I say it often, perhaps insufferably often for some people, but every day that I step out the front door in San Miguel de Allende, I expect a miracle to happen.
Oh, not a big miracle. Not always.
Just little miracles.
Like the smile on the face of a mother herding her three children toward the church.
Like the carpet of lavender jacaranda flowers worked into a patch of cobblestones.
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The 67th feast of flowers, new seeds, fertility, fertilizers, plants, and pots — La Feria de la Candelaria — has begun in Parque Juarez. The event continues through February 15.
A walk through the park this morning was truly transformative — for the park, and for me. How can you not be moved by the sheer enormity of gorgeous vegetation on display throughout every pathway, corner, and roundabout in the park?
While some of the 40-plus nursery exhibitors were still populating their corrals this morning, this is clearly the biggest Feria De La Candelaria to date.
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Not every procession in Parque Juarez has to do with a wedding. Tonight an exuberant crowd of teens, parents, and friends followed a donkey, two mojigangas, and the Amistad band through the park and eventually back to the gazebo.
A lot of the processioners were carrying paper mariposas on sticks. At least, I don’t think it was a wedding.
I can’t begin to explain the purpose of the procession but it seemed quite life-affirming and the enthusiasm of the group was contagious.
Certainly, the Amistad band’s infectious rhythms and glittery-pink jackets helped spread the joy.
Here’s a sample of the music.
Enjoy.
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As I was saying the other day, you walk out the door in San Miguel de Allende and open your heart to the infinite possibilities, and something magical will happen.
Tonight, it was opera in the park. I ask you, where you live, how often do you take an evening stroll through a beautiful park and encounter a quartet of opera singers?
I did. In Parque Juarez. Right next to the basketball courts, just down from the gazebo so brightly lit up with twinkling fairy lights.
Continue readingI was walking in the park, late one night
When my eyes beheld an eerie sight
For creatures appeared just over the rise
And suddenly to my surprise
They did the mash, they did the San Miguel mash
The San Miguel mash, it was a graveyard smash
They did the mash, it caught on in a flash
They did the mash, they did the San Miguel mash
— Apologies to Bobby “Boris” Pickett
Tell me. And be honest. When you go for a walk, do you come across sights like this?
Now, I’m not talking about those days when you light up a ginormous blunt, or drop way too much Psilocybin or Ayahuasca. Lord knows what can be seen on those days.
No, I’m talking about your normal everyday walk through the woods when you encounter dancing skeletons, talking rabbits, bobble-headed Scotsmen, cabbage-headed kings and queens, and struttin’-stuffin’ dogs. Accompanied by a Mariachi band with some pretty hot licks.
You know.
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Parque Juarez, with its countless shades of green, sometimes surprises.
This one was a stunner, to me.
A bougainvillea, alone among the carefully parsed trees and bushes, backlit by the late afternoon sun.
It was as if on fire, a brilliant fuschia fire.
Life in San Miguel de Allende is forever magical.
When you least expect it to be.
Moppit the Philosopher Dog is pretty insistent that I take her for a walk, no more than 10 minutes after she finishes her 5 p.m. dinner. She is a creature of habit. Moppit starts a huff-snorting sound around my ankles if I’m not reaching for the leash, the kind of sound a woman makes when the husband comes home late smelling of booze and perfume and mumbles “biznish shmeeting.”
lately, it has been in the high 80s around 5 p.m. here in San Miguel de Allende, so I try to reason with her.
But a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.
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The best days to walk around Centro in San Miguel de Allende have got to be Thursday through Saturday.
Thursdays seem to be when the girls celebrating their quinceañeras come to the Parroquia to pose in their lavish 15th birthday gowns. A charming sight to see. Tiaras on their head, sneakers beneath a billowed and sparkling gown. A furrowed brow as the photographer aligns the perfect shot erupts into a brilliant smile on command.
The young woman pictured here stands in the middle of Calle Aldama for a classic image with Parroquia de San Miguel Arcángel in the background.
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It seems cruel to talk about Spring and plants and flowers at the end of January, but here we are.
In a week or so, we celebrate the 40th day after the birth of Christ, the day on which the Mother Mary took her child to the temple.
In tandem with this religious celebration, many gardeners, growers, plant suppliers, and others gather in a San Miguel park for a week and turn it into a veritable Garden of Eden. Hundreds of people flock to the park to buy flowers, cacti, bushes, fruit trees, herbs, ornamentals, vines, ground covers even giant earthen pats to contain them all. If it grows, it goes.
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One shot. That’s all you get.
Magic abounds in San Miguel de Allende.
But it can be fleeting.
An open door.
A loving embrace.
A child’s smile.
A musician’s final note.
You are there. You happen upon the moment.
And you either lock it in your memory or …
… god forgive me, you pull out your camera.
The princess sat in Parque Juarez, near the gazebo.
Her face went to that place that princesses so often go to
When men dressed all in black with lights and baffles and screens
Scurry around her, trying to capture the fading light at dusk.
Her eyes turn inward, her thoughts go to … where?
A mantra? A shopping list? A party invite? A lover?
A magic spell to cast over her portraiture minions?
A first glimpse of her is through the vee
In this ancient split-trunk pine.
She could have been a woodland fairie,
Queen of the forest,
Mistress of the mystical realm.
Mab, Titania, Oonagh, Gloriana, Diana
The Queen of Elphame.
Meliae or Dryad, those Greecian nymphs of ashes and oaks.
But, more, a beautiful woman with sadness about her
As she waited for that special moment.
To come alive,
To conjure enchantment, and send it to the lens.
Immortalizing the fairie princess in her sylvan realm.
Real. Not real.
Magical, all the same.
Musings, Magic, San Miguel and More 