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.
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Guitarists walk down Callejon de los Suspiros on a warm San Miguel de Allende morning.
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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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Maybe if every place had a day when you could blow up life-size papier-mâché effigies of bad people, the world would be a happier place.
I was definitely in a happier place after watching San Miguelians blow up about two-dozen effigies on Easter Sunday. They call them Judases.
I know, not your typical Easter Sunday celebration. Just roll with it and enjoy.
All week San Miguel de Allende has been observing the tragic (or glorious) end of Jesus Christ, reliving his life and death in an almost real-time series of processions and pageantry. By Easter Sunday, the story is largely played out.
Time for some catharsis.
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They’ve got it all backward.
The Frida Kahlo Museum in Mexico City ought to start with the collection of medical harnesses and contraptions that the artist used to alleviate the pain, to stand upright, to obtain a modicum of normality in her life.
Instead, the very devices that she so cleverly hid beneath her layered dresses and shawls come at the end of the journey. They are shocking, horrifying.
They make you, finally, grasp the essence of the pain which dictated and influenced so much of her life and art.
It is only at the end that the courage, the determination, the resilience, the bravery of Frida Kahlo come into the clearest focus.
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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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Tried a CBD oil concoction for enabling sleep last night, then I ended up on the roof, mesmerized by the lighting around Parroquia San Antonio de Padua. I couldn’t stop staring at it, so I took this photograph.
The church is about a block away. When celebrations call for fireworks, as they often do, this is a great rooftop patio on which to be.
If the church looks other-worldly, it may be because my head was in an other-worldly place.
My sleep didn’t improve. Not yet anyway.
Though my dreams were weirder than normal, which, if you know my dreams, is saying a lot.
We’ll see what tonight brings.
Or doesn’t bring.
Meanwhile, sleep well. Embrace the new day. Do good works. Think kindly of others. Embrace second chances. Never shirk from responsibilities. Choose the right outfit for the occasion. Never take the last of the yogurt, even the store-bought kind. Don’t second-guess motivations in people who seem meaner than you. Smile and make eye contact with everyone. Frequent more than one bakery. When you tip someone, surprise yourself and go big. Try to remember the name of at least one person you meet this week.
Now, say good night.
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I do not shop. I do not wander into stores and glide up and down aisles looking for just the right … thing. I don’t compare prices. I don’t compare similar products. I don’t read labels. I don’t calculate the savings between the Jumbo and Family sizes. I don’t clip coupons.
I buy local because I’m too lazy to walk to a cheaper store. I shop to survive, not to find pleasure.
But you don’t have to twist my arm to get me up the hill to the Tuesday Market.
I love the hustle and bustle. I love the jockeying for position at a tabletop clothing dump. I love to hear the shouts of “Barata! Barata! Barato!” and “Venta! Venta! Venta!” I love the smell of the food, the fish on ice, the produce, the fresh piles of strawberries. The piles of hardware and kitchenware and racks of hats, and row upon row of shoes, and … well, just name it, there’s a pile of it somewhere.
And such a deal I have for you.
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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.
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News item: Conde Nast Traveler names San Miguel de Allende the “friendliest city in the world.” It beats out Dublin, Lisbon, Bangkok, Copenhagen, Mexico City, and Bruges among others. The media company previously named San Miguel the “best small city in the world.”
This can’t be good.
I was asked to respond to all this by an otherwise sharp and responsible newspaper colleague. And so …
All right, the next guy who says San Miguel de Allende is the friendliest city in the world gets a punch in the nose, see?
A city with a reputation like that could get itself hurt, see? A city could pick up a rep-u-tation with talk like that, and not the good kind, see?
Other cities start thinking it’s a patsy and start aping all that friendly stuff and the next thing you know, you’ve got a six-way tie for the friendliest city.
And that ain’t good for nobody, see?
Why, if everybody is friendly, then what’s this world coming to?
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Musings, Magic, San Miguel and More 