Apollo Fields | Dear Blank | Dear Mexico City | By Terrence Huie | CDMX | Writer

25 Mar 2022

Dear Mexico City,

To say that you’ve change my perception of Mexico is an understatement. Spending a week in your beautiful streets, beneath the purple clouds of the jacarandas, trying my best to apply my patchwork of Spanish vocabulary, I became more interested in your culture with everyday that passed.

The Teotihuacan Pyramids were the first ruins I’ve ever seen. The Plaza de las Tres Culturas, while closed, offered a glimpse into both ancient and modern Mexican history. Chapultapec Castle in the sprawling park of the same name provided a view in which I will remember you: sunlight pouring through lush green canopies, glimmering through the leave like light beaming to the ocean floor. Magical.

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the shift of my brain while trying to engage with life in a different language. More than words popping into my head, the formation of sentences rearranged ideas, pathways that have collected dust over the years. Shifting back feels like I’m losing something.

Too often our perception of a place, a people, or an idea is packaged to us like a product on the counter of a convenience store. We consume them like Tic-Tacs so quickly and frequently that we believe we know the flavor. How could they taste like anything else? To suggest an alternative is to question our ability to taste.

To travel is to broaden your palate. To really understand the ingredients of a culture. There are so many flavors to explore that to limit yourself to the one you are from, or to the ones you are sold on TV or the Internet, is to eat at an all-inclusive resort in Cancun. Beige food with no flavor.

And if you can’t afford travel at the moment, then reconsider what it is you think you know about another place, people, or idea. Travel doesn’t have to be physical, you can learn about other cultures from people in your own communities—seek them out. You might just find a new flavor you didn’t think you’d like—at the very least you’re opening pathways in your brain—and broadening your palate.

Con amor,

Terrence