The Slow Assemblage of My Mexican Home

In the last week, I’ve bought gold measuring cups and spoons and a terracotta-colored duvet with pink sheets.

I debated the duvet. Deleting it from my cart, adding a white one, before changing it back to the bolder option. I must have done this 10 or so times before actually clicking the buy now button.

There was something about going back to my familiar white bedding that seemed unoriginal and perhaps a little boring. Mexico, after all, is a country of colors and vibrancy. It’s rich and lively. A sterile white room just wouldn’t do.

My bedding debate

I never questioned the gold measuring cups, even though the reviews say they fade and tarnish over time. I wanted them anyway.

It was in this same spirit that I purchased an entire set of handmade black clay Oaxacan dishes in Tepoztlán last month. I wanted them, and now they sit, fully wrapped, in my friend’s apartment in Centro.

You know when I start buying plates that my nomadic lifestyle is nearing its end. What could be more grounding than a set of heavy dishes? In recent months, I had also started carrying spices and olive oil in my suitcase alongside my coffee scale, V-60 set, and hand grinder. (Those are all waiting for me in another friend’s apartment in Roma Sur.)

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As best as I can count, I’ve lived in 65 places over the past three years, not including short visits with friends and hotel stays I’ve had for travel writing gigs. When you consider the trips between St. Louis and my parent’s home in Effingham and the many hotel stays (On this trip to the US, there are five hotels in three different cities.), it’s probable that I’ve tried to create some semblance of a home nearly 100 times.

Some of my favorites (Left to Right, Top to Bottom: Mexico City, Paris, Valencia, Kigali, Madrid, & Bogotá)

I hang my clothes in the closet, place my coffee setup in the kitchen, place a few books on the nightstand, and create a makeshift office with my notebooks and post-its. I carry tea light candles from Target in my suitcase, and buy weekly flower bouquets, all in an attempt to make my spaces feel a bit more like home. Then I pack it all up to do it again.

It’s tiring and wonderful at the same time. But eventually the novelty wears off, and you find yourself wanting a comfy bed with your own linens, a room full of your books, and a kitchen stocked with all the spices needed to make the most elaborate of dishes. 

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It wasn’t until I started to think about creating a home that I realized selling all my things gave me a blueprint to follow. It’s basically the same process, but in reverse.

It takes time to dismantle your life. You begin by selling the nonessentials–the kitchen gadgets you thought you needed but never used, the espresso cup sets that were never taken out of the box, the boardgames your kids thankfully no longer play (God, I hate boardgames.) You throw out everything that’s expired in the bathroom and the kitchen, and you donate the clothes in the back of your closet. 

The final month and the final day in St. Louis.

Then it gets tricker. You start to sell things you like but don’t need–your jewelry box, the wine rack, and trinkets you’ve picked up from your travels. It’s gut-wrenching to get rid of your prized book collection that you’ve worked so hard to amass since your undergrad literature classes, but you can’t keep hundreds of books.

Selling your plants doesn’t seem right, so you keep them a bit longer and focus on nonessential furniture, lamps, wall hangings, and rugs. There’s an echo that now rings through your apartment, and it no longer feels like your home. There are piles of things to donate, sell, and give to friends on the floor of what was once your office. You ultimately decide to give your plants to your friends in exchange for a cup of coffee because it still feels wrong to sell them. 

Eventually, the dishes and curtains go, and you’re left with only two mattresses on the floor, a couch, and a plastic tote that you use as a makeshift coffee table. 

When you close the door behind you on the last day, pulling only a suitcase behind you, it feels like you’re headed out on vacation. Only later does it dawn on you that you don’t have anything to return to, that you’re embarking on a new life. 

I think for most people the thought of getting rid of everything you own sounds daunting or an impossible task, but I found it liberating. I could go anywhere and do anything. The world was limitless.

I guess I’m not particularly sentimental about things. I’m quite minimalistic, so my apartment was sparsely decorated. The items were carefully selected, but I still felt no attachment to them. 

It’s only now that I think back to Emma and Oliver’s bedrooms and the home we had together that I experience a longing, but that’s more for their childhood and those moments you can’t go back to. I think every parent experiences similar feelings. It doesn’t have anything to do with physical objects. 

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I find the idea of setting up home in Mexico City to be equally liberating (and a long time coming). It’s a blank slate–a new place in a new country. I get to make it whatever I want it to be, and if I want it to be a bolder, more colorful version of myself, I can.

I return to Mexico City in a couple of weeks to an apartment I’m subletting for the next few months (and perhaps longer). It’s a space with a lot of character, and it’s in one of my favorite neighborhoods. It’ll be a great way to ease into eventually getting my own place. 

Because I’m particular about spaces and design and want a certain aesthetic, I envision that creating a home is going to be a slow process. I’ll purchase things in the reverse order of how I sold them. I’ll need a bed, kitchen essentials, and a place to write. I’ll want plants and books. The rest can slowly be acquired. If there’s been any lesson that I’ve learned over the past three years, it’s that I can live happily with very little. 

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(An aside: As many of you know, I’ve been torn between Paris and Mexico City, but ultimately I realized that I’m never ready to leave Mexico, and in many ways, I’ve already made it my home. I finally feel like I’m ready to make it official)