Dona E. Bowens

Hey, hey, hey! Guess who’s back! What have I accomplished during my weeks of adulting? Not as much as I would’ve liked. But I did add more than 70 pages to my book and I have to accept that this goddamn book is going to take time, time, time. I’ve been told by no bigger authority than my own mother that I’m not the most patient person. So the incomplete book hangs over me like a cloud as I ponder when I’ll ever have such free time again to work on it.

At 6 months in I’ve stalled in my exploration of Montevideo…I blame grinding on the book for this. But I’m content in my little flat in Ciudad Vieja and content with my neighborhood. I can walk to all that I need and haven’t used public transportation in months. I’ve solved my weed problem and that might be my biggest accomplishment. Weed is legal here, for citizens. If you’re not a citizen, you have to circumvent the law and find a citizen to help. I had a helpful citizen for a minute but then, poor thing, he got skittish. I can’t blame him, really. He recommended that I try a nearby coffee shop. And so I walked my pothead ass down to the coffee shop that’s hiding in plain sight and was told the devil’s lettuce is 400 pesos to the gram and there won’t be sniffing of the product or choice. You take what we give you and take your pothead ass somewhere else to smoke it. I said, “TAKE MY MONEY!” Hell, weed is my writing fuel, or so I tell myself.

I can’t claim to have settled into Montevideo, but only a small corner of it. Even so, I lament the state of the cuisine. I doubt it’s any better outside of my barrio. I can’t lie to y’all, apart from the beef, which is stellar and cheap, the rest of it is garbage. Makes me miss Spanish cuisine something fierce. I think I’d kill a mofo for some Sanmorejo right about now. On the upside, because I’m eating more beef than ever, my ‘fro is growing like a tumbleweed and my nails are crazy strong and grow so fast that I’m cutting them every ten days. But these benefits don’t make up for the fact that, though surrounded by water there’s not a fresh fish or gamba to be had at my local market. And just when I think it’s safe to order the lasagne, I mean how can you fuck up lasagne, it comes without pasta. A lasagne without pasta. Just a layer of beef (of course), a thick layer of soggy spinach, topped with a layer of bland cheese with five (I counted) diced tomatoes. Apart from the beef, what they’re doing with the food down here is a crime against Anthony Bourdain.

(Deep sigh) But I recognize my privilege to have these things as my biggest gripes of life at the moment. I doom scroll like the rest of you and wonder when the madness will stop. Who will stop it? Should I feel guilty about abandoning the sinking ship? I don’t feel guilty and I quickly axed a “friend” who tried to make me feel guilty. We all have choices in this mad world. I chose to get on a plane. Here’s my advice to you, if you can’t stand the lunacy anymore, better be willing to max the credit cards and sell the house if you have to. And remember…your credit score doesn’t count for shit outside of the US…but cold hard cash counts for a lot 😉. Do what you gotta do.

Often it feels like I’m living in the upside down. As I watch floods ravage Spain and blizzards bring the US to a standstill, I ventured out on New Year’s Eve and was repeatedly hit with water cannons as Uruguayans brought in the New Year by beating the heat. I volunteered to get blasted with water guns several times. It was hot as balls. My boss asked me, “How did you enjoy your first hot holidays?” Maybe I didn’t enjoy my first hot holidays properly as evidenced by my skyhigh electric bill. December’s bill was FIVE TIMES what I’d paid in November. But ask me if I’m going to lower the A/C from freezing to chilly? Ha! Like I’m trying to sweat while sleeping. Nope. TAKE MY MONEY!

But the party is over. On Monday I start my new job and will be teaching Monday through Friday. But don’t feel sorry for me. This just means that I’ll have a class to teach everyday. On my hell day of Thursday, I’ll have THREE classes to teach. This 10 hours per week is going to kill me. I hope you can hear the sarcasm. What is important to me is that those 10 hours cover my rent, and they do, with a smidge leftover to buy overpriced bland food. I have everything I need and for that I’m deeply grateful. What I’ve learned is that if you step out on bravery, the universe will meet your clown ass halfway. You won’t fail. Those aren’t failures but redirection.

People who don’t know me very well ask questions like, “Have you made any friends, yet?” The answer is an emphatic NO! I’m an introvert and proud. Let me enjoy my moment on Walden Pond with my writing and brain for company. Damn. People are exhausting in more ways than one. I’ll happen upon some friends when work starts. I might have made a friend if the bars in Montevideo had TVs. I like to watch a little football with a beer while shooting the shit with the person on the next barstool, however, that’s not an option in Montevideo. I couldn’t believe what I wasn’t seeing. There are no less than 7 bars between my flat and the coffee shop and not one has a TV. I took to google and found a “sports bar” in the center of the city that I would need to catch 2 buses and walk ten minutes to get to. That’s too much work just to watch a 90 minute match.

So, I keep getting the feeling, and sometimes straight up messages, that I’m not in Montevideo for a long time, but more so a productive time of writing and reflection. Not to get too woo-woo about it, and knowing that I haven’t given Uruguay half a chance, still I think this is a pitstop on the road to who knows what. To quote my friend Julia, “You can do anything for a year.”

We’ll see. I’m brave enough to trust in the universe. Woo-woo!