Living Multiple Lives: A Reader's Adventure

We finally got our Puerto Morelos apartment ready to airbnb.  It has been a rather large undertaking to say the least, but it’s over now.  Done and done and I do think it looks rather nice, but you can judge that for yourself.

But now we need a property manager.  Someone that can rent it out for us, managing the cleaning  and turnover, making sure that everything is running how it should, etc. etc.

(You think that living by the beach is so lovely until you realize how much the salt can eat away at those necessary things like small valves attached to your clothing machine, air condition, shower head.)

There was one lady that came highly recommended to us.  She manages about 100 properties in Puerto Morelos and has lived in the community full time since 2019.

We arrived at her house which was only about 15 minutes from the beach. She lives in a gated community filled with medium to large homes, a community pool, and some condominiums.  When we walked into her house I was struck by the very tall ceilings and a window that revealed a courtyard (small pool with waterfall included) that the house encircled.  I immediately veered to the right.

“You who, over hear,” I heard a loud voice command and of course it was coming from the opposite direction. 

A woman was sitting on the couch.  She was very blonde and very white.  

Not really what I was expecting.

She told us she was originally from Idaho, another surprise.  Her and her husband fell in love with Puerto Morelos and wanted to retire here.  They built this house, she said as she waved a flappy arm around her lush surroundings.  Her voice was loud in decimal and her confidence was even louder.  

“After a month on the beach,” she bellowed, “I grew bored.  You can only relax and veg out for so long.”

That’s funny was my first thought.  I have been here for two months and doing exactly that and never once got bored. I quite enjoy all of that vegging and relaxing actually.

And then my second thought quickly caught up to the first.  Why was that?  Why can I go on long walks, take myself to coffee shops, stare out onto the ocean for two months and crave a third, a fourth, and perhaps a lifetime of only doing that.

She continued to explain that she employs about 15 Mexican citizens, most of which are bilingeral.  “Thank goodness for that,” she chuckled, but my attention had moved on because I was still pondering my own unboredness.

And the conclusion that I came up with was that I’m a reader, a writer.  I can stare into the abyss and imagine worlds far beyond my own reality.  I can sit and read and be swept into one life after another until what is real slowly begins to fade into something that is altogether imaginative.

I ask you, can a reader every really get bored?

I suddenly felt a soft nudging on my leg.  I looked down a bit startled.  A tuxedo cat was nudging my fingertips with his pink little noise, begging for a pet or two.

A cat person, my heart proclaimed.  She had to be a good person.

“You have a cat,” I said, not realizing that the conversation had moved along. She was telling us what needed to be done before our apartment could be rented. All information that I should be paying attention to.

“She loves cats,” my husband quickly added.

“I’ve rescued four actually, this one is just the friendliest,” she said without missing a beat or seeming to notice how out of context my outburst was.

And then of course I had to launch into my own story of how I rescued a tuxedo cat from a Mexican beach a few years ago and how she is the friendliest too and I named her Fridacatlo.

“I love that you're a cat person,” she said through a smile and then my part of the conversation was over and the business part began again and I was left to escape again. 

She's a busy type of person, I thought as I watched her explain to us her renting process. I so envy those busy people.  The ones who can’t stay still, the hustlers in the world; always working on a project, always looking at what they can accomplish next.  I sometimes watch them over my book and feel like a slow moving sloth in comparison or maybe their life is sped too far up and I’m the one living in the real world.  One in which is more slow moving, more paced, more able to be allowed enjoyment.

Will my slow moving life feel longer than there’s, I sometimes wonder.  Will my slow moving life be more fulfilling than there’s? Or will I regret all the times I escaped into the confines of my own mind?  I probably will never know.  But what I do know is that I will never regret reading, will never regret escaping into one adventure after another, will never regret getting lost in all of those verbs, nouns, prepositions that somehow form sentences that are beautiful and stay with me even after the last page is turned.  Readers will never become bored with their life because they can lead so many others,

I will tell you this much, however. If you ever need to find me, you will find that my head is in a book at the beach, or on the couch, or in bed, or even at work (shhh, don't tell anyone), but don't try to talk to me until the last page is turned because I'm living somewhere else for a little while and that is perfectly fine with me.