Still in Mexico City, Still Trying to Chase a Dream

Apologies for the radio silence; I've simply been trying to get my writing career off the ground. I've placed my novel with an agent in Toronto and am in the process of writing another. I'm also actively pitching articles to travel websites and trying to get a part-time blogging gig. 

I've realized that teaching English in Mexico City is more of a hobby than a job. I will write a full post on this eventually but the fact is that it's impossible with an English school to get enough hours at locations that don't make you want to burn every kind of public transportation in sight. 

And in teaching private classes you are constantly battling cancellations, clients that disappear into thin air, and people who don't want to pay your fee.

Luckily, I'm not really inclined to make English teaching a career, though I've thought about doing a TESL course so I can get a real teaching gig eventually. 

But mainly I want to write and I want to be able to travel. My partner in crime wants the same thing--we have dreams of maybe hopping over to Bali, or Montreal, or India. Who knows. Wherever we land, we want a life that allows us the freedom to pick up and go, to work at home, to work for ourselves, and to eventually pay others to do that work for us.

It's exhausting trying to construct our own road but we have big dreams and we're banking on them coming true. More to come.

10 Tips for Solo Women Travellers

Fellow travelers asked me again and again as I wound my way through Central America last month: "You're traveling by yourself?!"

Interestingly enough, the questioner was usually female and paired with another female buddy for protection. Well folks, I made it through Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica alone and with nary a scratch. My six months in Mexico City had definitely prepared me but I believe that any woman, if she follows a few simple rules, can make her own way. Here they be:

1. Wear a money belt. It's not a very cool fashion accessory but it is guaranteed to hold your passport, extra money, and credit cards with zero possibility of theft. Also, your bra can serve as a great impromptu holding place for your fancy phone, money, etc. NO ONE is going to be able to sneak a hand down there without you noticing (you would hope).
2. Make friends. Whether it's the owner of your slightly sketchy hotel, fellow travelers on the bus, or your dorm mates, make buddies or at least strike up a conversation. They'll be more likely to come to your aid if things go south. A man I chatted with on a bus in Nicaragua insisted on finding me a safe and cheap cab to my next destination. Priceless.
3. Paranoia is your friend. Feeling sketched out by everything? Good! Listen to your fear, it's trying to keep your safe. It is always MUCH better to play it safe and not die. MUCH.
4. Be lame. You know that voice that says, "Hey these random people inviting me for a drink seem slightly sketch but isn't it time for real fun?" Maybe, or they could be real trouble. Be lame and skip the wild adventures. You will see and do enough amazing things on your trip that will be risk-free (or are the right kind of risk, like zip-lining).
5. Go home before dark when you're unsure about your surroundings. My first few days in Guatemala I headed home as soon as it started getting dark, which turned out to be at about 6 p.m. Lame. It wasn't exactly my dream to hang out in my hotel room with a book and Internet all night but I was completely safe and I got an early start the next day.
6. Research! Grab a guide book and read about places to avoid, special safety concerns, local customs etc. And then cross-check that information (especially hotel reviews). One hostel recommended by my guidebook had a new "creepy" employee, as per the reviews. Definitely something I didn't want to deal with.
7. Ask the locals. If they don't think the bus is safe, forget about it! Get insider information if you can from locals or expats. This will really guarantee a smooth journey.
8. Be smart with your money. Having enough on hand will help you make good choices. To catch a 6 a.m. bus in sketchy Managua I had the option to either book ridiculously overpriced $10 cab or walk out to the main street to try my luck. Sure I could have saved a few bucks but what is $10 for my safety? There was no way I was going to go wandering around Managua in the dark with all my possessions. Spend the money. You're worth it.
9. Travel light. Having too much baggage will make you feel vulnerable especially if you happen to get off the bus in a so-so place and you'll only have that much more worth stealing. Stow everything you can stand to lose in your big bag (clothes, books), everything you could lose if you had to in a small backpack that you keep on you (laptop, camera), and the absolutely must-not-lose items in a money belt (credit card, passport, the bulk of your money).
10. Take calculated risks. Sometimes, despite all your precautions, things start getting funky. I took a bus from Tegucigalpa to Managua that was supposed to get me in before dark. But the bus was delayed and when we rolled in what did I see but endless shadowy streets filled with loitering men. Perfect. I exited and eight million taxi drivers swarmed me (I then remembered that Mangua taxi drivers have been known to rob passengers). A friendly-looking cab driver steered me away from the mob and without any other options I decided to trust him. As it turned out he drove me around in circles for over half an hour and charged me about $15 but I eventually got to a safe hotel. I trusted him enough and things worked out, more or less. Be prepared but when things go down know that you have the good sense to manage them.

