I realize this seems an odd choice for an activity on Easter Sunday morning. But that doesn't appear to be the case for these fine Mexicans, who find more solid purpose in their religious imaginations with Palm Sunday and Good Friday. Easter here is very sedate festival day. Possibly a welcome relief and respite from a long week participating in the many festivities which culminates for them in the Good Friday procession.

I've had quite a week myself. We went to the Palm Sunday procession, then walked through the churches on Maunday Thursday with our good friend Charlotte and out-of-town guests Dot and Wes. Charlotte has become a real resource on Holy Week here in San Miguel (Semana Santa), even authoring a book on the subject. Of course she and Wes hit it off big time (he being a student as well as teacher of world religions).

I also had my wallet stolen that same night in a church courtyard. My own minor Maunday Thursday betrayal. I was foolish enough to forget all my lessons on how to take due precautions while traveling, leaving my wallet bulging provocatively from my back pocket. ("Mira chavo, el gringo esta estupido!"). The theft was executed very professionally using the old block and bump routine. And right in a church courtyard, in front of a Jesus praying in Gethsemene and a Judas hanging from a tree still holding his sack of coins. If the story of Jesus praying in Gethsemene while the disciples slept can be viewed as a story about vigilance then I was certainly the sleepy desciple. I'll leave you to guess who played the part of Judas in my mind with his bag of coins.

Only for that moment though. The thief has my forgiveness by now and it comes to him with the hope that the $140 bought more groceries than Tequila.

One final piquaint irony. I discovered my wallet missing much later while Wes and I were walking with the group to the restaurant. We were talking about how people we both know who are physically challenged in one way or another manage daily to deal heroically with their adversity. Until that moment for me, the proposition remained strictly hypothetical.

Paducah is a wonderful place. I don't know if I've ever seen a town more friendly and gentle. The pace of life is a true antidote to the disease of urban frenzy and the mild weather in general is a balm. The members of the artist's community have been all of the things we expected; stimulating, committed, fascinating and kind. We did arrive at a somewhat awkward moment here with the community undergoing some fractious upheaval. None of it is unexpected as part of the growing pains of this noble experiment as it emerges from it's heady visionary days and aims towards solidifying and institutionalizing it's gains. I say "noble experiment" because the concept of an artist's relocation program contains just enough of that element of intentional community to supercharge the group dynamics. Since we are all in a sense stakeholders in this project, there is no avoiding the inevitable clash of opinion over the direction in which we move.

At this point I really hesitate to revisit the particulars of the period recently past. But I do feel the need to at least talk in general terms about some of the lessons we can draw on in retrospect. Much of the emotional hurt was unfortunate and avoidable. Some of it was inevitable since a large part of the community decided that it was necessary to create an alternative organizational structure for the artists of LowerTown. Some building blocks for that structure were inadvertently dropped on some people's toes. The truly curious element in the whole tussle was (and is) the part that e-mail played in actually militating against communication. We have an e-mail group via Google Groups called "LowerTown Artists Forum." It was established to provide for the dissemination and cross-fertilization of ideas. While it does serve those functions adequately as far as getting news and questions out to the group quickly, it suffers from two very significant shortcomings.

The first might be characterized as; "I didn't know it worked like that!" This is the shock (and shockwave) that comes from realizing you've just sent a very personal and pointed opinion out to the entire group when you just meant to talk to one confidant. The e-mail forum concept was simply too new and unfamiliar to many and simple mistakes in addressing messages soon turned into major flaps. In an e-mail forum, the dreaded "reply" button turns into a broadcast medium, blanketing the entire forum. Private thoughts promptly become public knowledge simply because the sender neglected to check the address line carefully before sending. I want to emphasize that the mistake made here isn't in having the sentiment. We all tend to air our most strident opinions only in safe (read: "private") contexts. This context is crucial for us all to vet our opinions so that they may be brought to the larger stage based on feedback received in the private setting. The mistake arises only from a simple lack of knowledge about a very new media. I'm sure that in the early days of telephone usage people didn't understand the function of a hand over the mouthpiece.

