Izamal, known as The Yellow City, is well off the beaten track and is one of the oldest inhabited cities in the America’s. The Yucatec Maya language is heard as much as Spanish and is the first language in many homes. If you are looking for official ‘sites’ (I wasn’t) it doesn’t have much to offer but there are random ruins everywhere. The obscure jungle paths I walk on often show remnants of an ancient road. Whether it’s the countryside or the backstreets of town, I frequently come across ruins. It’s one thing to visit a recognized and popular site, it’s another to stumble upon a Mayan pyramid temple as if it were nothing special and with no one around. It feels more adventurous and magical somehow.

I’m doing well here and so is my head. After two months it’s a huge relief to feel like I am getting better. I’m not there yet, but it’s coming. I had an irrational fear that maybe this time, I wouldn’t get better, that I’d be foggy-brained and dizzy indefinitely. My casita is proving to be as relaxing and healing as I hoped. I work on Spanish, write, walk and read, in that order. When I fret that I’m not being productive or active enough, I remind myself that resting is necessary for healing and has infinite value.

It’s been a less relaxing time for my son Max, who lives in a tiny house on my property in Balderson. My propane provider (Levac Propane), for no logical reason and without notice, turned off my propane tank during a delivery. I am on automatic refill and my driveway was plowed; there was no cause. To turn off someone’s heat source in the middle of winter seems not just absurd, but negligent. When Max checked the house a couple of days later to find the heat off, my pipes had already frozen. When he got it turned back on and the pipes thawed, there was flooding on two floors. Two service calls later by the plumber, with more needed, there will be lots to fix when I get home, not the least of which will be to get a different propane provider. Multiple times since this started I have have been on the brink of coming home, but thanks to many people who have helped, between calm advice, supplying Max with water when needed, to trips to town and plowing the driveway, I am still able to be here. It has taken a village! With deep gratitude, thank you! If the Gods allow, I will continue healing here in historical Izamal.

If I turn left out of my gated driveway I am on a dirt road headed for town, if I turn right, I am immediately on a goat path in pastoral countryside (I am the second last house on the road). As my head allows, I walk, and unless I need groceries, I always turn right to the sounds of birds, cicada’s and distant cow bells.

The other day I came upon a herd of goats led by an older man wobbling on a bicycle and a short, older woman walking behind. Eager to practice Spanish I greeted the woman with an obvious conversation opener, which was that my son at home in Canada used to have goats. She was smiling and receptive and we walked on companionably, as she shepherded the herd. She told me that her father had died and now it was her and her brother who ran their goat farm. That her brother had to ride a bicycle because he had back pain. They walked every day so the goats could graze. I told her about my son Max who had many goats from the time he was six years old until he was in high school and that he took care of them himself and milked them every day. That we drank only goats milk for years and also made different kinds of delicious goat cheese. She told me they made goat cheese too and that they also loved it. And so on. I was so tickled that we were actually conversing and understanding each other, that when she said they were going off path into the high grass, I followed. I just wanted to keep practicing.

Time passed and it suddenly hit me that I was concentrating so much listening and speaking that I wasn’t paying attention to where we were wandering and I’d better get back lickety-quick to the path or I’d be hella lost. I said my farewells and by the time I realized that I was already hella lost it was too late, my goat herding friends were gone. It wasn’t as dire as it sounds. Paths crisscross everywhere around here and when I found one I simply followed the sound of cow bells until I came across the horse-backed Mexican cowboy tending them. I confirmed with him that Izamal was in the direction that I thought it was.

When I finally got to town I asked people directions until I made it home. I was tired and had been walking for much longer than my head appreciated but was delighted with all the practice. It’s intimidating to speak Spanish when I know that if I had a shred of dignity I wouldn’t be speaking in public, but I do it anyway. I learn better that way. And sometimes it’s funny. Sometimes it’s really funny.

Shortly after I arrived, I stopped at a roadside stand for a taco, run by a husband and wife team. When they asked me a question in the typical, warp-speed that locals speak, rather than ask them to please speak slowly, I responded to their question with ridiculous confidence that I was from Canada. They laughed and laughed and laughed. Turns out they asked if I was going to eat there or take it away. And then we all laughed. I knew practicing Spanish would likely bring a smile to many faces but who knew it would also be a fun, little countryside adventure.