Monthly Archives: October 2023

Colonia San Antonio, San Miguel de Allende

Death becomes us this time of year

Parque Principal this morning where overnight the marigolds were hung with care in hopes that our ancestors’ spirits soon would be there.

Marigolds are everywhere in San Miguel de Allende this time of year. They are like a homing beacon for our departed loved ones. It is how we let them know we welcome their spirits back for a short visit. It is how we let them know that we have not forgotten them.

The marigolds are on ofrendas — the altars we build to remember our deceased loved ones and family. They are in our parks. and other public gardens. They hang from door frames of businesses and homes.

This year, the spirit of Dia de Muertos seems to be embraced more than ever. The list of events in hotels, restaurants, public squares, and cantinas is staggering. Everybody is in on the action and it seems to be working. The visitors are swarming to the city.

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fiction, photography, Rants and raves, San Miguel de Allende

Deals like this don’t grow on trees, you know

Great news! I’m breaking into the real estate business in San Miguel de Allende. Has to be easier and less-crowded than local foodie and influencer gigs.

Here’s my first offering: a modestly priced fixer-upper on the outer edge of the hot and trendy Colonia Guadalupe neighborhood. It is a mostly flat, — one, two three, four … — 10-minute walk to Centro. And we all know how incredibly important it is to walk to Centro.

Close to bus lines. Very, very close.

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Colonia San Antonio, photography, San Miguel de Allende, Writings

Re-birth of the Calla Lily

Late last night as the light drizzle kissed the courtyard foliage, a lone Calla Lily peeked its chaliced bloom through the broad green leaves.

It has been dormant for some time, so this was a delightful surprise as has been this late season rain.

The beaded drops upon the velvety white bloom were irresistible. As dark as the night happened to be, I had to risk taking a shot. It seems to have worked out okay.

I read that the Calla Lily in Mexico is associated with death and funerals and in Greek and Roman times with festivities. How appropriate as we approach Dia de Muertos. The flower’s symbolism serves our times and culture well.

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fiction, photography, San Miguel de Allende, Writings

She came with the house

She was in our house when we moved in five years ago. She’s been here much much longer than that. I venture to guess that she has been on this planet longer than we have.

She is an old-school Catrina. Her wide-brimmed chapeau with the enormous winged and flowered bow on top looks like the one José Guadalupe Posada, drew on his original “La Calavera Garbancera” back in 1910. So does the hairstyle.

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photography, San Miguel de Allende, Writings

Princess in the park

Tuesday evening the basketball courts in Parque Juarez thrummed and thumped with exuberant kids who shouted back and forth to teammates while jutting and cutting up and down the blue surface, looking for an open shot.

It was a different world next door at the stately old gazebo. A fairy tale was unfolding. Like all good princesses, she would allow only a tantalizing glimpse of her face. The air of mystery was exquisite.

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San Miguel de Allende, Writings

Parables from the life of Elsmarie Norby: Her memoir is the bible on how to be a good ex-patriate

“Go sit on a rock, and children will find you.” That’s the simple counsel of Elsmarie Norby, the founder of Ojalá Niños, a rural San Miguel de Allende program that encourages scores of children to explore their artistic side.

In Elsmarie’s case, it wasn’t really a rock. “I opened my gate,” she says.

Elsmarie moved to the rural community of San Miguel Viejo in 2007 and built a house like no other in the community. It had floors. It had windows. It had furniture. It had a kitchen with modern appliances. And it had a front gate.

Nowadays she says she was “a very strange person” to the residents. Especially strange to the children who would peer into her yard through the front gate. She didn’t know she was such an object of curiosity, an outlier, really. Not at first.

Elsmarie recalled the first time she invited the neighborhood kids in. “They stood frozen at the entrance … then entered wide-eyed. They had never seen a refrigerator, furniture, art on the walls …”

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photography, San Miguel de Allende

Adorable Aldama door: La Puerta de la Muerta Roja

The crew was just finishing up this door frame on the iconic street Aldama in Centro at 7 a.m. Sunday morning. They were replacing an older one that was all-silk red roses.

I think the skulls are a great touch. How about you?

It is that time of year when “framed art” takes on a special meaning. All over San Miguel doorframes, especially for commercial establishments, are going super-creative with floral arrangements, giant skeletons, woven baskets, dried flowers, geraniums …

… Just about anything artsy that you can think of will be garnishing a doorway somewhere.

This is my favorite, so far. It is simple and clean, yet striking. The blood-red flowers with a touch of orange over each skull just scream Dia de Muertos and Halloween. And the chromed skulls with black sunken eyes — ultra cool and scary too!

This is the handiwork of Pau Gómez Floral Design & Event Creator. And it isn’t every day that you get to see the creators of some of the many wonderful door decorations in action!

That’s Paulina Gómez in the center. With Julio Perez and Oscar Vega. They’ve decorated several doors around town this season. (Need some door art? You can reach them at dspaugomez@outlook.com)

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photography, San Miguel de Allende

Chasing entrepreneurial dreams across dusty back roads of rural San Miguel de Allende

I just spent a half-day rambling around some dusty backroads in the regions around Antotonilco chasing hopes and dreams with a dozen other like-minded people.

Not our hopes and dreams.

No, we were in pursuit of the hopes and dreams of budding entrepreneurs – a beauty salon owner, the owner of a market stall in Antotonilco, the owner of a tiny produce and dry-goods tienda in an indigenous village, an Otomi women’s collective that makes herbal remedies and natural cosmetics, an Otomi embroidery business, and a woman who sells corn-on-the-cob at local football games on Sundays.

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San Miguel de Allende

Picking up the pieces: Malcolm Halliday’s musical dream comes together in the Templo de Tercera Orden

Patrick J. Murphy fine-tunes each of the 400-plus pipes, one by one, in the 150-year-old organ that was disassembled, refurbished, and sent to San Miguel de Allende for assembly. (Photo courtesy of Alfredo Lanier)

Malcolm Halliday’s dream is about to come true.

The head of Chorale San Miguel has longed for a musical instrument that could equal and enhance the vocal power of his troupe of singers. A pipe organ was his instrument of choice and in November, San Miguelians will be able to share with Halliday and the chorus the realization of that dream.

San Miguel resident Alfredo Lanier tells the story of this pipe organ and the challenges met in getting it refurbished, shipped in pieces to San Miguel, reconstructed and, soon, to be a centerpiece in the classical musical universe of San Miguel.

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