Tag Archives: Robert J. Hawkins

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

No rhyme, no reason: Randomly curated photos from the Pandemic-era

Yeah, this is how I feel every day when I open up my computer and begin reading the news. I want to scream, lash out, run for cover, then hide in the bushes for the rest of the day.

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I know “curated” does not mean “stuff left over.”

A curator searches through his or her museum’s basements, files, archives, vaults, hallways, and subterranean sanctorums in search of pieces that support an important theme or idea.

The hope is that, as a whole, a curated show will tell a story or bolster an idea. A curated show is more than a theme — say for example, pictures with something red in them.

There is no doubt that during self-isolation, we have changed. As our lives slowed down, our perception has improved. I dare say that we are all seeing, feeling, hearing, loving, fearing in ways our previously busy, noisy, distracting, and demanding lives would not permit.

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Rants and raves, San Miguel de Allende, Writings

Crossword clue: ‘It might send you to the moon’ and your answer is …

In a crossword puzzle today:

“It might send you to the moon”

Horizontal. Four letters.

So obvious. I wrote in 

LOVE

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But LOVE is thwarted by insensitive vertical clues

That have nothing to do with love:

“Some shortcuts for ships” CANALS

“Body position in yoga” ASANA

“Great ___ National Park” BASIN

“Brand of figure-shaping underwear” SPANX

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For a flight to the moon,

The crossword’s answer

Is pretty pedestrian. (Especially after

Spanx and asana which, come to think of it,

May have something to do with love.)

Perhaps songwriters and poets should create

Our nation’s crossword puzzle clues.

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Love, of course, is all you need.

Love will send you to the moon.

But romantic metaphors, apparently,

Have no place in a Wednesday

New York Times Crossword Puzzle.

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Although, the clue for 57 down,

“Middle of many metaphors,”

Suggests somebody knows something

About figures of speech.

If not love.

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That answer, to 57 down, sadly,

Is not LOVE, either.

It is only three letters: ISA

Really, only two words, “IS A” 

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ISA, as in …

He is a car wreck waiting to happen.

Her love is a one-way trip to the moon.

He is a puddle of mush when she walks into the room.

Their love is a three-ring circus.

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ISA is an “ugh …”

(Also three letters, but not an answer.)

I don’t want and ugh. I want a hug.

I want better. I want more.

I want LOVE to send us to the moon.

Even in a Wednesday crossword puzzle.

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But if LOVE doesn’t, or can’t,

Send us to the moon

Because things get in the way, like,

Canals, yoga, tight underwear and national parks

What will?

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A very important question

These days:

What sends you to the moon?

What keeps you from taking a trip to the moon?

Use as many letters and metaphors as you wish.

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San Miguel de Allende, Writings

The rainy season turns San Miguel hillside neighborhood into a vernal wonderland

The rainy season has begun in San Miguel de Allende and brings with it an abundance of lush and impossibly green vegetation. There is a freshness to everything — the streets, the air, the flowers now blooming everywhere in mad bursts of color.

Walking though older parts of San Miguel feel like you have been transported to dense tropical forests in an era far removed from the present.

The perfect getaway for the homebound in the Age of Pandemic.

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Rants and raves, San Miguel de Allende, The Log, Writings

The Log for June 2: Binging on depressing podcasts, ‘Space Force,’ and my own House Hunters Int. drinking game. And your day?

IMG_1832LOOK UP IN THE AIR! IT’S CLUELESS MAN!: Took Moppit for her morning walk and I must say, there are far, far, more people with masks on than without. Are morning people more considerate of their own health and that of others?

I wouldn’t know since I usually take the evening walk but yesterday a woman was mugged two blocks over and I immediately went into Superman mode.

“I’ll walk Moppit in the morning,” I said. “It isn’t safe out there. You can go running if you like. You can outrun most anybody that would mug you. Can’t do it with a little dog on a leash.” Continue reading →

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

‘We arrived at the Dam in tattered cut-off jeans — covered in sweat, sawdust, and dirt’

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The modern Matson Lumber Co. looks a lot more streamlined, automated, and efficient than in my day. But stacking lumber is still the name of the game. (Photo: Matson Lumber)

“What did you do on your summer vacation?” I bet the answers in 2020 are going to be a lot different from those in 1966. 

