To go or not to go

That was the question facing us when the time came around for our usual trip to Mexico. We live in an apartment in Ontario in the summer. Nothing much was going on this year. Three or four excursions to the beach. Two trips to visit friends. Dinner with our son once a week once restaurants opened. The occasional visit from our two busy daughters. What else? The gym for me once they opened. Very quiet. Rather boring. I had resolved to give up writing because too much computer use was affecting my eyes. Ever tried that? As bad as trying to give up smoking. Doing it in the Year of Covid only made it impossible. After doing a few crosswords and a 2000-piece jigsaw puzzle, I felt I had to get out of my own life into someone else’s in order to survive.

Then November rolled around. My brother left for his winter vacation in Florida. And the question went back and forth between us. Should we go or not? The numbers in Ontario were going up. You’re going to find this hard to believe, perhaps, but the numbers in the state where we have our house were going down. In fact, the last time I saw them, there were less than 200 new cases in a 2 week period. That helped us to decide. We were off to Mexico.

I saw the airport and the plane trip as the biggest risks. The airport wasn’t bad – everyone wearing masks – but the plane was full, which surprised me.

We survived. We have been here a week now in our own house, in a gated community, able to do whatever we need to do to stay safe. Restaurants are open, as are our pools although use is restricted to an hour a day. A little lonely right now but some friends will come later, some not at all. Everyone must do whatever is best for them. But the very best thing is that the weather is warm, the breezes balmy. A cold day in Mexico is 20C. We have 5 more months of this.

A beach in Mexico

Even before Covid, people would ask me if I felt safe in Mexico. I don’t know why anyone would think I would keep going to a place where I felt unsafe, but apparently they do. My answer was always that in almost 30 winters I have never had a bad experience. But I have had many good ones, demonstrating that the Mexican people on the whole are kind, friendly, honest and always willing to lend a hand.

So grab your mask and come on down!