The other shortcoming of the e-mail method is the "Alternative to face time" dilemma. We use e-mail because it is convenient, free and has the nice quality of instantaneous reward. It's truly amazing to think that we actually lived without it all these years. But a huge problem with e-mail is that we now use it as a substitute for face-to-face or voice-to-voice interaction. Time and again, a contentious issue would emerge in the forum and promptly degenerate into personal attack based on a misreading of tone and nuance. We rely on a whole variety of subtle cues to communicate nuance of meaning, most of them are visual and auditory. All of this can be lost in translation between the voice in our head when we write and the voice that is heard by the recipient of our e-mail. This is especially true when motives are in question or mutual trust begins to break down. The solution to a situation like this where intentions are misread is simple but takes some courage and a bit of generosity of spirit; pick up the phone and call. Just call. Begin with something like; "I thought we should just talk to each other because the last thing I intended was a personal attack on you." The price we pay by not talking to each other is immense.

Since I've now jumped up on my soapbox to provide my "how to" guide to e-mail usage let me make another suggestion. Resist the urge to present yourself as cheerily constructive and positive in the open forum while flaming the person you contend with in the private e-mail channel. Don't do it. The validity of your opinion rest squarely on personal integrity and the respect it engenders and by doing this little "one - two" you throw away any chance of being perceived as someone who sets aside personal issues in the interest of reasoned discussion. The public forum may be fooled, especially if the victim of this maneuver is sensible enough to not expose your duplicity in the public forum. The more important focus of your effort (the person you are in discussion with) is not. In the best-case scenario you'll get a phone call and you can both talk it all over.

I think this may be my reason for my not writing about Paducah as of yet. I had to get this out of my system before I could move on. I realize that no one is asking for my advice and I that I don't really know all the ins and outs of this situation. These humble suggestions are only offered in the spirit of fostering community health. But please remember that I need this advice as much as anyone. If my underlying thought in this post is; "we need to stop acting petty", that's plainly a projection of what I need to remind myself.

The community here is maturing. We arrived late to the effort but it seems the early "settlement" days are behind us. Ahead lies the challenge of developing the vision into a day-to-day reality. We will continue to disagree because much is at stake and we each have our unique perspective. Now, more than ever, we can't afford to let our lesser natures dominate. We are muddled people. We are also good people.

A horse at pasture in Alcocer

Mexico is a place where the quiet daily routine is practically as old as the mountains behind our house. I watch my neighbor across the rock fence behind us do her laundry by hand and hang it out to dry. The shepherds lead their goats, sheep and cattle every morning to the small lake near our house for a drink before herding them past our front gate to the mountain pastures above. In the evening they return the same way and we get to watch the cooperation between shepherd and dogs as they work the animals, driving them home. Their work is purposeful, yet never hurried. The path is well known by both the animals and the herders so it becomes part of the routine of daily life down here. Watching the comings and goings.

Off to school at dawn

The pigs are a different matter. There aren't so many, just a handful. Usually a litter born in the spring to a mama sow, who guides her charges up and down the arroyo and parts beyond near our house. They continue to free range until whoever owns them decides they're ready for market. But until then, we get the pleasure of watching them make their way along, exploring the nooks and crannies for grubs and bugs and whatever pleases them.

I watched a lone horse off and on today make its way around the little lake, grazing grass and weeds. Usually they're tied somewhere to graze but this one dragged its lead rope around as it meandered from one side of the lake to the other. Part of the time it stood belly deep in the water enjoying the cool, no doubt, and nipping the tender grasses that grow in abundance along the edges of the water. The cattle egrets made their silent way into our valley and swooped out of sight at the far side of the lake. From time to time I was aware of a burro complaining somewhere nearby. A neighbor's rooster crowed, just because.

