What’s the most spontaneous thing you’ve ever done?
Greetings from the Grove. We are enjoying our coffee on the porch this morning while the weather has finally decided to cut us a break. Rain is moving through, the temperatures have backed off a little, and I am grateful for every bit of it.
Today’s prompt asks about the most spontaneous thing I have ever done.
Sixteen years ago, I had just graduated from grad school when a friend put up a Facebook post. He needed someone with a passport and enough time to go to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, with him for orthopedic surgery.
That is not the sort of post most people expect to see while minding their own business on Facebook.
He had found an orthopedic surgeon in Puerto Vallarta because the math was ridiculous. What would have been an outpatient procedure here was cheaper there as an inpatient procedure, including the hospital stay and home visits from the doctor afterward. That is a whole separate conversation about American healthcare, Big Pharma, and the fact that we have let “can people afford to be well?” become a reasonable question.
But there he was, needing help, and there I was with a passport, a little time, and about two weeks to get ready.
So I went.
We stayed in a gated high-rise, which felt awfully fancy for two freshly graduated people who were really there because somebody needed orthopedic surgery. The whole trip held those contrasts. We had the beautiful condo, the doctor coming by to check on him, and wonderful sushi. Then we would step outside and see the very real disparity of wealth around us. Puerto Vallarta was generous and gorgeous and complicated, all at the same time.
What I remember most, though, is the kindness of the people and the food.
There was a little place down the street from the condo. A hole in the wall, of course, because that is always where the best food is hiding. They served fish caught from the bay, roasted with vegetables, and fresh-made guacamole. I have had good guacamole here. I can make good guacamole here. It is still not the same.
There is nowhere for mediocre ingredients to hide in guacamole. Fresh avocado, lime, cilantro, chile, whatever magic somebody’s grandmother has been doing with it for fifty years. When it is all that fresh, it becomes a different food entirely.
And the tortillas.
Mexican tortillas handmade by somebody’s grandmother hit so different. I did not need beans, meat, guacamole, or sauce on them right away. Ma’am, please just keep putting three plain, warm tortillas on my plate. Then we can discuss the rest of the meal.
The sushi was good. It was genuinely good. It did not come close to that fish and guacamole.
That trip is where I learned all of this. Alaska opened my heart. Rome speaks to my soul. Mexico belongs to my palate and my flavor. None of those things matters less than the others. A place can teach you what awe feels like, or history, or beauty. It can also teach you that food is welcome. Food is memory. Food is a conversation you can have even when you do not share the same language.
While I was there, I lost my extra-grandmother. It was not completely unexpected. My family and I had talked about the possibility before I left, and I knew the risk of being far away. Still, grief does not wait for a convenient time or a better setting. It arrives where it arrives.
So Puerto Vallarta will always hold more than one thing for me. It holds a friend trusting me enough to ask for help. It holds a healthcare system that made more sense than the one at home. It holds generosity beside inequality, a beautiful high-rise beside ordinary people making a living, and the freshest meal I can still taste sixteen years later.
It also holds the reminder that sometimes the best decisions are not the ones you planned for years.
Sometimes they are the ones that arrive in a Facebook post, asking whether you have a passport.
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