It is times like these that you realize what a precious treasure Operisima Mexico is for San Miguel de Allende.
The operatic troupe’s Christmas Concert in the Iglesia San Francisco added rocket fuel to an already soaring holiday spirit.
Nearly a dozen elegantly dressed singers poured heart and soul into a program of popular and sacred seasonal music under the direction of Rogelio Riojas-Nolasco and in conjunction with Casa Europa Mexico.
Here’s a small taste of the evening. It repeats tonight (Sunday, Dec. 14, by the way. You can walk up and get tickets $300 — 600 mxn.
Behind me, fresh rainwater surged down Calle Terraplen like a full-blown arroyo wash. The rain beats a staccato rhythm on the roofs of curbed cars. I was inside Hotel Hacienda El Santuario’s nearly empty dining room, chilly but dry.
On the small table before me was a hot cup of black coffee and a curious but tasty postre of cornbread topped with ice cream, caramel sauce, and chopped nuts.
Not more than 20 feet away, through the archway into the open-air courtyard, pianist Javier Garcia-Lascurian and cellist Guillermo Sanchez Romero were working their way through a heart-rendering version of Saint-Saëns’s “Le Cygnet” (The Swan). Huddled along the barely sheltered walls of the courtyard sat the hardiest classical music audience I’ve ever seen. Some had umbrellas up to supplement the scant coverage of the eaves.
My cousin Maura Manley passed away on Friday. She was seven years younger than me, but the first of our adult cousins to go.
About the same time, this post popped up on Facebook. And a picture of my mother in a hospital bed in Florida. She and I spent her last Thanksgiving together, although I had to eat alone in the cafeteria and she had the institutional fare in her room. Still, we spent the day together. One of our last.
I got to spend time with Maura this summer, when she was happy, healthy, and reveling in all the family gathered for a reunion in Pennsylvania. There were a lot of us.
I’m posting this here because, well, because it keeps family from disappearing, as a time when family is starting to do just that.
In the picture above: Yes, I’m the one who looks like a butterball turkey on my grandfather’s lap. Eight months old. My older brother, Jim, is to the right. He was an old hand at this Thanksgiving thing, a veteran. You can tell by how jaded he looks.
Our folks, Bob and Pat, are at left. At right, my dad’s siblings Don and Mary Lou. Clearly hadn’t met their forever partners yet, but soon. All three of the kids were married for life. They did that in those days. Don and Janet had five sons. Mary Lou and Bill had six daughters and two sons. Jim and I ended up with six more brothers and a sister.
If the Christmas season got off to a banging start with the tree lighting and intensive fireworks display on Friday, the holiday was elevated to a serenely beautiful level on Sunday by a concert featuring organ and brass instruments in the Templo de la Tercera.
The concert was under the aegis of Chorale San Miguel and completely underwritten by arts patrons John and Joy Bitner. That’s right, some people give fruit cakes for Christmas, the Bitners throw open the doors to an ancient church and put on a concert of mostly classical music for free.
The shining tin stars are stretched out above the cobblestone streets. The fairy lights hang from the trees, and the poinsettias fill the garden. Storefronts are decked in holiday apparel.
And tonight, the community Christmas tree was lit amid a splendid fireworks display.
Revolution Day was on Thursday. As with all things annual and important, San Miguel de Allende celebrated with a parade.
Now, you would think that a parade that celebrates the Revolution of 1910, which finally freed Mexico from the oppressive rule of Porfirio Diaz, would be thick with militarism — squads of soldiers, combatants in arms, cannons, tanks, uniformly dressed squads marching in precision to martial cadences.
When the Latin America Relief Fund holds a benefit for ABBA House at the Mask Museum (once or twice a year), you come for the good cause and stay for the sunset.
To me, the second-floor balcony offers one of the prettiest views of San Miguel de Allende. Everything seems in scale — the towering church spires, the luscious blooming flowers, the sweeping mountains on the horizon. And the sunsets.
Glynis and Javiar meet with the family in the village of Corralejo to talk about helping them upgrade their home. (All photos courtesy of Glynis Palazuelos.)
The elderly man pushed the wheelbarrow full of dogs up the rutted dirt road in the Corralejo community to where Rosey’s Wish Sterilization Clinic was set up for the day. He also had with him a half-dozen puppies crammed into a flour sack.
The dogs were not theirs. Technically.
The street dogs had found their way to the man and his siblings, and their 94-year-old father, and they just couldn’t turn them away. The aging family lives in a cobbled structure that barely stands in good weather, leaks mercilessly in the rainy season — water pools on their bare concrete floor and on their beds — and offers no comfort from wind or cold, nor in hot summer months.
I must say, the Dia de Los Muertos parade was spectacular this year. It felt more like a parade than a very compact promenade. As it has in the past.
If you follow me on Facebook, then you’ll find nothing new here. I posted all these photos right away to Facebook, and it has become one of the busiest and best posts I have ever hosted on my page.
Musings, Magic, San Miguel and More 