Like many places around the world, Mexico goes through moments of tension. Here in Michoacán, it has been a difficult few days. I want to share what daily life looks like for me, not to analyze, not to speculate, and definitely not to criticize, but simply to show what it’s like to live here with both the beauty and the uncertainty.

These last few days in Michoacán have had more tension than usual: road closures, some blocked highways, and a general feeling of uncertainty in the air. I’m not here to give news or commentary. I just want to share what daily life looks like for me during times like this, and how I stay grounded and safe as a solo woman living in Mexico.

Daily Life: A Day Interrupted

This morning started like most mornings here. The dogs woke me with the sun. I made coffee, stepped outside, and heard nothing but the pines moving in the breeze. It was one of those soft, ordinary beginnings that make you forget the world can get complicated.

I had plans today. Nothing important: a grocery run, check on a sick friend, stop by the mercado. Just life.

But before I left, I checked my phone… and that’s when the day changed.

There were messages in the neighborhood group and on facebook. People were turning back from the highway, and several roads had been blocked. Vehicles were burning on the routes near my area; close enough that everyone agreed it wasn’t a good day to be out driving.

There was no panic. No dramatic language. Just the calm, practical way people here look out for one another:
Stay home today. We’ll see how things unfold

And I’ll be honest: it was unsettling.

You can love a place and still feel a flicker of fear when the world outside shifts like that. So I stayed home. It felt like the right choice, to wait, to listen, to let the day settle.

And what strikes me here is how life keeps going, even in these moments of tension. With noticias all over the internet about what was happening, at home, everything was steady. The dogs slept in the sun. I heard music from the neighbor’s house. The day didn’t feel disrupted-  just slowed, like everything had taken a small step back.

Temo is here today so I jumped in to help with the garden. It’s exciting to see progress in the yard! I got my work clothes on and grabbed the wheelbarrow. 

Temo had cleared some of the many beds in front of the casita and it’s much more cleaned up. But I don’t want the weeds to take over and I want to protect the soil over the winter so I hauled a bunch of material to cover this one big bed. It’s just leaves, weeds, brush we’ve collected as we pare everything down, and I’m using it like mulch.

I walked out to what I call “the field”. I was measuring out a possible footprint for a future fenced vegetable garden, saving cardboard for it. Trying to get a feel of the land as a whole and where things should go. I’d like a fence made of cow panels possibly, with several raised beds inside where I can grow flowers, herbs and vegetables. I’m going to need water out here too, so that will take some work. Right now repairing the casita has to be the priority, but it’s fun to dream of what we could build.

I’m excited to say that the casita’s roof has finally been fixed! I hope so anyway. I have a 12 year guarantee on the impermeable new roof and now I’m waiting for everything to dry, inside and out, before we begin work on fixing up the interior. It’s going to be so cool! I think a paint job will do wonders for this place!

It makes me ridiculously excited. I’m looking forward to having someone there eventually. It’s been so peaceful here, and the neighbors around me have been so warm and welcoming. But having a renter in the casita feels right; a little more life on the land, a little company without losing the quiet.

Temo and I also finally cleaned out the bodega, full of years of old detritus of country living. Mostly trash but also some possibly useful things like a few tools and various fungicides and herbicides. You know getting rid of stuff is one of the hardest parts about moving to a new country, and here I am doing it again with someone else’s stuff!  

This is a holiday week and I suspect that’s why the normal trash guys didn’t come to pick up, so I have all this waiting in the driveway for whenever they do come. 

I didn’t hear any more news, but I kept one eye on my usual sources, the way you do when life feels like it might shift again. I left Temo to his kingdom of tools and came inside to clean up, peeling off my clothes and scrubbing the dust from my skin. Then I wandered out for a short walk through the neighborhood. The air still held a faint sweetness from the altars, and when I passed the cemetery, the Day of the Dead flowers were still there: bright in the sun, softening the edges of everything.

Then I turned toward the things I don’t make time for enough: the memoir I’m writing about the last few years, the emails, the little piles of life that wait for a still moment.

But it wasn’t to be. I’d left the door open for the dogs, and a few minutes later I heard a commotion in the living room. A small bird had flown inside and was flapping against the windows, trying desperately to get out. I put the dogs outside so they wouldn’t terrify the poor thing even more, opened every window, and eventually it found its way back to freedom.

