Author Archives: robertjhawkins1

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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Colonia San Antonio, photography, San Miguel de Allende

Happiest parade in San Miguel de Allende

You’re carrying a big and colorful star on a stick that you can wave and twirl to cheering crowds while surrounded by insanely peppy music and joyfully crafted mojigangas.

How can you NOT smile and laugh as you bounce up and down on the streets of San Miguel?

This is the Reseña de La Alborada de Estrellas — a preview to an even bigger and happier parade coming next weekend, at 3 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 30.

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photography, San Miguel de Allende

An Independence Day parade to celebrate the best of Mexico

I think that of all the parades we have in San Miguel de Allende, this is my favorite.

This one, during the Mexican Independence festivities, celebrates the school children (our future), first responders (our safety), police and military (our security), and equestrians (our history). It has it all. All that makes Mexico a beautiful country in which to live.

The parade began on Cordo and turned onto the Ancha before marching up into Centro on yet another flawlessly beautiful September day.

One of the worst things you can do is over-write a parade. It is all visual and emotional. So I’m going to leave it right there and just fill this page with pictures of beautiful kids and adults in uniform — and some in costume.

Enjoy.

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Memoirs -- fact and fiction, San Miguel de Allende, Writings

We had a time back then, didn’t we?

An old friend sent me a list today of all the former employees of the Wilson Publishing Company who would be attending a reunion in the next week or so.

The list spans more than 40 years. I was surprised to find that I know or recognize nearly half the names. Each name sent me into fresh reverie, triggered a sweet memory of another era.

My friend, Brian Mitchell, like me, was an editor of one of Wilson’s several weekly newspapers in Southern Rhode Island. Brian’s was the newest of the three and he got to create his paper from scratch – a most challenging and yet, enviable, task.

Mine was a hand-me-down, more than 100 years old but well-cared for – the flagship paper of the little Wilson empire, The Narragansett Times.

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Rants and raves, San Miguel de Allende, Writings

Dream assignment: The Wedding of the Decade or embedded with Taylor Swift?

I’ve been handed my first writing assignment in ages, covering a much-anticipated wedding in Portugal. At the same time,  an incredible opportunity has come up involving a full-time job for a major newspaper chain covering nothing but Taylor Swift.

Isn’t that just the way these things happen?

You are a nobody for years. Unread, unfollowed, untalked about, an aging ghost of a writer drifting through the literary fields. Suddenly you have to choose between the wedding of the decade and Taylor Swift.

The story of my life.

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

Encore for the Queen

Some of the literature says that the cactus known as Queen of the Night (Epiphyllum oxypetalum) blooms only once or twice a year but if that is the case, we may need to rewrite the book.

Our Queen just does not want to leave center stage.

That is the endearing attraction of this ivory bloom: It opens up one night in a spectacular display and with the morning’s light, all that remains is a drooping shallow resemblance of its formerly glorious self.

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

Thinking about Jimmy Buffett and Paradise: ‘I am still me, it’s the island that got small’

In counseling the British writer Robert Graves on a possible move to Majorca, Gertrude Stein called it “a paradise – if you can stand it.”

And that is as good an explanation as any of the complicated relationship many people have with Jimmy Buffett. The man sold a brand of paradise. Millions bought at least some version of it – be it a beachy lifestyle, the music, a devotion to margaritas, Hawaiian shirts and sandals, sportfishing, sailing, and all the Margaritaville bars, retirement communities, casinos, resorts …

Buffett wasn’t the first to turn a lifestyle into a commodity but few seem to do it better. Maybe Donald Trump. These days you can be a cradle-to-grave Parrothead with apologies toward none. More than anything, we worship success and if a guy sells a million records or makes a million dollars, he will find no shortage of admirers.

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