Morning Thoughts

It is another beautiful sunny morning. When I woke up at seven this morning I heard a band playing down the street. I don't know if they were playing for someone's birthday or for the holiday that is on Monday or just for fun. But it was nice to hear music in the morning. Benito Juarez Day is Monday. I am going out to get a newspaper to see if there will be a parade. I remember last year that there was a parade and I wrote about it. I always enjoy going to the parades. 

I have been thinking of why I got so upset at the man who kicked Chico out of the room with the books for sale at the Lake Chapala Society. (Where I have taken him for nearly ten years with no problems.) I think if the man had been nicer about it, I wouldn't have minded so much but he wasn't. He was very overbearing. I felt like he was expressing the quality that I dislike most about many American men, the businessman's personality. Perfect example is Trump.   Maybe a man has to be like that to be a good businessman. But I came here to get away from that attitude. His disrespectful way of talking to me was enough to turn me away from the entire Lake Chapala Society.

One of the qualities I like most about the Mexicans I have met here is their live and let live attitude. They are not into controlling other people. That is one reason I believe noise doesn't bother them. They have learned to accept it. They accept whatever comes their way.

Maybe someone went into the office at the Lake Chapala Society and complained about dogs in the books for sale room because he or she was allergic to dogs. But dogs are everywhere here in Mexico. They are part of this life. I can just see someone, maybe a recent arrival, wanting to have things their own way. Wanting to change things to suit themselves. And maybe that is why the United States is so rich and powerful and Mexico is behind the times. Control. Controlling the environment, changing it to fit into what they want, not this laid back attitude and acceptance I see in the Mexicans.

I don't know much. All I know is how I feel about the places I go everyday and I no longer feel comfortable going to the Lake Chapala Society. I don't feel welcome. It feels like a place north of the border, not Mexico.  I have no plans to drop by there again or to renew my membership. 

I need to apologize to anyone I have offended with my negative feelings here.  I rarely will write negative things because they always come back to me tenfold. Negativity breeds negativity. And I don't want that. Just as that man being so negative and bossy towards me has upset me for several days now.  I am hurt at being so disrespectfully treated. It is the way people say things that is far more important than what they say.   It would have been just as easy for him to be nice as it was for him to be so negative towards me. 

I must remember that in the future when I relate to strangers. I could easily be the one to upset a stranger and then that stranger could carry that negativity for days and it becomes like the domino effect.   I need to let go of these bad feelings. Maybe writing about them will help me to let them go.  Maybe a parade will be just the answer. Or breakfast out. Or a trip to San Blas and the healing beaches there. Or maybe I have just lived here too long and seen too many changes.  Too many new rules......