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The sea is glinting silver and the air is hot and the sand is like fire under my feet. I race to the water and suddenly I am liquid and cool and swimming in the crater left when the meteor struck and killed the dinosaurs.

And the water is sluicing through my hair while my brother swims nearby and everything is simple and clear and vibrant and smelling of salt.

In my future, I know that there is shrimp laden with garlic and cerveza Superior, savored while sitting on an open porch overlooking the sea, where all I can hear is the wind and the gulls, the rotation of the ancient ceiling fan and the lull of Spanish in the kitchen.

I am waist deep in roiling water and I lift my arms to the sky and proclaim that there is nothing better in the world than being a human being at that time, in that place, with that company. My brother laughs at my benediction but proclaims it so, and the silky seaweed wends its way between my toes and I ride the waves on my back, feeling icy cold on one half and toasty hot on the other.

And then like a flash my thighs are sticking to the pleather seats on the bus, a bus with windows open but no air, and the oppressive heat of the afternoon seems to exit our mouths like steam on an icy morning. The water is a memory as the bus lurches into the city and I feel tired and headachy and the smell of bus exhaust is making me sick and I wonder if the time swimming was worth the long ride back to the hotel.

Staying on the shady side of the street, walking much more quickly than the locals because I haven’t figured out how to live in the head-splitting heat, I know there is shade under a banana tree and a hammock and a cool liminada at the end of the journey and I hoist my beach bag over my back, dreaming of cool water, of underground cenotes and waterfalls and jungle streams. But the city is a swelter of heat and color and baking stone and Spanish rap blaring from the storefronts and I enter the banana-shaded patio red-faced and dripping sweat and waiting for the sweet rainy season shower of the afternoon.

These extremes become habit as I learn the rhythms of a Mexican day and as days pass, time begins to stand still—no internet, no cell phone, no TV, nothing but heat and water and color and noise and the smell of tortillas on the fire and people everywhere sitting in their shady doorways and dozing in the afternoon.

Am I happy? It’s a constant evaluation. Every moment that I’m miserable when I cannot find a working pay phone or I’m hand washing underwear for the hundredth time or the bank is not open for money exchange compels me to remember that life can be transcendent just around the bend, if I can only be patient. Every shimmering moment in the sea is a respite from the hours spent living in the heat of ordinary time, but the pleasure is ephemeral and disappears like dandelion fluff with the hint of a breeze.