Moving to Oaxaca and then--

Moving to Oaxaca with kids was not a huge leap for me but realizing that we've been here over two years does startle me. I wonder if I start to take my surroundings for granted. We spend our days rushing Max to Colegio Teizcali and Geni to her new Waldorf school that she loves, then we work, get Max and Geni to after school things--when you get down to it, what's the difference between living here and living there?

For me, the difference is in the details, that much of it happens in Spanish, in buildings painted indigo or terracotta or orange, with graffiti and agua fresca everywhere.

I've framed my week around certain rituals I dearly love. There is the organic market at Xochimilco, where I get my torta with wild greens, Coloradito mole sauce and cactus, and a chai and a tejate on the side, because who can choose? There are my weekends at the Casa de Cultura, listening to children practicing indigenous dances and classical music. Our Friday morning breakfast date at Itanoni, a restaurant dedicated to maintaining biodiverse species of corn, sparks many happy conversations between me and Steve. The markets, the revolutionaries, the wrestling posters, the chuggy buses, the cacti, the calendas, the kiss on the cheek from neighbors and friends--it's all part of my walks to pay the bills or pick up tamales.

Our third year here, and I've found I work a little too much and we don't venture to villages as frequently. The quantity of visitors has declined, and certain bureaucracies frustrate me more than fascinate me. But, through all of it, I equate Oaxaca with my destiny. There is no other place I know so messily beautiful, so profoundly moving, even in the smallest details, the brooding shapes of cloud shadows moving across the mountains or the sounds of brass bands in the distance.