From the Editor’s Desk: The Unquiet American (Premium)

As I write this, we're on the final day of a three-week-plus trip to Mexico City and that means we can't really enjoy it despite the sun and perfect weather: We have all kinds of cleaning up and packing to do, and a friend of my wife is visiting our apartment later this month, so it has to be even cleaner than usual. But the last day of any trip is a weird limbo, a time when we reflect on our experiences here and voice that familiar wistful desire to each other that we should just stay here and never go back home.

We can't do that. But we did book our next trip to Mexico, for February, this past week and that eases the looming discomfort of knowing we're leaving, for sure. That annoyance I feel when the United app pops up on my phone's lock screen with a notification that it's time to check in for the flight home. That terrible early alarm on the dark morning of the flight. The airport. The cars to and from on both ends. All the terribleness that needs to happen so we can enjoy being away. As I've often quipped, I love being in other places, it's the travel I hate.

I'm not sure how obvious this is from the outside, but I still grapple with this place, Mexico City, and what it means. We have been accepted into an ever-widening community that includes people and places all around us, people who know our names, are happy to see us, and wave to us from inside stores and restaurants as we walk by. This is the culture many in the United States, especially, don't understand or even think about. I certainly never did.

But that's the nature of life, right? You learn more about some things out of necessity. When our son almost died as a one-year-old from bacterial meningitis and became deaf, we had never heard of cochlear implants or their magical ability to restore hearing, and that was a game-changer for him and us. This thing that was never previously on our radar was suddenly central to our lives, and it has been ever since. My wife, son, and I have literally helped others facing the same unwanted problem make the right decision for them, and my wife even appeared in a video promoting the vaccine that would have prevented our son's illness in the first place.

This place in Mexico City isn't on the same level as our son's health and well-being. But it is a major life change. Mexico was of no interest to us at all previous to the COVID-era travel bans that led us down this strange path. But whatever, everything changed and here we are. And in coming here again and again, in literally investing in this place---financially, of course, but also with time and our minds and hearts---we feel a certain sense of, if not ownership, perhaps community and kinship with the area and the people who populate it. We are a part of this. It is us and we are it, if you will.

And that leads me down some troubling paths.

Our apartment is in a neighborhood called Roma Norte and it, like nearby Condesa, is popular with tourists and expats. I am not com...