Overall, trust your judgement! If something feels wrong, listen to that feeling.You have the capacity to take care of yourself in any circumstance--believe in that and you'll find travelling a much less stressful and more enriching experience.

Fifty Shades of Relationship Negotiation

For a poorly written book, Fifty Shades of Grey really captured my attention. And not just in that way.

I was fully prepared to hate it. Wasn't it setting back feminism by assuming that women want controlling, domineering alpha males? And that women are so hapless that they require an iron clad contract to tell them how to act, dress, speak, and fuck? It sounded like a nightmare of a book a la Twilight that promised to once again juice the agency of women into watery drivel masquerading as prose.

But Fifty Shades of Grey, though originally conceived as Twilight fan fiction, miraculously manages to offer a lot more than the standard simper-and-sex-it-up fare. I’m willing to wager my credibility on this assertion: that it provides fascinating insight into the complicated power negotiations in relationships.

Are you still with me?

Through the prism of a sadomasochistic (S&M) relationship, Fifty Shades shows how ordinary couples attempt to find balance within their relationship. Except that I’m convinced now that S&M is actually a better way to negotiate a twosome as it makes explicit exactly what most of us muddle through with half-speak, insinuation, sudden flare-ups, and passive aggressive behavior.

S&M or at least how it’s portrayed in Fifty Shades, takes away the guessing game. Each partner chooses a role: dominant or submissive. It’s understood that the dominant controls every detail of the submissive’s life, in and outside of the bedroom, as stipulated in a written contract.

But it's also understood that the submissive has the power to modify the contract a she sees fit. Thus, what she will and won’t do is decided before sexual activity occurs (although Fifty Shades' heroine jumps the gun on this one).

The submissive can has at her disposal a set of pre-determined safe words to use during sexual activity to slow or halt any activity she is not comfortable with. If the dominant breaks any of the clauses in the contract, she can cancel the contract at any time (if the relationship is simply not to her taste, she is free to cancel after a set period of time, such a month).

And of course, this is not a legally binding contract. Hence, the submissive can vamos whenever he/she darn well pleases, really.

The reality? The submissive is the one in control. She says what the dominant can and can't do and can veto any behavior outside of the agreement. The caveat is that Christian is older, richer, and more powerful than our little Ana. Still, while I don't exactly condone the level of stalker-esque behavior Christian exhibits, they're both consenting adults.

Yes Bronwyn, you say, but that man is beating that woman.

Well, yes. But as the hero Christian Grey says in Fifty Shades before flogging Ana, "It will not hurt, but it will bring your blood to the surface of your skin and make you very sensitive."

The intention is not to beat but to arouse. Serious injury is not the objective, stimulating the skin for other activity is.

But for all the hype, Fifty Shades isn't really pornographic. I realized this after finishing Fifty Shades of Grey and starting in on Bared To You. So much of the sexual titillation generated by the book doesn’t come from throbbing shafts penetrating glistening slits (ew!). It comes from the power play between Ana and Christian as they slowly explore the boundaries of their sexual comfort. Giving up control and taking control is intensely erotic.

Why? In our ordinary lives both of these things likely inspire teeth-gnashing fear. But when explored within the confines of a pre-negotiated environment I have a hunch that this risk taking becomes easier and very sexy. We all have fantasies about letting go or taking over and to do so with the promise of pleasure, well spank me and call me Sally!

Here's what else is erotic—trust. That’s right, sexy sexy trust. Don’t tell me, you’re squirming in your seat as we speak.

S&M, or at least the kind in Fifty Shades, requires a hell of a lot of trust. Christian ties up Ana, leaving her helpless and vulnerable. If you don’t trust your partner, physically and emotionally, I imagine this would be a tough scenario to act out. Putting yourself completely in your partners’ hands, either as the submissive, or as the dominant who relies on the sub to communicate her limits, requires a lot of faith.

Which brings us to communication. In such a potentially dangerous situation, you’d better darn well communicate. Christian and Ana's negotiation of their dom/sub contract captivated me, causing me to miss more than one bus stop.

Christian starts out with a contract that stipulates what clothes Ana must wear, a list of what foods are approved for her to eat (chocolate cupcakes and bonbons, we hope), and how often she should work out. Ana thinks this is crazypants (especially the eating, you know he was going to make her drink carrot juice and eat broccoli) and bargains with him so that she feels emotionally comfortable, which will in turn provide for maximum stimulation.

