From the Editor’s Desk: Community (Premium)

Our kids spent the past week with us here in Mexico City. Their visit came in the middle of a busy time--Stephen Rose visited right before them and two other friends arrive just a few days from now--but it provided me with a timely reminder of what's important in life.

I've discussed the troubling reality of children before, that they represent the highest and highs and the lowest of lows for any parent. I wouldn't change a thing, in some ways, but I'd also change all kinds of things if I had the chance. It's complex. But like any parent, I love them because they're my kids. I'm lucky to say that I also like them because they're good people, and I like to spend time with them. And while this isn't the right word, that makes me proud, as does their obvious and explicit love of each other. You can't ask for anything more than that.

Each time they visit us here is an opportunity to do new things, on the one hand, but it's also an opportunity for us to show them what our lives are like here. The more time we spend here in Mexico City, the more time we become a part of this place, and the more this place becomes a part of us. This happens to us in real-time, but the kids come here for a week once a year, typically. And so they can see the changes a bit more obviously. And their perspective on that is interesting to me.

For example, we took them to the sushi restaurant we frequent, one of those places where everyone knows our names, and we know theirs, and our lives overlap. We are close with everyone there to some degree, and so it was a bit sad to discover on that visit that one of our friends there, Barbara, is leaving next week to pursue a different job opportunity. This kind of came out of nowhere, from our perspective. And so I handled it the awkward way I handle such things, by joking that Barbara perhaps spent too little time considering how this would impact me. And Barbara handled it the way she handles things, by failing at trying not to cry. She's going to miss us as much as we will miss here.

Less notable, perhaps, because of the way the schedule worked out, we had gone for lunch that day, while we usually visit at night and eat dinner. This was less expensive, in that there was little in the way of cocktails or sake, and less food consumed than usual. But I have also found myself eating dramatically less at each meal in recent weeks, and while this was initially concerning, I've come to embrace it. The trick, one that I've still not mastered, is remembering not to order a normal amount of food, which is now too much food.

Anyway, we ate and chatted and were sad about Barbara, and then we left. We were walking down the street towards our apartment, when Mark, our son, asked me why Juan, the sushi chef, had asked me if I'd eaten breakfast about halfway through the meal. I said that I usually eat more, I guess. But he said, why would he know that, or think that? And, yeah. It was an interesting thing for him to notice. He...