A view towards our house across the presita

Most of the afternoon I worked on one of the architectural rendering commissions I'm doing right now, listening to "Missouri Sky" by Pat Matheny. Our studio on the second floor is a quiet haven, free of distractions like internet, housework, and television. It looks out on the lake and mountains and all the glorious, peaceful outdoors that tantalizes us, but I guess it's enough just knowing it's there that keeps me focused. By 4 o'clock Dave and I were both ready for "tea," he having worked in our cactus garden and side yard all day, cutting grasses, clearing out weeds, and starting a compost pile. We took our repast up to the roof terrace and settled under the overhanging limbs of the pepper tree at the north end. From there we looked out toward the valley and beyond across which stretch distant fields, the town of La Luz in the mid-distance, and far to the north yet another mountain range, all part of the Sierra Madres that march southward from the border. The sun was bright but the wind made it cool. Soon, the clouds gathered over the mountains just to our south and we were rewarded with a small shower through the sun and a rainbow that stretched from the lake below us to the lower slope of the mountain behind.

Wishing you all peace from Central Mexico.

Stefanie models the Talavera tile kitchen

When will your house be done? When are you moving in? How long dear Lord, how long? When you build in Mexico you have to get ready for the hurry up and wait. No schedule is firm, no crew is consistent, every budget is filled with bubbles and shadows. But "poco a poco" the thing gets done. You watch it happen day by day and the changes are so incremental that you sometimes miss the effect. Certain features appear rather rapidly and you go "Wow, look at THAT!"; a spiral column to support the front porch roof, the shaped bricks that form the top edge of our stepped stair rail, the finial at the top of our onion-dome cupola. But the mass of changes accumulate slowly over the course of days and weeks. That and the fact that our focus is always on whatÕs still left to be done all militate against awareness that any real progress is being made.

Stefanie poses with our friend Floyd in front of our house in Mexico

The best way to see what has evolved is with the help of friends. It's time like these when you just need to borrow some eyes. We invited a group of friends over a few days before leaving for Florida even though our construction site was still a mud and gravel lot, the exterior paint job half finished, the second floor is still a work in progress with tile-lights-bathroom in various states of completion. But inviting them over was the right thing to do because those borrowed eyes helped us to see what we've actually done. Where we see an unfinished structure set amidst a chaotic heap of construction rubble, they see a little gem of a house with no mention of those other distractions. I'm always looking at what's left to be done instead of what's right there before my eyes. The accumulation of details needs a fresh set of eyes to appear whole.

Hermilo does the brick rail on the staircase

Our friends were generous with their praise for our efforts. All of them had experience with the distinctly Mexican process of home construction, to one degree or another. We had good conversations up on the roof patio, comparing notes and swapping horror stories. But I benefited most by being made to see the whole thing at once, as something to be appreciated and celebrated, instead of just a pile of unfinished details moving glacially towards completion.

The cupola. Mario said "This is art" This is right.

The first floor is largely done; the terracotta tile is sealed, the walls are painted. Our bed frame and headboard arrived a day before our mattress. And we had one lovely night sleeping on it before we had to leave for Florida. The refrigerator was moved in just as our cooler arrived from our rental casita. The built-in closet was installed the same day our car arrived with a pile of cloths on hangers. "Just in Time" construction. And just in time to leave for Florida and another rounds of art fairs.

Paint on walls of the dining room. Cat installed in the chair.

We've left the house to our work crew; Mario the head maestro ("El Mejor"), Hermillo the other magnificent maestro, and Diego and Francisco our two helpers who endlessly mix cement and carry it up to the maestros. Oh, and our cat. We've actually built the place for her I think. Paintbrush will get to enjoy the fruits of our efforts more than we will the next two months. She's got several prime sunny spots to lounge in and a place to look out the window there. Our previous rental casita had virtually none of those kitty amenities. And she's got Margarina to come every day to tend to her needs.

Our full crew will be working for two more weeks while we're gone and after that we might just have ourselves a house. We'll return in April to touch up paint, put some plants in the ground, put our feet up. Take a look around. Start to "see" the place.

I can now say that I’ve experienced hearing loss both gradually and all of a sudden. If I have a choice, quite frankly I prefer the former. It’s a whole lot more manageable in the long run, allowing you time to prepare and practice and think your way through coping with it. With the failure of my CI last month the loss came on like a gale force, and in fact sounded like one. A huge roaring, screaming wind that threatened to knock my head off if I dared to turn on my processor. There were no hints that something was up, at least not anything to make me believe that my miracle of hearing was about to come to an abrupt halt. I was simply going about my normal day when it suddenly sounded like a motor had been turned on which had no directional clues and kept on so unrelentingly that I silenced it by turning off my processor. When I turned it back on I knew that something was desperately wrong. The noise was no longer a motor but an unbearable screaming rage.

