poor and content is rich, and rich enough

Anyone who has moved permanently to Mexico knows the feeling.

You are visiting the old country (as my friend Jennifer Rose puts it) when a friend or family member introduces you to a stranger. "Mary, have you met Steve Cotton? He lives in Mexico?"

Let me stop the film right here. I have been many things in my life, but I have yet to be reduced to nothing more than the place I live. As far I can recall, no one in Oregon ever introduced me by pointing out "he lives in Milwaukie."

I find it annoying. Not as if I was introduced with my political affiliation. Just a little chafed.

It is the response that astounds me. It is almost always something along these lines. "Oh, really? Albuquerque or Santa Fe? No, you look more like a Taos guy."

The first time it happened, I initially had no idea what was being discussed. My response now is rather stock. "No. Not New Mexico. I live in old Mexico. You know the country we stole the southwest from. But we did it fair and square."

Inevitably my S.I. Hayakawa is completely ignored because my new acquaintance is standing mouth agape because they have not heard anything I said past "old Mexico."

The responses are varied. But they always deal with either drugs, cartels, or violence -- or all three in a burbling trifecta that makes me wonder if they thought I said I lived in Idlib.

Well, I don't. I don't live in a third world country. I am not deprived of daily needs by cartel violence. I live quite nicely as a poor pensioner trying to make some sense of a complex world.

I usually tick off the list of statistics that Mexico is one of the world's economic powers. Member of the richer-nation OECD. 15th largest GDP in the world. 13th largest in area. 10th largest in population. A birth rate of 2.2 -- meaning the population is just sustaining itself. A strong middle class, thus the low birth rate.

None of that seems to impress most people. I am often accused of spouting "false numbers." I guess that is the second cousin of "fuzzy math" from the 2000 election. Even insults up north have been stripped of wit.

What does catch their attention is when I inform them I can order almost anything from Amazon and have it show up at my door -- delivered by a DHL man, who is now a regular visitor at my house. I suspect it is simply a lack of imagination that makes something familiar like Amazon turn the feared into something comfortable.

Amazon, of course, has long been a mainstay for me since I moved to Mexico. Originally, the good folks at Amazon would merely refresh the reading content in my Kindle for just a few dollars. That was my sole contact. There was a reason for that. I saw Amazon as a giant electronic book store.

But it has turned into far more than that, It is now the general store of a new generation. The Walmart of our internet age.

I cannot remember why I started ordering merchandise from Amazon. I probably needed something that I could not readily find in Mexico. The first couple of shipments were spotty. But once I discovered I could have DHL deliver to my post office, those wrinkles were ironed out.

Then, a couple of years ago, Amazon expanded its operations to Mexico. Delivery times were noticeably cut. And, even though my post office informed me it would now only accept deliveries sent by mail, DHL had an answer.

In the past, I would be given a window of a week or 10 days when my package would be delivered. Now, DHL sends me an email message specifying the day the van will pull up in front of my house. And since I know the deliveries come from Manzanillo, I generally know the time of day he will be there.

That system failed only once. I had volunteered to take friends to the airport (from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe) on a delivery day. Just as I was leaving, my DHL pal telephoned to tell me he was in front of the house. I told him I would be there in 20 minutes.

He had a better idea. He would leave my package at a paper store a few blocks from my house. That sounded good to me.

It turns out the store is a drop-off point for shipments and delivery, as well as a purveyor of copy paper, notebooks, and party supplies. When I came through the door, the young lady behind the counter pulled out my package and handed it to me just as I got to the counter. No signature required. Smooth.

At times I forget just how small my village is. I have mentioned before that it reminds me a lot of Powers, where I spent the first eight years of my life. The type of place where everyone knows (or knows of) everyone else -- and knows all of their business. At this point in my life, I find that to be a comfortable feeling. Even being an outsider. As I always will be. That is also a feature of small towns.

When we lived in Powers, the Sears and JC Penny catalogs were our connections with the outside world. Our bronze link to materialism. When packages arrived at the post office (because there was no home mail delivery), it was a day of excitement. Almost as fulfilling as opening the package from Kellogg's containing my magic decoder ring for only the price of 7 corn flakes coupons and a shiny dime (NO STAMPS).

Well, those days are back -- as evidenced by the photograph at the top of this essay. This week's haul was a mix.

• Three pairs of specialized exercise socks to cut down on my propensity for blisters and black toe. They do not always work.
• Two DVDs. The Last of Sheila -- a witty murder mystery written by Stephen Sondheim and Anthony Perkins. Advise and Consent -- based on Allen Drury's best novel. And, even though it is dated in its politics, its message about the duty of the Senate to properly carry out its advise and consent function as an independent body is constitutionally timeless. Where else could a bigoted southern senator still be treated with respect?
• Two books. Scott Turow is my favorite lawyer writer (known by some of us as F. Scott Turow for his literary abilities. Others would say for his literary protrusion.) Testimony is his latest. Somehow I missed it when it was released. The other book is Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird. She is one of my favorite Christian writers. Her neurotic relationship with Jesus makes her essays very accessible. But this book is not a devotional. It is a guide to better writing. And it is chockfull of brilliant examples of the art.

I can think of a couple of bloggers who will chide me for this list. Socks are available in Mexico. Who still uses DVDs? Books should be electronic.

All of those are good points. But they are not mine.

If I could find socks designed to restrict the development of blisters, I would buy them here. I like the picture quality of DVDs, and, yes, it is noticeably better than streaming at my house. And there are some books I want to keep in my library for myself and guests. I will not even mention the two sets of black silk pajamas that arrived yesterday. (No. I am not putting on a play extolling the Viet Cong.)

I always hear the echo of "You live in Mexico?" when I hear such questions. We each choose how we live here. And Amazon makes my pleasant life here just that much more sybaritic.

Excuse me now. I am going to sit back and read a chapter of two of Turow before I go trudging around my neighborhood. There is health to be sought.