​

After a short hiatus, noticed by few, I'm bringing back the Sunday newsletter. When I started writing it almost two years ago, soon after moving to Mexico City, the newsletter was my way of ritualizing a more consistent writing habit (while also getting more comfortable sharing that writing publicly). The writing gravitated toward an expression of the things that interest me most, namely the ways in which we become better versions of ourselves. So here's to getting back on track with that.

​

Jacarandas as metaphor

There’s an axiom that says the best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The next best time is now.

What's true for trees might also be true for human relationships -- there's always a next best time to plant seeds for better and deeper connections.

Back to the trees for a moment. In Mexico City, with its elevated subtropical vegetation and eternal spring climate, one passing season is indecipherable from the next. There are two exceptions to that rule. One is rainy season, when during the months of June to August, the late afternoon skies grow dark, gusts of wind sweep the streets of leaves and dust, and the clouds open up for an hour or two to soak the city.

The other marker of time passage is the flowering of the Jacaranda tree. For several weeks during March and April, Mexico City’s Jacarandas become flush with violet. From the checkered marble perch of Chapultepec Castle you can see dots of purple treetops in a sea of green across Latin America’s second largest urban park. That same vantage point offers a view of the procession of purple lining both sides of the city’s famous Reforma Avenue, a wide boulevard designed to evoke the Champs-Élysées in Paris.

That vision of popping purple was reportedly first conjured by President Pascual Ortiz Rubio in 1930 after an official visit to Washington DC where he was struck by the beauty of the cherry blossom tree. When he returned he requested the same for Mexico City. A Japanese horticulturalist who had immigrated to Mexico was the bearer of bad news. The cherry blossom can't survive in Mexico City because its flower needs a colder winter and sharper turn in seasons to bloom. Instead he suggested a purple flower that was native and flourishing in Peru, where the horticulturalist lived for some time.

Nearly a hundred years later and the purple Jacaranda is still a vibrant and essential part of the Mexico City mosaic. It adds color and charm to a city not lacking for either.

And while the cherry blossom is confined by time and space (they last but two weekends and are mostly congregated around the Tidal Basin), Jacaranda flowers last many weeks longer and can be seen almost anywhere in the city. Nearly every street boasts its own purple canopy. And as flower petals begin to fall, stacking and layering the asphalt below, streets begin to resemble reflections of the canopy above.

The Jacaranda in a way captures both sides of that tree axiom. It was planted with purpose early in the previous century, and it's been replanted and spread organically across the city by subsequent generations since, up to and including today. The result is something wholly different from where it started and how it was originally envisioned, but the result is something more permanently a part of the city's fabric because it can be enjoyed by more people.

In relationships we can't redo the past, but we always have an opportunity in small ways and large to grow an existing relationship or kick off a new one. It takes care, attention, and courage. It also takes some awareness that while not all trees will grow the ones that do take time.

​

Links

1. ​Love Anyway (Maria Popova, The Marginalian). There are many wonderful essays at The Marginalian, but this might be my favorite. To love is to set yourself up for loss. Often painful, unimaginable loss. And yet we should love anyway because it's the best way to live. The last passage about the birds and the raven is tragically beautiful.
   ​
2. ​What It Means to Be Kind in a Cruel World (Ezra Klein interviewing George Saunders, in 2021): I always find Saunders' interviews a gift to listen to. He's not just one of my favorite writers, but also a quasi philosopher on kindness and compassion. The entire interview is great, but at the (5:55) mark Saunders shares a quote and theory about how kindness is the only logical default way to live.
   ​
3. ​That Time Europe Tried to Bring Monarchy Back to America (NYT): Since I mentioned the castle and Reforma, it only makes sense to share this ode to Maximiliano and Carlota, the Hapsburg royalty who for a brief and undistinguished term served as emperor and empress of Mexico. The barely three-year reign came to a bloody end for Maximilian, but not before he fashioned that big boulevard. A new book called Hapsburgs on the Rio Grande: The Rise and Fall of the Second Mexican Empire provides a shines a light on a fascinating period in Mexico's history. Nice kicker at the end of the review too.

​

​

​
​

Next Sunday

Thanks for reading. Stay tuned for next week. If you aren’t already subscribed, please join my newsletter here. We deliver on Sundays. :)