While all this was happening, Olive reappeared with something in her mouth. She’s become obsessed with hunting the little lizards that dart over the rocks and stone walls, and this time she actually caught one. I had to block the doorway until she took it back outside.

I joked with her that if she’s such a great hunter, maybe she could help me with the mouse in the kitchen, and, incredibly, she did. Somehow she cornered the poor thing in a bottom cabinet and killed it instantly with her giant jaws. It freaked me out, and I swept the little body outside, already thinking about what they say: if you see one mouse, there are usually more.

When I first moved in, the kitchen showed all the signs of long-term mouse residency. I even found one dead on my very first morning here- I tried not to take it as an omen. After a deep scrub of the whole house and being meticulous in the kitchen, the mice disappeared for a couple of months. But now they’re back. Small and fast, I’ve seen them scurry past in the evenings, and the dogs clearly know it too.

So… now I need to figure out a solution before this gets out of hand.

After all that unexpected wildlife management, the house finally calmed again. And I went back to work.

Whether it’s the small animal dramas or the road closures and trouble in the region, I have to watch myself. After decades of nursing, responding to urgent situations, escalating before I even realize it, my body is primed for ‘crisis mode.’ I feel it immediately: that first rush of adrenaline, the tightening in the chest, the instinct to brace and find a solution immediately.

But that reaction doesn’t help anyone anymore. So I remind myself of what’s actually here: lazy dogs dozing in the sun, Temo and I talking about the garden, neighbors a phone call away. This is my real life in this moment.

The dogs, of course, had no idea. Viggo chased birds he wasn’t going to catch. Olive leaned against my leg the way she always does, as if to say, We’re still here. This moment is still good.

And they were right.

I’m not trying to ignore the situation here in Mexico, and I certainly keep up with the news. But the truth is, millions of Mexicans live their normal, beautiful, complicated lives in this same reality every day.

And before anyone comments that I must have a death wish for living here, trust me, I don’t. If I had a death wish, I wouldn’t be obsessing over garden plans, casita renovations, and the mouse under my sink. I understand where those comments come from. When you’re watching from far away, all you see are headlines. But life on the ground is much bigger and quieter than that.

I think about the fact that I chose to live in the countryside. If I lived in the city, most of life would be going on as normal: shops open, people working, traffic moving as it always does. But out here, in the space between towns, I have to pay more attention to what’s happening on the roads and in the areas in between. That’s part of choosing a rural life; the beauty and the quiet, but also the need to be aware of the stretches you have to cross to get anywhere.

I hope things calm down soon. And I hope the beauty of this place, and the strength of the people who live here, carry us through this moment.

As the afternoon slipped into evening, the day settled into its usual rhythm. Temo gathered his tools and headed home, and the dogs started circling the kitchen, reminding me it was time for dinner. The sun dropped behind the hills, washing the yard in that soft gold that I never get tired of.

I walk out by the bottle brush tree, humming with bees. The birds are especially chatty in the twilight. I’ve learned that this is the best time for bamboo hunting, when it’s still bright but not direct light. I still love it. Searching for little growing shoots where they are not supposed to be I let my mind wander and enjoy this most beautiful time of day. The lavender scents the air. Little funny grasshoppers jump around me. And I find it so satisfying to find some errant bamboo and cut it.

This is my life in Michoacán: beautiful, complicated, grounded. And even with everything happening around me, all the hardship people are facing here, I’m grateful every single day. Sometimes I catch myself wondering, Was this all it took? Free time, a garden, a little room to breathe? After so many years of exhaustion and struggle, it feels almost unbelievable to be this happy with such a simple life.

But maybe that’s exactly why it means so much. Maybe all those hard years trained me to recognize peace when it finally arrived.

But even as the house grew quiet, I kept thinking about the people nearby whose day didn’t end as peacefully. Ordinary people, just living their lives, caught in something they never asked for.

That stays with me. 

So tonight, as I lock up the house and the dogs settle for the night, I feel two things at once: gratitude for the safety and community I have here… and a deep hope that the people around me, my neighbors, the families in the nearby towns, get to end their days in peace, too.

This is my life in Michoacán. Beautiful, complicated, grounded. And I don’t take any of it for granted.

Except the mice.