6 Powerful Months in Oaxaca | Lessons, Love, Magic, & Storm Clouds

Rainbows.

I saw them everywhere, everyday of the week before I left Oaxaca after 6 months of calling this place home. I saw them in waterfalls, in the sky, sunrises and sunsets, flashes of them swirling in the clouds, and in my dreams.  On the day I flew out, one followed the plane, a circular reflection from the engine that was carrying me back to Wisconsin.

It’s ironic. My time in Oaxaca wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows.  It started out rough and I felt extremely out of place. I’ve been home for over two weeks and I’m still digesting all the unexpected lessons, twists and turns, ups and downs, all gifts that Mexico gave me. In fact, these six months have been so incredibly deep that it flipped me upside down. I will be processing all the magic these months for quite some time.

I found myself in Oaxaca on a whim. Actually, it was a voice that came to me while I was stuck in Cusco, Peru. The borders shut for over 10 months due to Covid. When whispers turned to speculations that the borders would open at the end of 2020, I knew that after visiting my family in Wisconsin, I would head to Mexico. A country I had never actually stepped foot in.

“You must go to Oaxaca to build your future.”

I heard it walking down the streets in Cusco, in my dreams, while I was writing. The seed was planted.

To me, this meant that I must continue writing and grinding away on my blog. I was determined to build my dreams of monetizing my website. I had put hours into writing, building maps, and working on my blog for the past year. I was convinced that the pull to Oaxaca was just the next stop to make temporary roots, to work obsessively.

In November 2020, the border of Peru finally opened, and I found myself at home in Wisconsin implementing all the medicine, lessons, and love that Peru had shown me. “Waiting it out” was the best decisions I had ever made. This time of uncertainty rewarded me with hikes deep into the mountains where I found answers and joys of a simple life.  I was buzzing and motivated to keep chasing my dream all while planning for my next destination: Oaxaca.

My mom came with me for the start of my journey.

We stayed in Oaxaca city for the first 3 weeks. After that, we moved to San Jose del Pacifico to enjoy the magic of the Sierra Sur. We continued down to the coast to appreciate the bliss of the bright sun on our skin and sand between our toes can only bring. The healing sound of the ocean was the perfect way to wrap up our month together.

My mom helped me settle into my new apartment just on the hillside of Oaxaca and she departed a few days after. It was so nice to spend time with her, but I was ready to dive back into my writing. In fact, an incredible group of women had found me via my blog and invited me into their women’s circle to create a book. 

Besides the book, opportunities were showing up left and right. There was the interview for a job in Antarctica, a few yachts looking for seasonal work, and house sitting inquiries rolling in. All were tempting. Oaxaca and I weren’t connecting. It was the height of dry season and everything felt dead, the grass, the mountains, the city, even the people. 

I missed hiking freely in the Andes, gazing up at the glacier peaked mountains, dipping in alpine lakes, and discovering hidden Inca sites. It felt as if the spark of creativity was missing for me here. My drive to write was gone, my desire to work on my website nonexistent, all that I had once loved about writing and creating felt more like a chore. I was burnt out.

I was looking at plane tickets to Albania and Eastern Europe for the first week of June.  I felt lost and disappointed in myself, my intuition had never steered me so wrong. Just when I was planning my exit, the universe threw me a curve ball.

I met someone. Someone completely different from me. 

A complete and honestly, unwanted curveball.

I was a free spirit and he was so structured, and he was older than me. He just walked up to my table, so nonchalantly. Like he belonged there. It caught me off-guard, but his confidence intrigued me.

I had been single and on my own for over 5 years, so to say I was reluctant to meet him for dinner was an understatement. But, I did and this is where our story begins, and my relationship with Oaxaca begins to change. 

Our second date we go away to the mountains. We laugh and talk the whole car ride there like we’re long lost friends. For the first time, I see into his soul, and I want to know all of him. This is where the magic begins.

After this weekend, we kind of become inseparable. We go out for dinner and cook together. At night we walk the streets when the street lights sparkle. We talk for hours about everything, even things I am usually afraid to share with most people. I tell him my deepest secrets, about my past and my dreams. Our conversation and time together is easy and comfortable, and for the first time in Oaxaca, I am starting to feel at home.

I decide to head to Chiapas for a month because I am craving quality time with Mother Nature.

I am needing the green mountains, waterfalls, ancient Mayan sites, and cooler weather. I fall in love with San Cristobal de las Casas, but for the first time in years, I am deeply missing someone outside of my immediate family. I throw out an idea for him to visit and he decides to celebrate his 50th birthday with me in Chiapas.

