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.
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.
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.
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.
Rose Alcantara spending a Belizean birthday at Victoria House on Ambergris Caye.
As a writer, I don’t think I’ve grown less creative over the years. As the husband to Rose Alcantara, I don’t think I’ve grown less ardent in my love and appreciation.
Still, I wrote this declaration on her birthday (which is today) during our first year in San Miguel de Allende, and I don’t think I can improve upon it:
“Feliz cumpleaños, Rose Alcantara, el amor de mi vida! Cada año creces más hermosa. Tienes un alma que nunca envejece y un corazón que crece para llenarse en cada momento. Estoy tan agradecido de que estés en mi vida. Te amaré por siempre.
Happy Birthday, Rose Alcantara, the love of my life! Each year you grow more beautiful. You have a soul that never ages and a heart that grows to fill every moment. I am so grateful that you are in my life. I shall love you forever.”
Nothing has changed.
If anything, my sense of wonder grows as I see Rose through the eyes of others, as I see how passionately she prepares for her every Pilates class, as I see her smile lift a whole room of weighted souls, as I see her love for her children and mine played out daily, as I see her planning our next adventures, as I see her embracing life as something to live and not just abide, as I see her response to every act of kindness, as I see her own compassion, as I see her.
Yes, simply, as I see Rose.
Not just be with her, but, see her. See inside. See the love. See the pain. See the hurt. See the worry. See the desire. See the happiness. See the vision. See everything that she has overcome to be the dancer, be the teacher, be the mother, be the wife, be the friend.
Once again, the gift today is mine. Thank you for traveling this path with me. Thank you for teaching me how to really live, that just abiding is not enough.
While I can only give you words, you have given me life.
The voice is young, sweet, innocent and yet, broken in a way only love’s betrayal can scar.
She accompanies herself on a guitar, languidly strumming. Not living, not dead. In the between. In the neverland of a broken heart. The vocalist drags out the last words of each line, as if groping toward a precipice. It may be in Spanish but it feels very French.
The singing is coming from an upper patio of the building next door.
This is the San Miguel de Allende version of “Surf’s Up!”
Bougainvillea soars skyward on spindly legs during the rainy season and bursts outward like technicolor mushroom clouds, surging over walls as their own weight and gravity pulls the blooms toward the ground.
This one is one of San Miguel’s best displays of a bougainvillea canopy.
As it is every year. (Mostly bougainvillea. The blue flowers are something else.)
Only this year, the bloom seems more vivacious than ever.
It is between the Villa Santa Monica property on Jose Guadalupe Mojica (Calle Baeza?) and Calle Santa Elena — right across from Parque Juarez and close to the Lavaderos del Chorro.
Every time I think that I’ve photographed the Parroquia San Miguel de Arcangel from every conceivable angle during the past five years, something new comes along.
It’s like in physics. Scientists were pretty sure that the Standard Model that addresses all “of nature’s known particles and forces” was The Overall Encompassing Answer to Everything.
She was standing in the middle of Callejon San Antonio around 6:30 this morning as I left the house, a dazed look on her face. And tears. On a closer look, she was crying.
“Are you all right?” I asked. A dumb thing to ask, I know. “Can I help you?”
“No, I’m not. I don’t know.”
She removed her hand from the top of her baseball cap. A large dark smear of blood was seeping through the hat and dripping down the side of her face. In her other hand, she held the leash to the dog she had been walking.
Musings, Magic, San Miguel and More 