I have been in Oaxaca for about two weeks now and must admit, I've become a bad tourist. There is much to see and do and eat here but I've found myself forgetting to explore, mainly writing, reading and wandering off when I need food. To be fair, I came here to write so there should be no guilt there but of course, in my mind guilt and anxiety always find their way in. 

Which leads me, I guess, to a fun story: a few days before I left, I had a scare that my arm was at risk for paralysis. It was my last week of work and I was frantically tying up loose ends, finishing up every project I could while also ignoring the fact that I was about to solo travel down to Mexico in a few days, and all of sudden my arm went numb. Fully numb.

My initial diagnosis was that it was due to the fact that I had cut my wrist while doing dishes a few days earlier. A ceramic plate broke in my hand while I was washing it, and I was worried that the plate had dug in, hitting a vital nerve. But after a trip to the doctor's, I realized that no, it was just too much computer use and most likely, anxiety. In all of my years, I've seen my fair share of ways in which anxiety can manifest itself but that was definitely a new one for me.

Now that I'm here, I'm trying to be anxiety-less. Honestly, it's almost absurd to have any anxiety, being that I'm able to spend a month writing in 80 degree weather. But talking to other writers here, I see it everywhere. The anxiety that you're not writing enough. The anxiety that you're not enjoying yourself enough. 

An interview with Chicago author, poet and sociologist Dr. Eve Ewing stumbled into my inbox this week and summed it up so well. Her motto? "I always forgive myself for what I'm not doing."

"This is really dramatic," Ewing later says, "but when I finished my dissertation at two in the morning in my house in Boston, the very first thing I thought about was Harriet Tubman and slavery. I burst into tears. And I was like, 'I just finished my dissertation, and my ancestors were enslaved and if they tried to read people would punish or murder them! And they were ripped apart!' That was straight to where my mind went. I also was extremely sleep deprived. But you know, when you get that perspective, it's like, 'Uh, yeah, I got it pretty good.'"

So as of right now, I'm channeling Ewing, forgiving myself for whatever I'm not doing, being as easy as I can on myself, acknowledging that I've got it good. I've picked an achievable daily writing goal and every day, I do it. I am here, I am fine, I am writing! It is sometimes torture but it is also sometimes pure bliss.