not to complicate things.) I could tell he sensed the problem. This man looked as if he’d been baking things long enough to have heard of the eccentricities of Americans.

Getting a piece of cake in the middle of the day adds some unexpected sweetness to the day. Peter and I don’t speak enough Spanish to know how to tell these people how grateful we are, how at home we feel, and how much their everyday kindness means to us.

We’ll be staying in our little one-bedroom apartment, and I’ll be writing at my little green Formica desk. It’s not the fanciest place. It’s nowhere near as nice as the homes of most of our friends. But every night our landlord, Jorge, will greet us and the colorful suns hanging from the walls around us will smile at us and we will know we have everything we need.

Right outside the elevator doors, they started singing the Frank Sinatra tune, “Don’t Blame Me.” The setting might not have been the most romantic, but the acoustics were perfect. Those barbershop singers brought tears to my eyes.

It turns out that no one cares if I stay up too late eating toffee. There is no editorial committee reviewing my statements from the previous day, informing me of how they might have been more clever or less embarrassing.

When I see typewriters, rather than experiencing a pleasant nostalgia, I feel something closer to dread.

I wondered how much we could ever know about a little red squirrel. We pretend he thinks just like us and we know, of course, this is not true. But I know he was watching, and I was glad he was there, on this day my mom was not feeling her best. I don’t know what he was pondering as he sat there, his fingers knit together, looking earnestly into the window. But he seemed very intent, as if he was...

The biggest change I would like to make in the new year is to stop behaving as if I have all the time in the world. While I don’t know how much time I have, (and I hope it is still considerable), none of us knows. I’d like to be a little gentler on myself in this new year. I’d like to treat myself like a person who is not going to live forever—simply because I am not.

There are so many troubles I have never known. There is a world of pain I have never experienced. While I was dwelling on a couple of hastily dressed kids with messy hair quietly doodling in the front pew, there were wells of pain and loss and confusion right in front of me that I could not imagine.

Auntie Jo would head downstairs to wrap presents and, at some point, their dog, Twinkie, would make a mad dash out the door. We’d all scour the neighborhood until we found Twinkie. Then Auntie Jo would go to change her clothes and emerge, more resplendent than the Christmas tree.

I tried to imagine where I would wear these pants, and nothing came to mind. I could imagine them swishing around my ankles. I would wear platform shoes and enormous hoop earrings. I imagined the person I would be, wearing palazzo pants, and a whole new world opened up before me. A world that, in actual fact, did not exist.

I wished I had a few more words. I wished I could understand just a bit better. I no longer care if I use the wrong form of a verb, or forget a word, or say something embarrassing. It makes no difference at all. What I care about, more than ever, is being able to understand these people—my new friends.

My mother's family was a Swedish farming family and we asked for strength to keep on working. Feasting in Paradise might have been fine for some, but that was a little more than any of us could imagine. Asking for strength so we could keep on doing what we had been doing seemed like a pretty safe bet and, perhaps, not too much to ask.

This cup holds more than my coffee. This cup holds the memories I am making, day by day, sip by sip, as I sit at my desk in Mexico. It holds the bright markets and the feel of the round cobblestone streets beneath my feet and the smiles of the countless friendly people I meet every day.

I tried to tell him that I don’t make dietary choices for anyone but myself. But then I realized this was not quite true.

There is no need to save these gloves for a special day. Because this day—this going to church together and having coffee and sharing pastries and plans day—was as special as any day could be.

I love the idea of a day—or the better part of a week—set aside to tell stories like that and to keep the memory of my grandma, and so many others we have loved so much, alive.

I know young people hate to call. They text and instantly respond, and that seems to work well. When older people text, they tend to forget to check their messages, and balls get dropped. I’m guessing I’m not alone in this.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who talks to dogs on my daily walk. I’d be surprised, however, if anyone was more enthusiastic about it. I am also (if I say so myself), very good at it. This is because I have a secret method for talking to dogs.

I wrote a story about a man who believed as my friend did. I tried to imagine what might happen to that man that could cause him to change his mind.

I walk around in my shiny new boots, and I wonder if I shouldn’t be doing something different—even if it’s less ambitious than learning to fly or stockpiling enough food to live on for six months.

We are all making up stories for one another without knowing what the real story is. The story I make up for myself when I am anxious is that I am failing—somehow, somewhere—and no one has told me how or why.

I think I’ve known for most of my life I would never be as consistent or disciplined or sensible as my parents. They were this way when I grew up, and they remain every bit as remarkable now that I am getting old.

A friend objected to my recent column. It wasn’t realistic, he wrote. Bad things happen, and people like me should acknowledge them. He talked about tornados and shootings. He said people like me would go looking for a pony in a pile of horse poop.

We all agreed that it should be more entertaining than it was—at least for us. We suspected other people (younger people) might have more fun reading this than we were.