How often do we let our needs slide? How often do we not speak up and instead care-take and please? Far too often, I’m willing to bet.

My boyfriend and I recently went through an intense period of negotiation. He was raised by a traditionally-minded family, I’m a feminist. He’s Mexican and a product of macho culture, I’m a product of Canada, where everyone is a giant people-pleasing sissy. Kidding!

He wasn't comfortable with my male friends, walking alone at night, my need for boundaries, boundaries, boundaries. He wanted to care-take, I wanted to take care of my damn self. We had a series of tense conversations that tested both Miguel’s traditional Big Poppa role and my fuck-off-I-need-to-do-everything-myself attitude.

I was reading Fifty Shades at the same time and I often thought, wouldn't it just be easier if we wrote all this stuff down?

For example: don’t buy me things just because you think you know what I need. That's care-taking  But do celebrate my accomplishments with a little gift or thoughtful gesture. That's support.

Eliminate the confusion, write a contract.

We expect our partners to read our minds because if they really loved us then we wouldn't have to spell things out, damn it! But that just ain’t it. If I feel comfortable expressing my needs and he cares enough to fulfill them, that's all vulnerable sexy trust, baby. And I’m going to take that sexy trust right into the bedroom, you'd better believe it.

Codependent So Much More

"So how long is Miguel away for?" asked my friend. She was perched on the lip of a plump white sofa with a tiny cup of espresso. We were sitting in my favourite cafe in Roma. Trees swayed gently in front of us, casting dappled sunlight on the street. 

"Oh a week," I said, after grousing about how much I missed Miguel, my new boyfriend.

She laughed. "Oh God Bronwyn," she said. "You made it sound like he's going to be away for a month!"

I heard once a line that stuck with me. It went something like "when I'm with you you can have everything: my body, my money, my time." You love me, I love you: I give you all my energy, all my compassion, all my resources until I'm completely sucked dry. Suddenly the deafening need to be complete in another is replaced by the urgent desire to recapture whatever is left of Bronwyn, proper. Terrified, I cast off the offending partner and disappear. This process usually takes about three years to reach fruition.

Folks, my name is Bronwyn Kienapple and I am a codependent.

I'm no therapist but here's my view of codependency in a nutshell. Boundaries? Oh no! You have none. Your partners' needs are your needs and fulfillment of them boosts your fragile self-esteem. You want to be everything and do everything for your partner, which really means you want to control them so they can be exactly who you need them to be. This helps you to avoid your overwhelming feelings of shame and anxiety.

Care taking, people pleasing, and bossiness are all hallmarks of poor boundaries and a desperate need for control built on a foundation of poor sense of self. You vacillate between feeling too much and feeling numb, no boundaries and rigid boundaries, in a frantic attempt to find comfort amid all the chaos.

Here's my process. Courtship, dating--it all proceeds normally enough. Then BAM: love. Slowly I spend every weekend with you. Every night. Every vacation. Your friends are my friends, though I'd rather distance you from them because I want you all to myself. I want you to need only me.

I'm jealous of anything you have for yourself because I should be enough to fulfill you. I am terrified of anything that might separate us. Soon I only know us as myself. I stop seeing my friends, I don't go out, I eat more to medicate the inner loneliness. I blame you for ruining my life, just as I blame myself. I become so sick with emptiness and unmet unrealistic expectations that I begin to detach.

My codependency even works with a non-codependent. I once had a quasi-boyfriend who I was completely obsessed with. It began innocently enough. I was determined not to become attached so I kept my distance. But he was adorable, funny as hell, and razor sharp and so of course I fell in love.

My beloved, however, continued to blithely not answer my texts, not introduce me to his friends, not open up to me. Still, I became consumed with trying to convince him that I could be everything for him. Even if he wasn't dancing with me, I didn't need a partner in my codependency: I still became eaten up by my own longing to become subsumed in him. I told him I wanted to be his. He refused. I disappeared. Yet I still tried to prove to some ghost of him that I was perfect--I ran a half-marathon and started volunteering and writing part-time.

When Miguel left for Chicago I felt bereft, a feeling I've carried since we came back from a two-week trip to southern Mexico. During our trip I had two infections and, at the mercy of his care in a strange place, I gave myself up to his attention. I relaxed in the familiar feeling of being nothing. It was like being weightless.

But with no boundaries left to speak of and faced with my normal routine in Mexico City I was defenseless. The trucks roaring outside my room at night left me sleepless. The faces of my students were too insistent. I ate my feelings and tried to bury myself in books and naps. It had little energy to devote to being a good girlfriend.

