I have fully entered into a
time of transition. Yesterday I began a list of things that I need to do
immediately to tie up loose ends here in Puerto Vallarta and to get ready for
returning to Toronto. Making a list is my attempt to keep from overlooking particular
bits and pieces any of which if left unattended will cause some form of havoc
in the time to come. It’s a practice I’ve developed in the past few years since
discovering that I can no longer easily hold a multitude of disparate items in
my brain without some just slip, sliding away. An example: after off-loading
some books at the library on Monday I headed for the Mega – a superstore some
distance from our condo. My shopping completed without a list, I arrived home
realizing that the salad dressing that I had particularly planned to buy there
had been forgotten. OK, I know some of you recognize this behaviour. Annoying
but not devastating. But some of the pieces yet to be cared for could lead to
actual trouble if not dealt with. Hence the list.
Yesterday was a full day (people
in Toronto who lead truly busy lives with find my little round of activities
laughable). But, here are some of the things that happened and that I
accomplished: the de rigour walk on the malecon; swim, shower; a Skype session;
an attempt to meet with the condo administrator who apparently is only
available in the afternoons, so please check in later; a talk with Luis, the
real estate fellow with an office in the lobby to discuss his handling some
rentals of our condo unit when we are not here; lunch on the beach with Billy, Catherine’s former boy friend from Winnipeg who came by bus from
Sayulita where he is vacationing for a month; finding a moving company on the
internet and contracting with them for our move on March 15; finding a place to
stay in Istanbul before and after our cruise on the Black Sea in October;
contacting our tenant in Orillia about the new, larger water heater that is to
be installed there; having a Skype chat with Catherine who was home sick with a
cold, making plans with her to get together soon after we return; writing to
the lawyer who is facilitating our purchase of unit 804 about paying him to set
up the needed documents; answering various emails sent from the lady we are
buying the unit from about issues like the telephone, tenants she has had,
having availability to go into the unit again before we depart to leave some
things here and to take some other photos to be used to advertise it when we
are not resident; a brief nap (crucial); drinks (water for me, thank you) with
Jean and Joe, neighbours on the 9th floor who are from Kamloops –
really pleasant and welcoming people who have owned a place here for about 15
years; supper/snack, followed by a walk to Roberto’s to see if the New York
Times had arrived – it hadn’t; then a walk over to Santander bank’s ATM for a
fresh infusion of pesos, a look at some t-shirts on the malecon, and home; some
reading, and to bed.
The above describes an
unusually busy day here, symptomatic of the fact that in three days we leave
for Mexico City and five days after that for Toronto and nine days after that
move house. So many things and people crowd into the brain, leaving little
option but to put them to paper least they be overlooked in the rush. Today I
will try again to see the administrator to find out about arrangements to pay
our monthly fees and other bills associated with the unit, all of which go to
the administration office and so can be handled with one lump payment. I also plan to open a bank account at a new place just down the street that apparently
has a direct connection with a New York bank. Transferring money from Canada
and the USA to Mexico is not always an easy affair, so we are trying to find
the most expedition method possible.
Though dealing with so many
practical issues, I still make time for reading. Elizabeth asked me a couple of
weeks ago if our September trip through Eastern Europe and visits to various
camps and museums associated with the Holocaust had satisfied or settled some
interest in me about this period of our history. She asked because I have not
written more about the Holocaust since we returned home. It became clear to me
after a few weeks back in Toronto that I needed some space from all that we had
seen and experienced because of the powerful impact that it had on me
personally. But my connection with or “interest” in the Holocaust has been a
part of my inner life for decades and will always be one of my deepest
references when thinking of what we are about as human beings. While here I
have read a number of books about that period of our history.
Currently I am
reading A Lucky Child, Thomas Buergenthal’s 2002 memoir of his life as a child
in a Polish ghetto, his transportation to Auschwitz with his parents at the age
of ten, separation from them, surviving Auschwitz, the winter 1945 death
march, transportation by open railway car to Sachenhausen camp near Berlin, and
finally, liberation by Polish soldiers. His mother had been told when he was very
young that he was a lucky child – a statement fully borne out in the series of
circumstances where by both luck and his wits he managed to survive situations
rarely managed by children during the Nazi period. In 1946 by another series of
fortunate coincidences he was reunited with his mother who had also survived
the camps to which she had been sent as a slave labourer. With her second
husband (his father had died shortly before the end of the war in another camp)
they emigrated to the USA in 1951. Thomas Buergenthal became a lawyer, later a
judge, and served for over ten years as the American judge on the International
Court of Justice in The Hague. I feel tremendous admiration for people like
Buergenthal who have survived such terrors and yet have gone on to lead full
lives of value to themselves and to others. But there is great sadness to think
of the millions of individuals throughout Europe and Asia who were thrown into
the machinery of death through circumstances over which they had no personal
control whatsoever. Ours is a strange and terrible species.
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