I am so glad that I lived long enough to experience this beautiful and peaceful life at the beach in Mexico. The weather is glorious, the birds from big water fish catchers to little flitting sparrows and even tinier hummingbirds, they are my companions. People who visit my shaded patio say that this place is like living in a garden. And yet it is actually an empty spot of sandy dirt with one scraggly tree-like bush and some scrub on the ground beside the water. Across my little pond is a ridge of dune and beyond is the gorgeous Sea of Cortez. Sometimes I have neighbors camping in their RVs but not too close. If I get crowded I become rather grumpy and they keep their distance. But I have made great friends of those who come every winter and love this place as much as I do.

I don’t hear often from my grown sons and hardly ever from my daughter. They have busy lives of their own and rarely think of me, much less worry about me. I suppose I can’t do anything that would surprise them. After being a working single mommy for 25 years, I began long driving trips away from Alaska, then went cruising on a sailboat in Mexico, finally returning to the Arctic to finish my retirement, joined the Peace Corps when was 60 years old and lived in Eastern Europe for almost three years. Suffice it to say that I’ve been an unpredictable and somewhat restless vagabond. Curious, is what I call it.

This little town is warm and comfortable, a gringo community on foreign soil and just a few miles from a real Mexican city, and a few hundred miles from a huge and amazing country full of endless adventure if I want to go find it. But I am content to spend most of my time right here, working on Rotary projects and reading books, attending my book group meetings, practicing my Spanish, taking cooking classes, sometimes writing. Every day I walk a couple of miles with my dog partner Cheyenne, even though she’s aging and gets tired before I do.

I wear shorts and sleeveless tops every day, only put on sandals to walk on the road or go shopping. Recently my friends wanted to take me to dinner so I got dressed and they picked me up. We were all the way to the restaurant before I realized that I was still barefoot! I forgot to wear shoes! What a laugh, enjoying a nice restaurant with bare, sandy feet.

We don’t get much rain, but my friend Wendy took this photo just before a storm.  I’m the last one in the back.

I think of my home in Alaska, now it’s April and there’s two feet of snow on the yard, temps below freezing every night, and I wonder why I feel the urge to go north. It’s time to go but I relish these last days in the sun, with my birds, my little solar fountain, and feel a little sad that all the birdseed is gone and I really shouldn’t mix up another batch of bird suet. I can’t live here forever, squatting on beach property that doesn’t belong to me, but I can’t imagine being confined between walls of a house in a neighborhood of houses far from the water. I already have the best of all worlds and adore this minimalist existence, with just the possessions that I need or love around me. I am blessed.

And I do not suffer dementia, like my sister who is in a lock-down facility for the infirm, I am free to be lazy or busy as I wish, social or solitary, I can cook and bake and share food with others, browse the internet or listen to my podcasts as I putter with my little projects. I have supplies and tools for more projects if I get inspired, and who can ask for more than that?

My life is wonderful, and I lived long enough to know it. My periodic aches and pains are nothing to this fabulous experience of living.

Here are my favorite hummingbirds and some other neighbors.  I may post more photos later.

But I have to admit that we had some thefts this winter, when doors were left unlocked. That includes me! My new laptop was stolen, also my camera and binoculars, and a bag holding just tissues. Fortunately I did bring my old laptop computer so I could still get online. We sure learned to keep everything locked up! For this reason I don’t have many pictures to share, but it made me appreciate even more my happy peaceful life. Cheyenne was home when it happened, and was undoubtedly happy to have company! She’s sure not a guard dog!!