And yet, by the end of Miguel's trip away, I began to feel better. I started querying my first novel again and received positive feedback. There's nothing like writing to give me a sense of purpose and strength. I started rising earlier, eating better. I even decided to write a new novel (more details on this soon!). So by the time Miguel was back I knew if I was really committed to making our twosome work I would have to do something really counter-intuitive--I would have to carve out space for myself.

Miguel doesn't relish this idea but I've asked him to trust me as I go through this process. I can only rely on my instinct that it's time for this destructive codependent habit to be transformed into something new, wholesome, and life-giving. And after all this is why I'm Mexico--to figure out who else I can be. This will be one of my hardest habits to break, but I've got love on the line and the fighting spirit in me. I'm banking on it being something that can be beat.

**

Does this sound like you?: This article is a good introduction to the subject. I also found the book The New Codependency to be a great resource, as well as Healing the Shame that Binds You. I also strongly recommend watching Brené Brown's new TED Talk, Listening to Shame. And remember, talking to a therapist is gold. Please don't be afraid to reach out and get the help you need and deserve. 

When What's New Is Actually The Same Old

I was regaling my shiny new therapist with my future plans to move to Bogota, Colombia.

My therapist, who is Barbie-pretty with long dark hair, speaks a strange accent-less English. Given that she's charging me a criminally low hourly fee I'm rather enamored with her already but she also has a very neat way of cutting to the chase.

"Why Bogota?" she asked, her elegantly made-up face creasing ever so slightly.

"Oh you know," I began in my breathless 'I have a dream' voice. "I've always wanted to go to South America. It's not so far, has temperate weather, lots of opportunities to teach English, flexible visa requirements, it;'s off the tourist track. It'll be like another Mexico City--but Colombian! Imagine the food, the salsa dancing, the trips to the Caribbean beaches!" I paused. "And this time I wouldn't be going alone. I've implemented a subtle plan of coercion with my boyfriend. It's bound to work eventually."

I sounded very smug, very sure of myself, when all I had was a pipe dream and a rather unwilling mate with a very nice stable job (unlike yours truly). But, Mexico City was once nothing but an idea in my addled mind and here I am, in love, with a job, not murdered by narco-traffickers, my sanity somewhat intact.

"So there'd be an element of safety this time," she inserted in her even voice.

"Absolutely. But it'd be complemented by a feeling of being lost. That's why I came here after all--to shake loose my defenses and pretensions and immerse myself in something completely different."

Her face went carefully blank, the perfect preface to the classic 'I know exactly what's going on honey, but I'm going to break it to you reaaallllllly gently so you don't feel like a horse's ass' breakthrough.

"It sounds like a feeling you're quite accustomed to," she said. Her iPhone blipped on the table beside her. "Being safe and lost at the same time. Wouldn't you say this is something you've been conditioned to consider normal?"

I squinted at her. I wasn't going to let her have this one so easily. "No, it's a good kind of feeling lost. I'm allowing myself to experience things outside of my comfort zone in order to grow as a person. It's cheesy, but hell if I was going to wake up at 40 in Toronto and still be going for brunch runs at Lady Marmalade and obsessing about dim sum. I'm expanding my sense of self." Yeah that's right.

My new therapist carefully backed away from the point as one does when you'd like the patient to calm down for the remaining 10 minutes, ignore this revelation, and then pretend like you reached it yourself three days later when taking a long, hot shower. I obligingly shut up but I walked to my coffee date reeling--was my supposedly brave new endeavor just symptomatic of another unhealthy pattern I couldn't shake?

I've come to realize that even the most self-realized of us are actually driven by motivations we barely understand. What is most usual is not visible. We're essentially driven by old patterns that once served a useful function but have since hindered us. Digging out and changing these behaviors is one of the most tricky exercises because:

1. It hurts like hell
2. No one else is really going to be able to cut the shit on this tricky stuff with you except for your therapist
3. Even if they did, you wouldn't listen to them, judgmental sons of bitches
4. So alone. So allloonnnneeeee
5. Change requires work. Work is for work. Or for the gym. KITTENS! So fluffy!!

It's not as if I should stay in Mexico City, maketh of all the babies, and pursue a more sheltered life. Right now there isn't an answer, to be perfectly honest. But at least now I know that the sword I'm bearing might be defeating its holder, not the target. Covering new ground in creative new ways is what I'm aiming for, as well as better self-care, and hopefully greater wisdom will follow. Colombia still beckons, but it requires careful reflection first and eating a lot more humble pie with my excellent new life guide.

