Lima, It's Been a Year
On going home, again.
I’ve never been one for anniversaries—romantic, personal, professional—so it was utterly predictable that my Lima anniversary took me by surprise. Anniversaries are for people who are deeply invested in making things last. Think of the avalanche of posts from New York transplants who will mark the event with an Instagram picture of a gorgeous skyline that hides the rat-infested reality of whatever block they live in, and a florid caption about how the city has made all of their dreams come true. I have never, ever felt that sense of plenitude with any place or person because my entire life is built on one premise: keep it moving.
My one-year anniversary in Lima, however, coincided with a biweekly expat girls cocktail hour that I happened to be hosting. Someone asked me how long I had been in the city and that’s when it dawned on me that I had landed in Lima exactly a year before. “Huh, I guess my move is not that recent,” I said, editing my knee-jerk response to the question and making a mental note to examine what exactly I had done with my life here this whole time.
If I had to choose one word to describe my life in Lima, I would choose bifurcated. More often than not, I feel like a character in Severance except I can’t tell what version of me is the innie and which one is the outie. My entire career is US-based as is my writing community, and the bulk of friends I chat with on the daily. Hell, whatever romantic entanglements I’ve had in the past 12 months have all unfolded there too. I joke that the best thing I ever did for my love life in New York was to move out of New York. Single folks, take note!
On the other hand, my body breathes, feeds, and moves through the Peruvian capital. For the first time in close to twenty-five years, my family plays a major role in my schedule where I now pencil in Father’s Day and Mother’s Day celebrations, food festivals with my brother, occasional babysitting afternoons with the nephews and Sunday lunch. I’ve reconnected with old friends who, themselves, had to get used to the idea that I lived there now. In fits and starts, they added me to their social rotation; they were so used to making space for me during my two-week vacations and then being out of sight, out of mind. When I crave cultural consumption, I have to find it in this sprawling city of 10 million people that still crams almost all its nightlife and artistic scene into three districts with one of them —Barranco—buckling under the weight of expat demands and expectations.
My nomadic childhood taught me that there are three stages to moving to a new place:
Year 1: Everything is shiny and exciting, but you feel lonely because friendships are tenuous.
Year 2: You have a thriving social life but the city’s charming quirky peculiarities transform into the norm, at best, or nuisances, at worst.
Year 3: Time to get going
Despite this being my first overseas move in two decades, the template holds firm. When I first arrived, my brain tingled with every new element I discovered. I had no idea how much I missed living in a different country until I returned to Lima. Mind you, I’ve never stayed away more than a couple of years from my hometown but you use other synapses when you’re simply passing through than when you’re settling in to a new location. Small tasks like finding a new gym class took on the sheen of an adventure. One of the great joys of my time here is discovering Peru beyond this megalopolis, a territory so enchanting and breathtaking, its landscapes are reminiscent of ancient epochs or could easily serve as backdrops for distant planets. I feel more protective of Earth after witnessing the lilac sunsets of the Amazons and the tsunami-sized sand dunes that my country boasts.
I also cannot overstate enough the mental acuity I’ve recaptured simply by living somewhere cheaper. Sometimes the solution to anxiety and depression are really that material. My inner child didn’t need to heal, my wallet did. I no longer have to take every potential project sent my way to cover rent, which means I have shaved off former clients or services that made me wish I had the looks and the disposition to marry for money. For the first time, in a long time, I can reflect on next steps.
But, like, what is the next step? Now that I’ve woken up from my near-death experience frenzy, crashed back to Earth, and find myself living with my parents and a middling writing career at 43, in a city I swore I would never willingly go back to, I want to make sure I don’t stay still simply because it is so easy to do so.
It’s Year 2, so the cracks are starting to show. At the height of my youth, Lima was a difficult place to make friends. (One day I’ll expand on the viceroyal social dynamics that STILL determine social interactions here.) As an adult, it’s bordering on impossible, at least when it comes to other Peruvians. Limeños tend to keep to the friend groups they established in kindergarten and rarely have an interest in making their social circle any wider. It’s why I’ve resorted to expat groups for social interaction—at least I know they’re as lonely as I am.
