not quite cinema paradiso

"It's so good to be back in paradise."

The phrase is so common, I have come to think of it as the second line in "O Canada." And I fully understand the sentiment. People who flee northern winters for the sun and sand of tropical Mexico are grateful for the change.

But for those of us who live here, the "paradise" appellation rankles. Just a bit.

Living year-round in a place inculcates a certain sense of realism. I do not intend to instill a bit of froideur in the discussion, but this area of Mexico has its share of personal tragedy. Divorce. Murder. (It has been a bad year for that particular sin.) Alcoholism. Diabetes. Methamphetamine addiction. Shoddy education.

None of which lends itself to the "paradise" label. We simply live in a real place -- with most of the same joys and miseries of any little town.

And, of course, there is no denying the allure of the sun and sand -- and that glorious ocean that welcomes us every morning. My persiflage does not disguise the fact that I am a sentimental sucker for all the same things people list when asked why they visit Mexico. The weather. The beach. The culture. The people. The food.

Well, maybe not the food. But I have written about the rest with paradise-studded prose.

One of the realities here is a lack of infrastructure. It is easy to miss until the infrastructure is put under stress. Then, there is no missing it.

On my first visit to this area of Mexico in 2007, I was prepared to make an offer on a house I had only seen in a real estate listing on the internet. Before you gasp and clutch your pearls, hear me out.

I knew quite a bit about the house and the couple who had commissioned it. They wrote a blog that chronicled the construction. Even their adopted cat was a major character. I came to know them as well as anyone can through an electronic medium. They were as real to me as Hamlet.

When I flew to La Manzanilla that year, I took the bus to Barra de Navidad solely to see the house and make an offer (cinderella returns home barefoot). As kismet would have it, someone else made an offer the week before I arrived. And the offer was accepted.

I did finally meet the couple who built the house in person, and we became acquaintances. They showed me the house. It was everything I had wanted for a home in Mexico. But it was not to be.

As you know, we have had a series of rainstorms recently. The most recent was offered by the fringes of hurricane Willa. Even though the Noahic outburst ended over a week ago, up until two days ago, our streets in Barra de Navidad were still a bit wet. And wet in a rather bad way.

Rain water here runs off just as it does everywhere around the world. The ground thirstily drinks to sating. Much of it surges downhill to the bay or the lagoon.

But there is that pesky amount that gives into the lure of gravity and seeps into our sewage system -- a sewage system that is inadequate even in the best of times for its designed purpose.

Richer countries once had sewer systems like ours. Rain water would mix with the nastier contents of the sewer, often dumping both contents onto streets or into rivers. The countries that can afford to do so have split the systems to avoid the rainy day overflow problem.

Our community is not that rich. When we have heavy rains, the result is predictable. The streets initially fill with a mixture of sewage and water. But the worst part is days later as the sewers continue to bubble up their contents like a dysfunctional Chalchiuhtlicue. And, because the days following rainstorms are usually sunny and hot, it is easy to mistake our little paradise for a Venetian canal.

On my morning walk two days ago returning from the butcher, I passed my former love. The house is still as attractive as it was when I first saw it eleven years ago. I always have a certain bittersweet reaction when I see it.

I was going to cross the street to shoot it. (I know. There is a certain stalker subtext in shooting photographs of something that I mistake as mine.)

But I could not cross the street there. It was filled with water. And not just water. To be discreet, let's just call it a blue-gray slick with a highly-aromatic bouquet.

I have a friend who lives a half-block north on the same street. She says there are days in the summer when the heat, the rainwater, and the sewer combine to create an aroma that causes here to close her windows. Fortunately, it is just a few days in the summer.

And that paragraph summarizes the reality of living in this part of Mexico. There are a few moments where the experience is uncomfortable.

The rest of the time? Well, it just might be called paradise.