From the Editor’s Desk: 12 Hours ⭐

It’s been a whirlwind month of travel. We got back to Mexico City Saturday morning at 4:00 am, exhausted and nursing colds. So we did the only thing we could do that day, nothing. And then we headed out into the world that night, bleary-eyed and discombobulated in that way that only travel can cause.

All I wanted to do was relax. Say hi to some friends, grab a drink and some food. And call it a night. And that is not exactly what I got.

We were sitting at the car at Cafe Tacobar, probably our favorite local place, and there were three people to my left who I took to be Mexican, but later discovered were one Peruvian, one American, and one Mexican. After excusing ourselves for being exhausted from travel, we were immediately thrown into a discussion of favorite local restaurants and bars, which is pretty common. Though in this case it was mostly them recommending places to us because they probably assumed we had just gotten there for the first time. That’s fine. I’m always happy to add new “Want to go” pins to Google Maps for later exploration. But then the conversation turned, as it must, to where we’re from. And that’s complicated.

I always find myself in these conversations.

We live in Pennsylvania. Are we from Pennsylvania? No, not to my mind. We’re from Boston, or at least I am. My wife is from the south coast of Massachusetts, and in the frame of reference of someone like me, who grew up in that area, that might as well be another country. But this isn’t worth communicating to almost anyone, especially someone you just met.

Further complicating matters, we’re in Mexico. And what I’ve found is that almost no one here has ever heard of Pennsylvania, or Allentown, which is the closest city to us there. Some have heard of Philadelphia. (“Rocky!” one person here called out when I mentioned that city, but usually I just get a blank stare.) But the thing is, everyone has heard of Boston. And so that’s what I usually say here. Boston. It’s just easier.

But these people are a mix, and the man sitting right next to me, the Peruvian, did live in the United States for a bit, and he speaks English clearly and without an accent. And so this simple question, where we’re from, is suddenly this complex mess to navigate. And so I paused to consider this. To such a degree that he must have assumed I was suffering from some travel-related fog. Which was a good assumption.

We’re from Boston, I finally said. But we currently live in Pennsylvania. Near Allentown and about an hour from Philadelphia. So I guess I decided to tell him my whole life story. I was exhausted.

But then it progressed, as it must. How long were we in Mexico City? Had we been here before?

Another pause. This is a weird area. And it’s something that comes up pretty frequently. People visit places. And then they go home. We are not doing that exactly, however. We are here. And we are in Pennsylvania. The schedule is not set, probably never will be, but we are splitting time between the two places. And that’s a whole thing because it will inevitably transition into where we are staying. And we are staying in a place that we own. Which is not how I want to start off. It just sounds entitled.

He’s looking at me. Again, I’m imagining what’s going through his brain as he assesses this person who can’t answer the simplest of questions.

Finally, I stammer my way through a basic explanation of our situation. We just flew here this morning and arrived very early, at 4:00 am, and so we’re exhausted and trying to get back on schedule. But we had flown here about a week earlier, had been here for two days, and then had to fly back to the States for a work trip, so we were gone for about five days.

I know what’s coming.

I know we’re going to talk about where we just were. And that’s another thing that requires explanation. And I want to put that off as long as possible. There’s already too much to explain. So I tell him that we’re here regularly, that we are trying to split our time between here and Pennsylvania. And so now we’re back on track, sort of, with that previous topic I was already hoping to be vague about if possible.

But he’s interested. Oddly interested. And so he asks another question I can see coming from a mile away about where we are staying in Mexico City. Since this guy seems to know the place pretty well—and he does, I later learned they’d all been living here for several years—I give him the cross streets.

He doesn’t pause. Unlike me, he’s moving along quickly, and my addled brain almost can’t keep up. He asks if this is an Airbnb or if we found this place some other way.

I look up at our bartender friend behind the bar, maybe hoping he can rescue me in some way. But he just smiles, knowingly, and he’s wiping a glass with a rag that probably doesn’t even need to be cleaned, and he leaves it to me. Right under the bus, I’m thinking.

So I explain to him that we actually own a place here, and I have to qualify this with my standard spiel about how small this place is, it’s the size of a walk-in closet in the McMansions that are all too common back home. But he is fascinated by this. Actually, the woman next to him is even more interested and now she wants to know about our schedule, when we’re here, when we’re there, and so on.

And my head hurts. I had spent the day in a coma-like stupor, unable to function, let alone get work done. And I keep worrying about how long it takes me to answer these questions. These are not difficult questions. But they are, really. Most people don’t go too deep. I’m reminded of my friend Jeff, who once greeted me with, “How are things? I don’t really care, but you’re supposed to ask.” Hilarious. I could have used that level of indifference, but that’s not what was happening.

I finally explained that we were still working through this, that we would spend about 7 months in Mexico City this year, the most time we’ve been away from the U.S. But that things could change. And we’ll see what happens next year. We like to be home over the Thanksgiving to New Year’s period, for example. And in Mexico in the winter.

It keeps going. They are curiously interested in our situation. We had a dog that passed away, I find myself telling them, almost two years ago now, and two cats. But our daughter has the cats now, and being pet-free was part of what enabled us to be away (here) more. So we have kids, they now know. And where are they? How old are they? Do they ever come to Mexico? And so on.