When it comes to dating, my picks are Passport Bros Who Want a Twenty-Something Women With Traditional Values (more on this later too) or The Non-Existent Single Peruvian Man in His Forties. I can’t figure out who is shutting who out in this scenario but I do know that I find neither appealing, the former for obvious reasons and the latter because I cannot be intimate with dark matter. Truly. My friend Carlos who is also Peruvian, but raised in the US and gay once asked me what single, straight Peruvian men are like and I had to honestly tell him that I had yet to interact with any Peruvian man within an appropriate age range who I hadn’t know since I was in my teens, and those were all married. The closest I got was a trio who approached me and my friends one Saturday night at a rooftop bar. I ended up arguing with one of them about the effectiveness of birth control because he was under the impression that they rarely worked. So, yeah.
More frustrating is that I haven’t tapped into a literary network that could, perhaps, broaden my writing opportunities. I’m as much as fault here since I haven’t budged an inch in that direction, despite making ambitious plans of reaching out to cultural shakers and makers, launching a reading series, throwing myself into on-the-ground reporting and researching family lore. I scroll through the live lit shows in Chicago, the book events in Brooklyn, the writerly happy hours all over the US, the festivals, workshops, conferences and gulp in fear. Did I set myself back? I don’t have time for setting myself back. I know my lack of initiative is prompted, in part, by my rampant commitment-phobia. If I don’t get too invested, then it’s easier for me to find this place lacking, and if I find this place lacking, then it’s easier to be Gone Like the Wind Fabulous, in the infamous words of Kenya Moore. Who isn’t really anyone I should be emulating.
Here are the facts though:
I miss my personal space. My last roommates in New York were lovely, my parents are chill, my youngest sibling is my literal and metaphorical bro. But three years of coordinating my life with others is taking a toll on me. My most erotic fantasy right now is opening the door to a silent apartment where I leave a mess in the kitchen that I will deal with whenever I see fit.
I also can’t afford to move back to the US. I don’t think I want to either , at least not long-term. Boycotting year-long leases and stifling relationships (in my universe that’s any relationship that lasts more than 3 months) are at the top of my #LifeGoals. Peru has reminded me how much I want to experience life in other countries—a fraught desire given the various disruptions digital nomading has caused the world over. I am too attuned, to aware of its problematic praxis, to simply take off with a carefree, live-laugh-love attitude, so I’m figuring out what a responsible path to that looks like. In my ideal scenario, I would spend 6 months in Lima, 6 months in the States and then 3 months in a new country. For that, I need to pay off debt. In order to pay off debt, I have to stay with my parents for the time being. In order to stay put, I have to arm myself with patience, my least favorite virtue and one I sorely lack.
I know the solution to my angst, while I works towards this, is to build in Lima all that I miss from my life in the US. Maybe that’s my project for Year 2. Whatever I build during that time, though, I have to remember I can leave it behind. I have to. Year 3 is coming up and with it, my need to pack up and go.
Homework
Is there an anniversary that’s snuck up on you? Personal or not, doesn’t matter. Could be an anniversary at a job, a club, a neighborhood. Could even be your freaking marriage (insert evil cackle). If so, reassess. How’s it working for you?
Money Lesson
Google emailed me the other day that my Workplace Business Plus Suite plan was going up $5 to account for a whole host of AI tools that I didn’t ask for and have no interest in using. The only reason I even pay for the plan is because I want a dedicated email for my freelance work. I’m mad enough at the AI-scam that’s taken over the world and I am trying to opt out as much as possible, especially if it hurts my wallet. So for the first time in my life, I contacted the Google help agents. First thing I asked the bot: “I want to talk to a human.” Chatting with a person was how I found out I had selected a foolishly expensive plan for what I wanted anyway—and that is because I was under the impression that it was the most basic plan of all! Why? Cause Google hides their way cheaper plans when you log into your admin dashboard and I’m probably a doofus late-adopter anyway who does not know her way around a dashboard.