For approximately a week Dave and I mustered forces to deal with this new prospect in our lives. I found that if I weathered the screaming for a few minutes it toned down to a dull roar which I could withstand long enough for some conversation. I even managed to make a few phone calls to arrange an evaluation appointment with an audiologist in Dallas to see what the problem might be. For his part, Dave helped me stay positive with humor, patience and understanding. In the end we made our way to Chicago to meet with my doctor and audiologist as well as a representative from Med El, the manufacturer of my CI, to come to some conclusion about what was happening and what solutions might be available. All three agreed upon seeing me and hearing my descriptions of what was going on with my CI that it had failed and would need to be replaced.

I had always said years ago with my first CI that I would be fine no matter what happened with it. In my new reality of total deafness after receiving my replacement CI that resolution seemed a tad glib. While waiting for activation (that is, getting hooked up to your processor) during my first experience I still had the luxury of some hearing in my non-implanted ear and wore a hearing aid in it. So while my world seemed a little less clear, I still functioned pretty normally. I talked with people, went to work, stayed connected. This time I had no such assistance from my other ear. Its last vestiges of hearing gave way within a year of my first implant. I awaited my activation this time acutely aware of the difference and grieving the loss of my residual hearing as though deserted by a dear friend.

The silence in some ways seemed almost as unbearable as the screaming noise from the failed CI had been. Since Dave and his family, with whom we were staying during my recovery, know little sign language we were forced to communicate through lip reading and writing notes, neither of which prove very satisfactory in following a conversation. I also knew from living with my first CI that when it was turned off I didn’t speak very much. So during that week prior to activation I became not only deaf but also mute, speaking only when asked something or if I had a question. My world turned inward to a terrible degree. My disquiet at this sudden deafness was surprising given my earlier resolve. Evidently things weren’t so neat and tidy after all. It’s one thing to say you are fine with deafness but finding your way when thrust into it of a sudden feels like being in a rudderless boat. You are adrift without direction, your connection to the greater world cut from beneath you.

A friend asked if there were something good about the silence. For me there is if the silence is chosen. At night with my processor off I don’t have to endure snoring or dogs barking or other disquieting distractions. In the morning it is nice to go about my routine thinking my own thoughts, free to ease gradually into the noisy world. My week of enforced silence was an endurance test, or perhaps more so, a test of my will. I marveled at my friends who have gone into this silence and accepted it as their life. Most became proficient at sign language, but all have come out the other end as productive, happy people, at peace with where they are. Given time, no doubt that would also be me if I would have to go that route. To get there would require a considerable period of adjustments not only on my part but also that of my family and friends.

Today I’m experiencing the wonders of sound again. The voice of my husband, friends, family. I talk on the phone and listen to the shrill whistle of a morning bird who frequents our yard. I hear the call and response of lambs and their mothers grazing along the creek just below our casita in Alcocer, the rhythms of jazz on a radio station streamed over our computer. I shop and run errands, managing my transactions in broken Spanish. Life goes back to normal, but it’s with a new perspective. That there are still new twists and turns in my journey of deafness which require adjustments and introspection as to my response to it. I value more the varied choices of my fellow travelers in surmounting the challenges of deafness that threaten to cut off the world. I realize more than ever that my reality is an existence split between silence and sound. And I know the price exacted to achieve a balance between the two. Peace is had not by mourning the loss but by embracing the life that is.

