Inside Out

It takes a while to develop any sort of rhythm once you move to a new country. All the activities that you take for granted in your homeland – conversing, shopping, driving, digesting – can present formidable challenges on a daily basis in a país nuevo. Without a healthy sense of humor and a surplus of Imodium AD, you will likely develop a habit of cutting yourself with salted tortilla chips as auto-punishment for your decision to expatriate.

Each exit from your apartment becomes an adventure. And while adventures can be highly invigorating, educational and life-affirming, history shows that they sometimes end badly. Had Captain Cook known that his exploration to Hawaii would lead to him being beaten, stabbed to death and dragged off by natives, he likely would have stayed home and traded his compass in for a cribbage board.

Once you venture over international borders, one wrong turn or one overlooked decimal place or one missing preposition can decimate a perfectly laid plan. Consequently, it’s not uncommon for newly arrived expats – with every intention of embracing the local/regional culture – to soon develop a strong desire to stay inside. Inside, you are the master of your domain, commander of your fate. Inside, you greatly decrease the chance that your cognitive development will be called into question. Inside, you virtually eliminate the chance that you will get lost. Inside, you will not get on – or get hit by – the wrong bus. Inside, there is no confusion over currency, no confrontation with freelance windshield washers, no police force extortion, and no hirsute soccer-obsessed macho men with chronic delusions of grandeur caused by mothers who named them Jesus.

What there is inside is Scrabble.

While Miranda and I came to Puebla to immerse ourselves in Poblano customs and traditions, such desires have recently been supplanted by the temptation of triple word scores and inventive uses of the letter Q. Scrabble is our crack cocaine, our connection to text that is second nature rather than second language. Whenever we sit on our couch and lay down six- and seven-letter American English masterpieces that intersect with other six- and seven-letter American English masterpieces, all the Spanish conditionals and subjunctives we’ve fumbled out on the streets and in restaurants begin to disintegrate. Since I am rather fluent in Spanish, I imagine that our Scrabble sessions are much more cathartic and self-affirming for Miranda. Nevertheless, I cannot deny that I, too, experience a gratifying sense of total lexicon domination when I throw down an X on a double or triple letter square moving in two directions. Fuck the fiesta down the street – I just got 62 points, biatch!

Help us. Help us please.

Miranda and I are well aware that we have a Scrabble problem, one that threatens not only our acclimation to Poblano life and language, but also our productivity in general. That’s not to say that we are Scrabble-haggard hermits; we do on occasion muster up the courage to leave our familiar flat, to willingly thrust ourselves into the cultural confusion four floors below. And often such explorations prove promising; however, typically after a couple of hours of popping into shops, snacking on regional treats and tripping over cobble stones, we both start to experience withdrawal tremors and rush back home to quell them with our daily fix of wooden letters.

Junkies, for sure, but ones for whom there is much hope for rehabilitation. I say this because lately, whenever I’m busy scanning the Scrabble board in search of the perfect home for a powerful word, I often catch Miranda gazing out the window at the rich historic city that surrounds us rather than using the time to construct a seven-letter gem of her own. I’m showing signs of recovery, too. Mid-game, my feelings of guilt over this city I’ve shunned are starting to supersede my obsession with torching my wife with a triple-syllabic strike.

The familiarity and comfort and English inside is starting to lose out to what we know is outside: Wonder, unpredictability and oddness. Outside, there are no neat little squares upon which we can set our letters. Outside, we receive no points for being clever, creative or crafty. Outside, we often stutter, stammer, slip up and fall flat.

Outside, we lose. We lose our bearings. We lose our pride. We lose our minds.

Which is exactly what we need.