{"id":15496,"date":"2024-12-21T02:26:03","date_gmt":"2024-12-21T10:26:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/douglaslucas.com\/blog\/?p=15496"},"modified":"2024-12-27T09:56:11","modified_gmt":"2024-12-27T17:56:11","slug":"memo-from-mexico-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/douglaslucas.com\/blog\/2024\/12\/21\/memo-from-mexico-city\/","title":{"rendered":"Memo from Mexico City"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Me (center) with Mexican mental health activists Iv\u00e1n (viewer’s right) and Santiago (viewer’s left), Dec. 17, 2024<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Note: I took all of the photos in this post except the above, taken by Ricardo, and one below, noted as taken by Ricardo. I took the video of Iv\u00e1n<\/em> playing electric bass; he took the video of me doing the same.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Update #1: The inaugural issue of Letras Con Locuras has been published<\/a>.<\/em> Our meeting is described (in Spanish) on pages 68-71 with photos; the rest of the magazine is very exciting and vibrant as well!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Update #2: Regarding abuses in Mexican psychiatric\/medical institutions, see also this Disability Rights International report<\/a>, Abandoned & Disappeared, and their related video<\/a>, both from 2010.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last Sunday, at the Sea-Tac International Airport, I boarded an Aerom\u00e9xico flight headed for Mexico City (CDMX). That followed a sleep-deprived, caffeine-chugging week of intensely working on relinquishing my Seattle apartment: downsizing, donating, discarding, digitizing, and depositing (for long-term storage at a friend’s) seemingly all of my worldly possessions. I never would have accomplished that huge task without the exceptional help of my amazing Seattle area friends. No way. I can’t thank them enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then, there I was: after nine years of living in Seattle and telling people I’d leave the country long term someday, I was finally stepping into the aircraft, listening to Spanish Christmas carols jingle out of the overhead speakers. The plane held maybe 200 passengers. Save for count-on-one-hand number of Japanese folks reading kanji<\/em>, and count-on-the-other-hand number of white, presumably U.S. people, the whole rest of the metal tube readying to jet through the sky was filled with what I took to be Latin Americans. The flight attendants spoke in Spanish, the announcements were in Spanish\u2014I was headed, as my mom would say, a long way from Gilmer, Texas<\/a>. Maybe not as the crow flies, but certainly as the imaginary lines found on maps decree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just before the flight taxied toward the runway, the attendants tried mightily to close an overhead compartment, the door of which was stubbornly refusing to close without somebody’s strap from their backpack hanging out (not mine, I promise). So they just left it dangling out and closed the compartment that way. It was a subtle little telling detail<\/em> of the sort fiction-writers prize that concisely gave a sense of how Mexico would be way the hell more laid back than the United States, where such a rogue strap might cause a U.S.-based airline’s flight attendant to bark at a passenger that the item must now be checked at their own great expense. (Decades ago, Southwest Airlines was probably this chill in the States, but no longer.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I wasn’t dozing on the flight\u2014my caffeine withdrawal timer starting\u2014I was reading Marty Friedman’s newly released memoir Dreaming Japanese<\/em>. The astonishingly versatile<\/a>, poodle-haired electric guitarist, known in the U.S. for playing with Megadeth<\/a>, gave up his gig with the world-famous metal band at the end of 1999 and moved to Japan, where he rebuilt his career from the ground up, reaching the same or greater heights playing different types of music<\/a> he was also interested in. It seemed an apropros read for my long-term travel since I’m getting a little sick of writing what sometimes feels like the same journalism articles<\/a> (even though they’re not), for an audience that seems too precious to lift a finger about injustices but not too precious to then act confused on social media as to why things are getting worse (even though the audience is more effortful than my bad moods make them out to be). I’m hoping Mexico’s calmer pace will help me pour more prioritized time into writing science fiction.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u00bfWhere’s Waldouglas?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