A newsletter for ex-newspaper folks (specifically those bred in the incubator known as The San Diego Union-Tribune) recently spooled out a thread on summer jobs. The question was neutral but the recollections quickly veered toward the worst, hardest, most humiliating.

Well, those are usually the most memorable, aren’t they? Continue reading →

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

Poem: A writer’s lament during the holidays

img_9813That moment when you realize the offbeat lead to a blog post that you have been struggling with since Thanksgiving isn’t really the lead to a blog post, but an offbeat poem that celebrates the particular insanity that grips us between Halloween and Boxer Day.

I say this, fully cognizant of the fact that I am not a poet.

So you must draw your own conclusions:

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San Miguel de Allende, Uncategorized

The fairy’s teacup

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Since finding the teacup, the cobblestones have yielded other treasures — an anchor from a small fairy boat, a tiny pawn which may have been used as a coat rack, and the remnant of a fairy’s full-length mirror. They all stay in my change purse, should their owners ever wish to reclaim them.

There is an old tradition, which I am just now making up, that says when you find a fairy’s unbroken teacup on a cobblestone street, good luck will follow you around — as long as the cup remains intact. 

For you see, anything that survives unbroken on a cobblestone street must be very, very lucky, indeed.

The fairies live in the oldest trees of San Miguel de Allende. When the trees are cut down to make way for more buildings, the fairies must flee and take with them the good luck, kind feelings, and benevolent outlook which they share with the city. 

And the few possessions they can salvage ahead of the developers.

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San Miguel de Allende, Uncategorized

Help! I’ve fallen into reality and I can’t get up

 

 

You step out the door in the morning and look to your right …
… then you look to your left. How can you not be grateful for the simple miracles awaiting you?

“Have I tumbled out of reality or into it?” — Robert Cooksey, on Facebook.

Great question, Bob.

I think I know where he is coming from. My friend Bob lives here in San Miguel de Allende. Like him, I can not believe our good fortune to be living in such a place.

The flip side of that expression of gratitude is that we’ve both very happy to no longer be living in the United States. (I speak for Bob — up to a point — because he is so outspoken on Facebook about his dismay over the direction the country has taken since, oh, since November 2016 at least.)

But now I’m getting off-topic.

Well, OK, I’m going to say it: This is a magical city.

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Rants and raves, San Miguel de Allende, Uncategorized

The racist at the next table

The couple sat down at the next table as I dipped my second churro into a piping hot Chocolate Mexicano.

“I’ll sit right next to my darling sweetheart,” said the man brightly. And a little loudly.

“Who talks like that?” I wondered.

I was especially curious because I happened to be reading a NOVA report on the theory that the Big Bang created a mirrored universe that runs in reverse of ours. Mind you, not for one moment did I think that I’d slipped through the portal and landed in 1947.

It was just, you know, quaint. And a tad patriarchial. But then, she looked like the sort who thought a line like that might be charming, under some circumstances. Continue reading →

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San Miguel de Allende, Uncategorized

Hiking the Rio Laja to Antotonilco

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All it takes is to miss a turn and you end up on a quiet country road like this one, which leads to the long-ago abandoned hacienda Las Trancas, about midway into the first section of the trail and a fabulous spot from which to engage the river.

We did it! We found the off-road, Rio Laja trail from San Miguel de Allende to Antotonilco. Several weeks ago, when we walked to Antotonilco along the old highway it was pleasant enough but the road is narrow and pretty busy.

Here and there we’d catch glimpses of the chalky gray Rio Laja which flows south into the sprawling reservoir called La Pressa Allende. And here and there was evidence of a trail!

We’re still new at this hiking/walking thing and lacked the confidence to jump off the road and into the brush along a river we hardly knew. Who knew where we might end up? Continue reading →

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