A post about Mexico, but really about you.

I love living in Mexico City.

I think this to myself every single day as I step out into the city. I love the crisp air, the bright sun, the trees everywhere. I love the noises in the street: the pre-recorded shouts of tamal vendors and iron-recycling trucks, the whistle of hot, steamed sweet potatoes, the heavy road-gurgling of truckloads of maize that make our apartment vibrate into earthquake-proof stability, and the twinkling of my boyfriend's dog (Crudo's) leash as he tugs me down the street full-force to meet the next puppy peepole. It feels alive. It feels like home.

I love the whoosh of the highway as we drive into the mountains to the South, I love that you can have open windows all day, everyday to let the freshness of the city sweep in, I love that this is a city in which you can sit outdoors almost any evening with your friends and enjoy life as it is, right here. I love that where I live, I have my little corner and a place where I can do sun salutations to the full light of city as I watch it wake up, and a desk or a sofa where I can settle in to work or read or be what may.

What I love above absolutely everything though, is that I have a home with someone I love and his incredibly smart, fluffy hairball that loves me back - even if he doesn't know it.

I love that he (my boyfriend, not as much the puppy) is so honest and open with his love and that he likes to be cuddled - wherever, whenever. I love the way his, or my, heart shines through our eyes when the other enters a room. I love our long drives and Fridates and just cozying up for a Sunday movie or for the best nap in the world. The world stops and probably goes on in these moments, but none of the noise really matters. A relationship is meant to be a safe haven, and so few people have the luck to have that.

All my life, people have asked me where I would like to live eventually. I never really thought I would know enough to give an answer, even in the short term. The feeling of never having grown up anywhere, everywhere, gives you a sense of outsiderhood, of impermanence, that few things can take away. And who knows about the future, but here, in Mexico City, surrounded by love in every which way, I can't really think of living anywhere else.