We landed. I descended the plane stairs, my weighty blue backpack straining my traps, then took a shuttle to immigration. La migra<\/em> is a concern even for some well-to-do USians because you might<\/em> get a jock officer who wants to throw his weight around and make your cross-border life difficult. Luck of the draw had me standing in front of a little circular desk, at the center of which sat a very Mexican woman with a full complement of rock’n’roll-looking tattoos on both arms. She seemed bemused by this pale man, at merely 5’10” still taller than most Mexican guys, in front of her, with his hair certainly longer\u2014nearly every Mexican dude has short hair (so as not to distract from needlessly carrying that heavy machismo<\/em> burden). She asked if I spoke Spanish. “Un poco” (a little), I said, hedging my bets. She let out a stream of rapid Spanish, but I caught enough to understand she wanted to know my job, a standard border question. I’d planned to say Maestro<\/em> (teacher), but I blurted out Escritor aut\u00f3nomo<\/em><\/em> (freelance writer). Both are true, but in the U.S. anyway, the former sounds less sketch. She sort of looked at me like Really? Really? Because if you wanna prove it, my shift ends at\u2014 <\/span><\/em>But more important than any of that (half in my head, I’m sure), she gave me the full six months on my visa, which on rare occasion, ornery guards do not dispense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After immigration, before getting my suitcase, I took the above selfie, because 2024. Visited the money-changers in their garish little temples right outside the airport, then taxied to my hostel, got set up, and decided to find dinner before collapsing into a deep, caffeine-withdrawal sleep.<\/p>\n\n\n

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#OpYum at Luvina<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

As luck would have it, I found Luvina<\/a>, a vegan bar with U.S. and local(?) heavy metal driving sound waves from the overhead speakers into my skull\u2014quite like Seattle’s Georgetown Liquor Company<\/a> not far from m\u0336y\u0336 \u0336h\u0336o\u0336m\u0336e\u0336 my former home. Once a few communication difficulties were surmounted\u2014the polite waitress unnecessarily apologized for not speaking English\u2014I ordered a plate of nachos with queso and soy chorizo atop. Including tip, that cost me a grand total of $5 USD. At the excellent Georgetown in southern Seattle, the equivalent would probably run you $30 USD. And people are asking why I went to Mexico?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yeah, WTF am I doing this?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, I purchased my airfare prior to the 2024 U.S. presidential election going to Trump<\/a>, so it wasn’t that, although Teflon Don shouting about bringing back institutionalization<\/a> (lock up those with severe mental health issues, or perhaps a history of them, whether they like it or not, potentially forever) and about (illegally) staying<\/a> in office past<\/a> another four years did accelerate me somewhat. So did just about every non-MAGA USian’s lack of response. In 2016, his victory caused a flurry of panicked messages on U.S.-based email lists I’m on\u2014even civic freeloaders (non-activists) were freaking out and exchanging contact info and also buying toilet paper, wait, no, that was the pandemic. Worriedly exchanging contact information might not be Zapatista-level resistance, exactly, but the complete absence of even that bare minimum in 2024 was unsettling, as if everyone had silently agreed to just doormat for MAGA (“focus on other things”), give ’em the green light to stamp the gas pedal all the way down, which they will. Activists might argue that in 2016 they marched down streets yelling, and civic freeloaders might argue that in ’16 they give $50 to this or that milquetoast nonprofit, so why bother doing the same in 2024 when it didn’t work in 2016? But there are other, better options: see how Romania<\/a>, Georgia<\/a>, and other countries are currently responding to reactionary takeover attempts in their lands. Even when they’re “tired” or their “head hurts” or they’d “rather watch comedians,” they’re risking their friendships, their jobs, their freedom (facing arrest or murder). Civic freeloaders, sometimes even activists, in the U.S. refuse to admit that they too can take such actions and regain dignity, selfhood, esteem. Therefore showing people counterexamples and options from beyond their familiar borders should be normalized. Like, say, this blog post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Georgia showed up for itself, Ukraine showed up for itself, Romania Showed up for itself, Syria showed up for itself. None of them waited to be helped, they picked up themselves and fought against corruption and impunity. They didn't beg, they didn't make excuses for themselves. They showed up.<\/p>— Anonymous (@youranoncentral.bsky.social)<\/a> 2024-12-03T13:41:37.725Z<\/a><\/blockquote>