In Love and Depressed

Conventional wisdom holds that strong, mature women make their own heavens but I still believed for years that love would save me.

Why else would I wait nine years for my first love to emerge from what I was convinced was the minor inconvenience of his marriage, children, thousands of kilometres of distance? I felt I could wait almost forever if the end would bring absolution. Waiting for a reprieve is almost like reprieve, as long as the fantasy can be maintained. But he came back and instead he was very fragile; his love was tepid and impotent. I drove him away in disgust.

Miguel's face, without submitting to hysteria, is like the sun. A bit of a homely face, perhaps, but with dark, heavily-lashed brown eyes I can rest in without fear of sanction. On whole, he appears the human equivalent of an attack dog. And yet, his face for me, the one only I know, is pure sweetness. 

At times the sweetness fades and those brown eyes grow wet. I usually equate vulnerability with endings--sign of an emotional wedge that will drive my dearly dispossesed away. Miguel's tears are a sign of a future; it's the way he lets me know "I'm fighting for you." I love those honest tears, just like I love the honest heart they spring from. It is the strongest heart I have known. I want to spend forever looking at its contours in the face of my beloved. It is the home I thought I would have to wait years more to find. 

Oh dear reader, how in love I am.

And yet how depressed. During the two weeks I spent touring southern Mexico with my love I felt my skin shrinking, my will dying. "You realize you aren't talking to anyone," Miguel said to me. I sprouted two raging infections. I slept endlessly. I looked up at a towering, ancient Mayan pyramid that begged for exploration and said, "Well that's quite enough for now, let's go get lunch." '

I wanted to escape through the permeable Guatemala border into its desperately impoverished lushness and never stop running. I wanted to hole up in a very small place and stop moving. As my stomach convulsed and heaved, Miguel and I spent the entire day holed up in a cabana in the Chiapas jungle listening to the rain pour onto the tin roof. "Finally the world has gone away," I thought. It was like a little death, the mild depressive's dream of living unconsciousness.

Why my mental health has slid into sludgy waters once again is a matter of speculation even to me, but it is interesting to note how one can simultaneously be perfectly at home and excrutiatingly uncomfortable. Time with Miguel is a living exercise in what I wrote my first novel about--the idea that love is about finding the person your body and mind can rest in with utter abandon. Whether we are snarled in horrific traffic in Mexico City's Viaducto, suffering through a brutal eleven hour bus ride in the twisty Chiapas mountains, or having cheesy quesadillas on the couch after a long day at work, I can look at Miguel and think "This is exactly where I want to be and who I want to be with and that's bloody that."

Perhaps this seems a patently obvious aspect of new love. But as someone who hates to make the irrevocable choice I usually enjoy courting a seed of doubt that would give me permission to take a quick side exit. In this case, Miguel talks about sending wedding turkeys to my parents, about getting married in Turkey for heaven's sake, and for the first time in a long while I think "All of it! All of the madness! Pour this incredible fortune right down my throat and let me make a life out of it!"

But the truth is that the love slides right through, leaving a golden trail that fails to penetrate a deeper sickness. That state now envelopes my days with darkness. After the first man I stopped believing that love would bring me out of unhappiness but I still can't help feeling fascinated that the two states can co-exist so neatly.

Now I wait for my own little world to uncoagulate and allow me a thin gray happiness. I think if I can reach a state where brilliant lights streak across very even sky I will have found my utopia. But that climate seems remote; the sky over my Mexico City is very dark and low right now. I have decided to simply hold on until the scenery changes and thank God for these brilliant flashes of respite.

A Very Happy Holidays To You All

As I'll be jaunting off to Mexico's Pacific coast shortly and I've also been bed-ridden with a bad bug I'm calling it quits for this year with a short post. But no fear, I'll be back in January for more about Mexico, love, life, and this crazy adventure that I'm on. Due to various circumstances that you will hear about later on it appears like I'll be in Mexico City for the foreseeable future. Though that future will still include jaunts to Central and South America, as I've always planned.

Anyway, I just wanted to say thank you for reading these posts and hanging in there with me on this incredible journey. Your feedback and support have been incredible boons to me at a time in my life when almost everything looks and feels very strange. These posts have helped make sense of the nonsensical and your kind attention has often wrestled me out of doubt and despair in that sense-making process. So again: thank you. Truly. And a very happy holidays and new year too. Abrazos y besos. See you in 2013!