At some point, I found myself rubbing my temples in little circles. I think I was hoping this was some kind of a hallucination, that maybe I could close my eyes and they would disappear. But I look over, and they are still there. So is the bartender, still smiling and cleaning that glass. Aren’t there other customers?

I answer the questions. Both of the kids are out of college. Actually, our daughter just graduated. In fact, that was what set off the last month or so of travel, this blur of …

Oh right, the guy says. You were just on a work trip. Where did you fly in from?

Here we go.

San Francisco, I said, this time pretty quickly. But that’s not where we were. We had spent the week in Hawaii.

Hawaii?

Yes, this is an unusual response to a question about a work trip. It begs the question of what exactly it is that I do for a living, though that oddly never came up. Dallas would have made more sense, and it would have raised no questions. Maybe Los Angeles. Anything but Hawaii.

But I had to get through this. So I explained that I used to travel a lot for work before the pandemic, but now I do so a lot less. Though I did have three pretty big work trips this year, in that they involved flights, and I go to New York pretty regularly when we’re in the U.S. for in-person meetings pretty often.

But Hawaii? Yes. Right. Um, so this company has a conference there. I am not sure why. It seems expensive.

These people think it’s a wonderful excuse for a trip. It seems like the type of thing that would be quite relaxing. My wife happily agrees with this, as it turns out. I had forgotten she was there, so the voice to my right is momentarily confusing. But she chimes in with how busy I was all week and how she just sat by the pool, reading on her Kindle all day long each day. And I was really busy last week. Putting aside the growing resentment of my Kindle reading wife, I find myself pulling out my phone to show them my calendar and the back-to-back meetings and events I had during this work trip. Because this will somehow excuse me being in Hawaii … for work.

Where else do you travel for work? I’m asked.

Seriously, is there a hidden camera somewhere? I had lost the thread on the point of all this several minutes earlier. In my exhaustion, I was helpless against this level of interest. It felt like I was being beaten up, almost.

Um. So, we went to Seattle in May for a conference. And earlier this month, we were in Berlin for …

Berlin?

This, too, seems exotic and unusual. And it is, really. Which is why I would not normally offer this up to people I had just met. But yes, yet another conference. I guess I go to a lot of conferences. I can’t remember why anymore.

But some synapse in my brain finally makes a connection and I suddenly realize that this is how I can bring it home. All this travel is why I’m so exhausted. We went to Berlin, which is six hours ahead of Pennsylvania, and we were there just long enough to get used to the time zone. And then we went back home, and my wife went to Boston for reasons I still don’t understand the following weekend. Then we flew here. And then we flew to Hawaii after two days. Which is four hours behind Mexico City and six hours behind Pennsylvania. And, come to think of it, 12 hours behind Berlin. That’s we’re all messed up. It’s simple math!

Nailed it. Surely that is the end of that.

It is not.

I can almost see machinery moving in this guy’s head as he contemplates all I just told him. And he says, “so do you consider Pennsylvania home, or is this home?”

Funny that.

Some months ago, I was talking to Richard, a friend and now also my co-host on Windows Weekly, and I had said something about “going home.” He asked me what I meant by that. Which place is “home”? And I said that I guess I still think of Pennsylvania as being home. And he responded with, “Let me ask you a question. Where do you actually own property, Pennsylvania or Mexico City?” And there you go, we own the place in Mexico City. So that’s home, he told me.

Well.

It’s more complicated than that. We have a longer history in Pennsylvania, and much longer in the U.S. more generally. But fair enough. Coincidentally, I had had a conversation with my wife this past Spring while we were here in Mexico City, and I started it off in my standard roundabout way.

“We’re going to spend more time in Mexico City this year than we do in Pennsylvania,” I noted, having just considered this fact. “So we should obviously buy a place in Pennsylvania.”

If you’re not as up on my life as the guy from the bar now is, we’ve been living in a condo for almost two years, but we were renting it. The owner is my father’s ex-wife, so not my step mother, not really, but that’s maybe the simplest way to explain it. And we had assumed that her not selling us the place was better for her financially, as she’s getting older and needs care, and if she just had the money, it’s possible it could just be taken from her to pay for that care. U.S. health being the shining star of fairness that it is.

Anyway, Stephanie had been thinking the same thing. Long story short, my not step mother did want to sell, so we ended up buying the condo, and we just got it done in a flurry of paperwork and scheduling the day before we flew to Mexico. Which feels like it was 9 months ago, but it was really just 10 days ago or so. Note to self: I will need to update Richard.

I told the guy in Cafe Tacobar that both places were home. He didn’t need to know about renting or buying, or whatever. I was happy to leave unnecessary details out of it for a change. Maybe the fog was lifting. I don’t know.

The discussion finally turned to what I think to be a more typical conversation, with him asking us what local places we like the most and could recommend. So it finally came full circle. And then they paid, we said our goodbyes, and they left. They were very nice. But I needed a break.

Our bartender friend might have still been cleaning that same damn glass, and it didn’t seem like he had moved even once. Surely that thing was clean by now. But he was still smiling at me. I think he was pretty proud of himself for not bailing me out. He’s a good friend.

“What’s next?” he asked.

Indeed.