Together, we wander the cobblestone streets of San Cristobal de las Casas and take off for a week in an old Volkswagon van for an epic road trip. We swim in cenotes, visit waterfalls, and walk among ancient Mayan sites. The rainbows are following us, in the waterfalls, in the clouds above these sacred sites, while we are driving back to Oaxaca.  I’ve only known this man for less than 2 months and am certain that I am in love with him.

When I come back to Oaxaca after my month of magic in Chiapas, something has shifted.

At first I think it is the changing of the season. Oaxaca was dry, yellow, and the surrounding mountains looked so lifeless. Now, the rainy season is hanging in gray dramatic clouds over the mountains. The hillsides are turning shades of green from those heavy clouds filled with life. I feel like the wild flowers that line the sloping hills, bursting and beginning to bloom.  Maybe it’s the changing season, or maybe I am finding comfort this time in a person, not a place. I stop looking at flights and stay.

I stop working so much on my website and instead I am wrapped up in building, flowing, and being in the moment with him. We are like magnets and I am learning so much, about him, but more about myself. I am relearning how to share space with someone.

Finally, I begin writing more personal items for the women’s circle book I am honored to be apart of, but mostly I am writing for myself. I’m not caught up in worrying about Pinterest stats, SEO keywords, or posting on social media. I am completely living and it’s wonderful. Deep down, I know that I’m creating maybe the most life changing chapters for the book I dream of writing.

I still travel within the state to and explore all the diverse treasures that Oaxaca has to offer.

There are the magical mountains that are filled with their powerful secrets, the diverse and beautiful beaches where I feel so free, and tiny villages that hold deep rooted traditions. I don’t venture too far or long.  Home is becoming dinners filled with laughter, unplugging from the cellphone, working on the patio garden, and welcomed kisses from a slobbery black dog. Home is feeling like all of these simple things and so much more. 

My world has always been so expansive and limitless as I’m oftentimes dreaming of the next destination, or adding to a never ending bucket-list. This list always seems to get longer rather than shorter.  But, I slowed down in Oaxaca and felt comfortable here in the bubble of “us.”  

But, change is constant, and the only certainty in this life. 

We hit a few weeks of bad luck between the weight of the world, person issues, our health, and two defeated dogs that stumble onto our path from tragic stories. I stop seeing the rainbows, and I wonder if what we built is absorbing back into the storm clouds.

First, Canelo comes to us. A sweet pitbull that has so much love to give. We take him for the first time to the mountains. Usually I am buzzing here, this is our space of magic, but I can barely leave the bed. There is no wandering in the forest, playing in the river, or looking up at the stars.

One night I manage to pull myself out of the bed and watch an electrical storm for 10 minutes. The sky is crazy. There is not a cloud in the sky, but there is lightning dancing behind the mountains, its rhythmic pattern captivating us.

During this storm, little Donaji shows up under the bench. At first, she is so tiny and sickly that we think it’s a rat. I shine my light on her and realize that it is a tiny, scared, and sick puppy. She looks so defeated, almost dead. We feel so sad for her and even though I’m so sick, we take her back to Oaxaca and nurse her back to health.

During all this, I am the first to test positive for COVID.

Within in a week, my partner has it, too. The worst part is we are cycling through the illness at different times. Physically, I recover quickly, but it’s my brain and emotions that are out of whack. I am worried because COVID is holding onto him and crippling his body more than it did mine.  We become so distant and take space.

These are my last weeks in Oaxaca and I feel as if I’m coming full circle and I want to leave. I’m recognizing in myself all those toxic habits of running instead of sitting with the uncomfortable. Usually I’m ready to light the bridge on fire, watch it burn, and jump from it as fast as I can.

One of my friends that I met in Peru just moved to Oaxaca and we take little Donaji with us to the mountains in Santiago Apoala. We are both missing those special hikes in the Andes, so we get out of city. There has always been something so healing about the mountains, and it’s as if they are calling me to them. It’s exactly what I need: Mother Nature, a solid female friend, meditative walks, a fearless pup, and space and time to clear my head.  

The rainbows reappear.

I see multiple in the waterfall, and up in the sky. I am breaking the cycle and shedding those bad habits and negative thought patterns that no longer serve me.

My final few days are filled with busy errands and I am also prepping little Donaji to travel back with me to Wisconsin. I agree to meet him for dinner, because everything had been so intense between us. There is no way to just leave it, a cliffhanger of what ifs. That was the old me. Regret is a word I am trying to eliminate from my vocabulary, maybe even my existence. It will always linger in my past, but I am powerful enough to reshape my future.

My wall is up at first, but like usual, it comes down fast in his presence. Over dinner, we come back to who were were before all the bullshit. The rest of the world begins to melt away and it was just me and him in the restaurant.