I talk a lot with Stefanie about us being “plan junkies”. Since we’ve made the big break with our past lives (the previously mentioned “great leap into the unknown”) we have seemingly been in continual plan mode. And one wild plan begets another. In the context of our current lives as international gypsies our recent plan seemed perfectly reasonable; drive up from San Miguel de Allende, Mexico to complete a small circuit of art fairs in south-central and midwest states of the U.S., spend a few days in between settling details on our other house being built in Paducah, Kentucky, and then head back to Mexico. All done in roughly four weeks. One late detail that we tacked on was leaving the car in Longview, Texas to ride Amtrak up to Chicago before starting the art fair circuit. We needed to pick up some choice pieces of artwork from a gallery there as well as some we had left with our sister Kathy.

Well… the drive up through Mexico went without a hitch, unlike our previous trip (read “Art Fairs and Car Repairs”). We were sailing along north of Houston when we cracked a bolt on our alternator bracket and began thrilling to the sound of a loud “Schreech!!” heard coming from the engine during acceleration from a dead stop; the classic engine noise from loose belts. At our first repair shop stop the mechanic pointed out the problem and said the broken bolt would need to be drilled out which would cause us a delay of at least a half day. Our train was leaving from Longview that evening around 7 pm and we still had a three hour drive ahead of us. It was around noon. After the mechanic described the problem as being caused by the broken bolt sliding out of position (it was a hinge bolt on the alternator bracket) I suggested that he just “slap some goop on the thing” to keep the bolt in place for a few hours until we could get to Longview and have it repaired properly during our week in Chicago. I was half joking in desperation but after a moment’s thought the mechanic shrugged and said, “Might work. Can’t guarantee it in writing though.” Sensible man. I’m not sure what made me even say it other than my experience with the many ingenious rigs that our Mexican friends devise to solve problems on the fly. It actually worked like a charm and helped us get up to Longview for the train… eventually.

Our drive up from Houston was a wire-to-wire thrill ride because we needed to maintain an average speed of over sixty for three hours plus. All I remember from that segment is a white-knuckle-gripping Dave at the wheel of our heavily loaded RAV4, zipping down hills at over eighty on a rolling Texas highway yelling “Ya gotta go eighty downhill to clear the top going at least 45!!!” or something. Stefanie thought there was a reasonable chance that I had become a danger to her livelihood. While her priorities were on continued earthly existence, my sole purpose in life was to make it to the Toyota dealer by closing. Survival came second.

There were some further antics ahead as we approached Longview. Mileage signs toyed with our emotions by tacking on an additional 3 or 4 miles here and there. A seriously screwed-up Mapquest printout had us driving down a small weed-choked road near the edge of town as the clock ticked mercilessly down to 5 pm (their posted closing time on the web). Stefanie is trying to get me turned around and headed back towards town while I’m insisting that “Mapquest says it’s right here!!” and she’s saying, “Does it really look like a car dealer might be around HERE somewhere???”

Heading back into town we used a bit of blind guesswork to stumble on the place, pulling into the dealer’s lot just after five to read “5:30 pm” posted as the new closing time on the service department’s glass door. I strode into the office high on some naturally occurring substance in my blood, announcing “We made it!”, and blurting out “Your closing time on the web is…”, and “Take a look at this set of crappy directions from Mapquest!”. The kind people in the office had a somewhat different energy level. They just smiled and waited for this invading force to settle down a minute before asking, “Help you with something?”

The Instituto Art Fair - a lively, colorful happening

We’re far from novices anymore at doing art fairs both here in San Miguel and the states. They still take a lot of preparation and forethought in ramping up to the actual event, but we’ve become accustomed to the routine of applying and the inevitable check lists to make sure we have all the aspects of the events under control. There’s a heightened sense of anticipation going into them plus the usual anxiety, but it’s all familiar territory.

I had a different sense, though, in August as we set up our display panels the first day of the Instituto Art Fair. We were in the same spot as the July event so no worries about whether or not we were in the right place. I looked around as we pulled paintings out and began figuring out the best configuration for displaying them. Little by little other artisans began toting their work to their spaces and started the tedious process of getting all in place. The man with the handmade paper wall luminaries was back as our neighbor next to us in the corner along with his wife selling beaded jewelry and embroidered tapestries cattycornered across the aisle. Others, now familiar to us after so many Instituto art fairs, also began arriving – the short, energetic woman from Oaxaca with a single gray braid and crooked smile selling rugs, the two ever-serious young women selling Mexican trinkets, the German lady selling straw hats and Guatemalan scarves, the young man from Veracruz selling his handmade leather-bound notebooks.