If you’re paying for a Google Workplace and fear you have been bamboozled by Big Tech and your own limitations, this is what you want to do:
Log into your admin dashboard.
Click on “Manage” on the Billing block.
Click on the name of your current subscription.
Then click on “More”
Review your options!
My payment changed from $23 to $8 because I am on the plan I should have chosen from the beginning: Google Workspace Business Starter. By the way, I’m relaying this from memory. When I tried doing this now, the Workspace options no longer show up under “More.” Instead, there is a massive “Upgrade” button in the left column. I hope my recollection is accurate!
I told the human I hoped he got to keep his job once the AI revolution was firmly implemented. (I meant it too.)
Progress Report
I went on my birthday trip fully expecting to come back to an empty calendar and a big fat $0 on my projected income for the rest of the year. Instead, the universe gifted me a ton of client work that landed on my lap right as I was about to–shudder–revamp my LinkedIn profile. A handful of commissioned pieces, a few quick translation projects, a couple of new clients and ta-da! I might actually survive the rest of the year. Is this manifesting? Ask and ye shall receive? Definitely a huge sigh of relief.
A massive thank you to everyone who subscribed too, free or paid, because your support placed me in the cryptic “Rising in Literature” list and granted me that coveted checkmark I’ve been chasing in my one-sided feud with a former boss. Revenge is nigh.
On the more creative front, I sent two pitches and got two (unrelated) rejections. However, one of the rejection letters mentioned that my poem was long-listed for their journal, which means that I actually wrote a poem that does not suck. Yay, me!
I’m now at the top of the Macondo waitlist. Trust the process, they say. What will be will be, I mumble.
I abandoned the 90-Day Novel method because I realized I am the kind of writer that truly, truly, truly needs to do her research before she can sit down to write jack. Even fiction.
Crossed off one more bingo square!
Subscriber Benefits
The Cranky Writing Hour goes back to its regular cadence next week! Stay tuned for upcoming dates.
The next mini-salon with Sarah Kokernot of Your Wild and Radiant Mind
is on Thursday, July 10 at 12pm CT/1pm ET. The topic is “Feeding the Creative Well: Resetting and Reenergizing Your Writing”, which we thought would be good for anyone riding the high of summer (Sarah) or needing to crawl out of the depths of winter (me). Paid subscribers can submit questions ahead of time and will have access to the recording. If you are a free subscriber, the mini-salon is offered as a pay-what-you-can event with a $15 suggested fee (but we welcome all amounts). You can sign up here.
A paid subscription also includes:
Samples of my pitches & rates, applications, and spreadsheets & templates
Access to the full archive (free posts go behind a paywall after a year)
Shameless Self-Promotion
Here are some books I’ve worked on:
LGSNQ: Gentrification & Preservation in a Chicago Neighborhood (co-author)
Desolación by Gabriela Mistral (co-translator)
My most recent writing:
If you’re struggling with the artist statement, I can help! My On-Demand class, Navigating the Artist Statement, is available for purchase at StoryStudio. Watch at your own time, at your own pace, and send those babies out!
Every week, I look at Five Calls, pick the issue that is most making me scream into the void, and use their app to call my reps. I’m making saving PBS my entire personality but the app shows you a list of issues you can discuss with your reps.
If you ever want to peruse all the books I recommend in the newsletter, head over to my Bookshop bookstore!
Oh thanks for the tip on the lower Google dashboard bill! It worked!
ohhh i loved this! i have had a verrry similar template for living in cities and needing to move by year 3. I’m in year 4 in my current city, which snuck up, and i’ve never been so determined to get out now that ive realize i didnt “just move here” haha