We are sharing food, laughter, silly stories, smiles, and energy. I tell him of my adventures in Apoala, since he told me about this special place. His arm slips back around me and the tough three weeks seems to disappear from my memory, the unnecessary drama, the sickness. We are filling in the hole between us, the one we made deeper and deeper for no reason. The flow and magic are here in the present moment.

We stop for a mezcal after dinner, the energy between us is literally buzzing. The next thing we know we are running to the street as an earthquake rumbles through the city. He jokes if it was us, our energy. Sometimes I wonder that too.

There is a force here that I can’t explain, and that’s alright.

September 8th is the day before my flight and it’s exactly 4 months to the day since our first date, when we met for dinner on a rooftop. Now, we are sitting on a roof and sharing magic mushrooms that were a gift from our special place. The mountains. Our time is coming full circle.

We laugh so hard we are crying and around us is nothing but joy, a happiness that is so divine it is not from this world.  And the rainbows, they are encircling us, dancing in the clouds, shining from us in rays of bright white light. I am everything and nothing in a universe of just him and I. This is the perfect farewell, or maybe it’s simply a see you later for now. Time will tell, what will be will be.

The next day is a blur as my plane flies above Oaxaca.

I look out the window and see all the places I physically traveled to. In my mind, I see the entire 6 months flash before my eyes. The lessons, the intense love, the magic, and all the storm clouds.

Honestly, I’m still floating in my mushroom journey from the day before. I want to stay there as long as I can, but it’s slipping from my fingers the farther my plane flies from the city. I look out the window and rainbow is following me. It’s a reflection of the jet, but it follows that plane the entire length of Oaxaca state. A simple reminder of the magic that these last 6 months have truly been, but deep down I know that the magic is inside of me. The rainbows will follow me wherever I go.

I arrive home feeling kind of numb, kind of exhausted.

Although I start physically unpacking all my bags, mentally I haven’t even opened up the treasure chest that my time in Oaxaca gifted me. 

I think this is something that will be unpacked slowly over time, when I have more time and energy to digest all that took place here.

My time in Peru showed me the beauty of living in the moment and finding peace in nature, in solitude. I made peace with my past and the person who I was while I lived in Peru. The nature was healing, the medicine I needed at that time. Each mountain I climbed was maybe a symbol for the hills I was internally climbing to reach the inner-peace of happiness.

While I found these lessons invaluable, it was as if my time in Oaxaca was a crash course on love and finding that happiness with a person, rather than a place. I had been single for so long that this was a deep and intense learning period on how to share my newfound light with someone else.

After coming to terms with the past, it was the first time I had shared this new, authentic version of myself so freely with someone. He showed me that I am the magic and this superpower is best shared with others. Sometimes we just need a switch to turn us on to the truth, and I think he was mine. I am grateful for all these lessons, each one just as important as the next.

I’ve been home for two weeks now, and it’s taken me this long to even get this “down on paper.”

The unpacking is happening everyday, little by little. I don’t know what the future holds. They say people come into our lives for a season, reason, or a lifetime. For now, the future is unknown and I will write it day by day.

I’m happiest when I live in the moment, so for now, I will continue to breathe, listen, and follow the inner voice that never steers me wrong. Even if I have a misstep or a slight detour, I seem to find my way back on my unusual path. My life path is a little unorthodox, a little messy, super unconventional, but filled with adventure, happiness, and a dash of magic.

Besides, it’s those storm clouds that bring in the rainbows.

The rainbows almost always appear when the storm cloud gives up. When the thunder sings those booming and echoing lessons. After the lightning bolts turn on the spark of magic. That’s always when the light shines through the rain clouds.

In Wisconsin, the season is beginning to change. The leaves are changing colors to prepare for the cold winter. Change is coming fast for me, too.

I’m heading south to a place near and dear to my heart, back to the Andes. They seem to be calling me and I am listening.

First, I’m arriving in Cuenca, Ecuador for a few months to house sit for some dear friends. I have to extend my visa, so I’ll be able to stay for up to 180 days. This will give me the time to mentally unpack and write more. Next, I hope to move back into Peru. Many nights while I sleep I travel back there and I’m happy climbing the mountains. It’s time to build my dreams, write more of my story, and continue to chase my dreams. The Apus, “mountain Gods,” are constantly sending me messages, so my ears, heart, and mind will be open.

The rainy season is just starting to begin in the Andes. The storm clouds will come and dump the cleansing rain on me and again turn what was dead back into green, lush life. When the storm clouds pass, I’ll look to the sky and search for the rainbow.