The inner courtyard where the fair is held had a sleepy air about it, people quietly going about putting their displays and tables in order. Not a lot of chatter, just some street noise and birds making their morning twitterings as they flitted about looking for their first food of the day. As I made several trips back and forth from the car to fetch things for our set-up I felt the energy of my fellow artists and craftsmen. Less than two years ago I viewed all of these people as part of the exotica that I saw as San Miguel. But with several Instituto fairs under our belt, and becoming part of the routine, I suddenly felt a real connection to the artisan community. Moreover, I felt privileged to be offering my art alongside them.

While a good deal of what is offered by the artisans is produced for the tourist market, there is still real craft evident in much of it. Creativity is part of the fabric of Mexico in general, and so the hand-woven rugs, the beaded bracelets, the sweet, brightly colored paintings on small wooden panels all are reminders of the arts in everyday life here. Some of it is decidedly humble, but nonetheless it offers up the expressions of its people as a small celebration of their lives. Tourists are drawn to the color, the whimsy, the craftsmanship of the items perhaps not in small part because they are made locally by hand. Art of the people which touches us because it is just that, not high or lofty or cerebral. A celebration of the sweets of life.

This pig and his friends are here for a reason.

Scientists have discovered that it pays to grow up in marginally unsanitary conditions in order to tune your immune system properly. Children in western countries who grow up coddled and sheltered from every pollen grain or cat hair are understandably hypersensitive to such minor irritants as adults. Somewhere in this observation about the source of our currently epidemic levels of allergic reaction is a hard fact: Those dirty little snot-nosed kids you always complained about are all healthy, happy, strapping adults now. Except, of course, for that bully in my grade school class. He's in jail. His freedom was denied due to a minor legal quibble concerning a gang-related hit contract. Still free of allergies though no doubt.

Or, to put that life lesson in a slightly different way ... as my apple pickin' buddy out in Washington State used to say at the crack of dawn; "Time to get up and get amoungst 'em!".

It's not just the immune system that needs to be taught how to discern minor irritants from the real deal. Getting out in that big old dirty world helps the mind differentiate whether other dangers are real or only perceived. When we prepared for our trip around the world last year some of our well meaning friends warned us about confessing our American citizenship to those we may meet. Turned out not to be a problem. We never dissembled on that fact and people always treated us with respect, like people everywhere should be treated; somewhere between friendly and indifferent. Never hostile. That's only in the funny papers.

... it's not just that they're cute.

Now I know the statistics I read and you read in those same funny papers tell us that the general opinion of America is in the crapper. Due to many factors I suppose, one of which may be our current propensity to launch off and take care of military business wherever, whenever we so desire regardless of logic or other peoples opinions. So our American-ness may seem rude or dangerous to others due to some of these questionable decisions by our government. I just never saw that translate into personal animosity. Pity, maybe. And sometimes sympathy, like; "Yeah, I know ... my President's an idiot too..."

You see, pigs play in the mud.

Speaking of which; rude is when a drunken guest belches in your face as he leaves the party. Dangerous is when he then demands his car keys so he can drive around the neighborhood. Right now the world sees us driving around out there with a full tank and a tall boy in the cup holder.

So perceptions of danger all relate to where we stand, and who's looking dangerous. Many of our danger meters vibrated right off the dial a few years ago. But it's important to re-calibrate them by testing them occasionally against the real world. Is the world a scary place? Yes, sometimes. Doesn't mean we can't approach it with subtlety and flexibility. Appropriate action (or reaction) depends on realigning our perception of danger to reality. Our danger meters busted years ago after the needle jammed all the way up there. Probably time to get it fixed and stop living our lives based on the same reading we get every day; "Life is Currently: EXTREMELY DANGEROUS!!!".

... and in the street...

Maybe that's one reason we did the trip around the world. Might even help explain what we're doing down here in Mexico. Meter repair.

