(The author begs your indulgence if you already read this on Facebook. The blog seems a better home for it. Thank you for reading and commenting. — The editor)
A whole ocean spreads out before them
But for two little boys
A string of shallow pools
And some rocks
Are quite enough.
They hop from pool to pool
Splashing water with foot-stomping fierceness
They move rocks from pool to pool.
They wallow in the deepest one
Like beached sea lions.
All the while, the ocean calls
In vain.
It sends dolphins to entice them
But the boys will have none of that.
Yesterday, at a children’s park,
It was the rolling green lawn, the wind twisted climbing trees, and the incurious squirrels
That captivated their imaginations.
Not the swings, not the slides, not the plastic and rope confections of an adult’s imagination.
They are like cats with boxes and Christmas wrapping.
After two weeks of festivities ramping up to the Feast of Saint Anthony and the Convite de Locos on Sunday, the closing night fireworks were spectacular. Flashes, flames, arcs of brilliant light, cascades of incandescence, strobes of white heat, yellow flamethrowers, whistles, and booms all danced around the Parroquia San Antonio de Padua in Colonia San Antonio.
A stunning display of pyrotechnics set to beguiling classical music.
They did it. The Loco marched, danced, walked, twirled, teased, sweated, tossed candy and rubber balls, waved, smiled, and consumed copious amounts of water and electrolyte drinks on Sunday morning.
And the thousands lining both sides of many downtown San Miguel de Allende streets loved every hot and sticky, broiling, joyous moment of the Contvite de Locos.
What an incredible day.
The city estimates that 130,000 people were in San Miguel for the parade, of whom 5,300 were Locos marching in the parade. Only 43 people required medical attention for heat, falling, tripping, or other maladies. Four individuals were arrested during this very family-oriented festivity.
It is worth noting that the city staffed a number of “hydration stations” along the parade route for marchers and watchers.
And the Creator said, “epiphyllum oxypetalum, you shall be a cactus, though you do not look like one. Once a year and only at night, you shall bear forth beautiful flowers while the world sleeps. Before dawn your flowers shall wither away, but only before being ravaged by bats.”
The epiphyllum oxypetalum did not understand this curious fate but it knew better than to argue with the Creator.
Perhaps the Creator felt a little guilty because later, the epiphyllum oxypetalum was given a lovely and pronounceable name: Queen of the Night.
Well, this explains so many things: Anthony de Padua is the patron saint of the insane.
Now the Dia de Locos — or Convite de Locos — isn’t so crazy after all.
Well, yes, it is. Crazy, I mean. Very very crazy. In so many delightful ways.
What better way to honor the patron saint of people who have lost their minds than to assemble thousands of people in costumes that suggest they, too, have indeed lost their minds?
I met a woman, in my dreams last night. Her senses are scrambled. She touches through her eyes. She sees through her nose. She tastes and smells through her skin. She listens through her mouth. She speaks through her ears.
Speaking isn’t a sense. I know. But this was her dream. I only happened to walk into it.
“What a fine mess you are in,” I say. “Or is this a path to enlightenment? “Or a punishment? Some sad karma?” Mainly, she remains mute, confused. As would I, in such a confounding scramble.
I ask her if I could walk a mile in her shoes. “My shoes?” she cries. “Do you mean to say that I still have feet?” Just what she didn’t need, someone else in her shoes. “Are they still at the bottom of my legs?” she asks.
Under the circumstances, it was an unkind thing to say.
Swapping sensual responsibilities has its strengths. Imagine listening through your mouth, Drawing in another’s words with your breath. Savoring them, absorbing them, digesting them. You would actually have to listen. Rather than think of some clever retort.
Suppose you speak through your ears. That requires special talent well beyond small talk. I don’t even know how it can be done. My dream offered nothing on this. Maybe, intently listening is a form of speaking. Silence does speak volumes as others chatter on.
Putting your senses to work in areas For which they were not trained Sounds like a grueling, but potentially rewarding, exercise. Sort of like the blind man whose other senses Compensate by growing intensely acute.
Perhaps all senses ought to be rotated once in a while, Like the tires on your car. We grow lazy, only hearing through our ears, Seeing through our eyes, speaking/tasting through our mouths, feeling through our skin, smelling through our noses.
Shake them up, I say! And when, again, we grow too comfortable, Rotate them once more! Keep the fine treads of our senses staying sharp.
Perhaps if we employ all our senses to share the load — Let the eyes do the speaking, let the ears do the seeing, Let the skin replace taste and smell …
Soon, all our sensations grow muscle and power. Newer sensations arise, previously unknown sensations. Next thing you know, the heart and brain Want to engage in this circus of sensations, too. And, then, won’t things get interesting?
We are fully present in processing our environment We are fully engaged in evaluating, understanding, inhabiting.
Deep immersion, full immersion, absorption and immersion.
Life gets more interesting because we will be, well … living. No longer just data-processing and consumption machines. We are higher beings. At one, for once, with the various universes.
The woman in my dream knows none of this just yet. She is still trying to … Touch through her eyes. See through her nose. Taste and smell through her skin. Listen through her mouth. Speak through her ears. Find her footing.
I try to tell the woman in my dream that it will get better. But her face is blank. She betrays no thoughts. The woman in my dream moves on, back to the shadows. She seems neither excited nor saddened.
I gather it will take some time. Perhaps she will come back on another night And show me what she has learned.
Images were generated by artificial intelligence based on the first stanza.
The locos danced through the afternoon under a hot and humid sun, made more challenging by the layers of costuming and bulky headpieces. After hours of parading and trance-like dance, catharsis must come, a cleansing, a purifying, exhaustion.
I don’t know how they do it.
Still, as the sun began to dip behind the San Antonio church, the locos gave way to the folkloricos.
What’s a Sunday morning without a few crazies parading through the neighborhood?
Empty indeed.
We got our share today. The first of three parades around San Miguel de Allende began at the Parroquia an Antonio de Padua around 10 a.m. and danced down Callejohn San Antonio before hanging a left on the Ancha and heading for Centro.
Musings, Magic, San Miguel and More 