I Live Here

I’ve moved around a bit over the last decade and each place I’ve lived has housed a different slice of the world’s population.  I grew up in the Maryland suburbs of Washington D.C. – a land of professional commuters and military types.  From there I headed off to Grove City College – a school swarming with scholarly Christian summer camp enthusiasts and C.S. Lewis loving conservatives.  Three months after I graduated I got married and moved to Brooklyn, NY.  Moving to Brooklyn right after 4 years of college in tiny Grove City, PA was a bit of a culture shock.   I was a suburban expat living in the big city among a quirky conglomerate of individuals and families from all over the world.  From Brooklyn we moved to Reno, NV, a sunny haven on the edge of Lake Tahoe filled with laidback outdoor enthusiasts and gamblers alike.  Each of these places has shaped who I am.

And now I’m living in Mexico City.  The third most populated city in the world (just before New York City and right after Tokyo and Seoul, if you were wondering).  I’m still trying to figure out how to define the faces of Mexico City.  I’m not sure they can be singularly named.  They are the faces of the men and women making their living running tiny food stands on every corner practically 24 hours a day, the men who are out washing cars and doing landscaping in our apartment complex as early as 6am, the artists selling their wares at markets spread out across every neighborhood, business people who start their days early and don’t come home until 8 or 9pm – sitting in traffic for hours a day, the government officials, diplomats, and generally wealthy who send their kids to The American School with nannies and chauffeurs, and the expats from all over the world who are drawn to the city for any number of reasons.  These are the people of Mexico City.  I am one of them.  This is not somewhere I ever expected to live.  But here I am.