We face perceptions of danger every day. One of the most common for many people is their financial situation and we're no different there. Not enough capital inflow to offset the drainage and the evaporation. A little like our reservoir out in Alcocer now that you mention it. That's getting real low too these days. The lack of rain has caused the small lake to recede to a large puddle. But the rains will come. And we'll keep making that art until it forms up into vast thunderheads that open up to bless the dry plains of financial desolation. It's actually raining right now... real rain. Might be a sign but I don't want to push it because I've already chased that image out and beat it with a stick. Just rain ...okay?

... and their mother lets them.

Well then so what if we're not yet making our fortunes with our art. We're still far from broke. My immune system registers only a minor irritant. Nothing for my T-cells to get excited about. Good thing my mom let me play kick the can out in the alley as a kid. .

My day begins usually with my cat, Paintbrush, stepping on my feet and legs to wake me up for her morning ration of canned salmon cat food. I don’t have an alarm clock (or I do, if truth be known, but it doesn’t work. And that’s a whole other blog in itself.). The day begins more slowly than in my work-a-day world past. But there are many things that are missing in my life here in Mexico that I used to take for granted back in the States. Some of those absences have proved a blessing while others, well, I’ve just learned to work around them.

Still it’s amazing when I consider all those things that I used to have that I thought were indispensable and now find were mere conveniences. Such as. There is a TV in our house but it resides in mute fashion in our living room atop the credenza against the one wall without an electrical outlet. It was put there purposely to more conveniently use our electrical sources for our art work tables. We don’t watch TV since we refuse to pay for cable in order to get English-speaking channels. However, I must admit that we’ve belatedly connected the TV to our DVD player (liberated from our storage locker after one of our trips north this year) and strung an extension cord to bring it to life for the occasional DVDs. One must have some sort of enlightened entertainment, after all, if only to carry on up-to-date conversations on the latest releases.

There is no dishwasher in the house. Or at least no mechanical one. Both of us take turns doing the honors by hand after meals. I find it to be contemplative and not that time consuming. Go figure. In cool weather the hot water on my hands is a pleasure, making me feel warm inside.

Walking is a lot easier than trying to drive most places, traffic and the lack of parking spots being what they are in San Miguel. In the time it takes to maneuver through the circuitous routes of one ways streets through Centro in order to find that illusive parking spot, you may as well have walked from home, as your car is likely not to be much closer for the effort.

Voila! I made it! In a Mexican kitchen

While we do have the use of a washer and a dryer (the latter considered a particular luxury in this land of sunshine) our kitchen is absent many a modern gizmo. There is no blender, food processor, or electric mixer. We slice and dice by hand, and such things as the hefty lime squeezer have been known to be pressed into service as a nutcracker when duty calls.

Which brings me to the lemons. Our gardener, Gabriel, gave us a dozen or more lemons the other week, given to him by a neighbor. Limes are the more common commodity here (we have two trees of different varieties), and so lemons are a real treat. But 12 lemons all at once require that you have some use in mind if you’re not to forfeit them before they shrivel and go bad. Lemonade came to mind, but just as rapidly, that was displaced by visions of lemon pie. Chiffon, to be exact. But having never made one of lemon chiffon I was soon researching wildly on Google for an appropriate recipe. And there I hit a roadblock. No matter the variation, all of the recipes seemed to require either meringue on top or beaten egg whites folded into the filling. I don’t have a mixer, as noted above, in my kitchen. What to do.

A vision, but not lemon

I do have a stylish black, rather modern-looking whisk, but I dismissed it off-hand as too time-consuming and likely to wear me out before stiff peaks appeared in my egg whites. Still, the idea of a pie would not abate and the lemons were sitting forlornly, if fragrantly, on my counter. What the heck, I decided to give it a go, as the Brits are wont to say, and set about making my lemon chiffon. I creamed the butter and sugar (with fork and knife), added the lemon juice and zest, milk, flour, and egg yolks, and then took up the bowl of whites as my challenge. As I stood with my deep plastic mixing bowl in hand, beating frantically away at the egg whites with my whisk, I suddenly had a long-forgotten memory of my mother doing virtually the same thing in our long-ago kitchen. Except that her whisk was wire, in a shape not unlike a snowshoe, flat like a spoon with loops of wire threaded across the frame. The whisk had belonged to her mother and was the proper tool for beating egg whites in a matter of minutes back in the day. I’d watched my mother work them from their slimy yellowish state to a froth with effortless, efficient strokes, and then magically into white, thick foam, and finally into stiff peaks. This could be done! I’d seen it! How could I have forgotten?

Dove of Peace, Lamb of God - To Tom

Too many conveniences sometimes get in the way of some simple pleasures. We sometimes forget that we don’t need them to have what we want. Like a lemon pie. And doing without can actually give us time to remember many things too long forgotten.

And, yes, the pie (with stiff egg whites!) turned out fine.

The "Golden Crunches" along the Gulf Coast

We left McAllen, miraculously just a day behind schedule. Driving through part of Katrina country we saw plenty of twisted and broken trees, and blue tarps covering roofs still in need of repair. The commercial property came back the quickest of course but there were still many tall blown-out signs visible from the highway. Remarkably normal though, considering the magnitude of the disaster and the fact that this monster storm ripped through here just six months ago. The causeway bridge at Pensacola east bound on I-10 is in the process of being replaced and we inched along across the old, patched up structure. Our Super 8 in Baton Rouge was still pretty trashed out, not from the storm directly but instead from the refugees who crowded into these rooms and made a provisional life here for quite a while. That whole place may need a gut rehab after the punishment it took from being a full-time family housing facility for five-plus months. There were even some displaced people still living there in the process of sorting out their lives.

Stefanie's watercolors on display at Ft. Pierce, Florida

After another overnight in Tallahassee we drove down to Sarasota for the first art fair where I got to hang my batiks on our newly fashioned display panels for the first public showing. Stefanie and I began the first of many discussions we would share over the course of the next four weeks regarding the look of our display. We were very pleased with the panels themselves, crafted in Mexico as a team project between a local metal fabricator and us. We got lots of compliments from other artists who were curious to know where we got them. The other features of the overall presentation will be refined over time, adding nice name plaques, sign banners outside the tent, maybe even some accent fabric to add color and a friendly softness. All in good time of course. This trip was the great shakedown cruise though Florida, to “learn by doing,” to see what worked and what needs to be improved.

...she didn't have to wait long for the crowd

As for the show itself, it actually turned out well for me. We talked with many people who were fascinated with my approach to batik-making. Many of the guests who came in to chat were exceptionally knowledgeable about the batik process and art in general, really a sophisticated art fair crowd. At the very end of the show on Sunday a couple came back for a second look at my “Market Watch” batik. She wanted to know more about how to care for the piece and, since it is not framed with glass, how it would fare. I reassured her that it would not be a problem; I told her to keep it out of direct sunlight, and that it was treated with water-resistant spray so any accidental moisture would just roll off. She said she really loved it and her husband said, “Take it down!” Of course I was tickled to hear that since it amounted to my biggest single sale ever at $2,200. In the process of wrapping it up and completing the credit card transaction I asked what they did for a living and he said he was a “storm chaser’, working at construction contracting in the hurricane corridor along the Gulf coast. While we initially had concerns about the amount of discretionary funds available for art purchases due to all the hurricanes, that sort of turned it on its head. Depends on which end of the stick you sit I guess. By now “Market Watch” is probably well settled into its new Victorian home in Alabama.

A Lesser Blue Heron goes after lunch near the shore

That was the major highlight of my two art fairs since the second show in Tampa provided absolutely no sales. I met another painter named David in Sarasota; he also showed his work at the same Tampa art fair. He offered good counsel for me with tips on improving various aspects of my presentation. He told me that the no-sale shows (called “zeros” on the circuit) come with the territory and over time you begin to sort out the promising shows from the not so promising. The goal, of course, is to have more of the former than the latter. Ultimately, it’s all a crapshoot since it all falls to the luck of the draw and a profitable show one year can be a bust the next. A sculptor in the booth next to us in Sarasota said that after ten years doing these fairs he was still trying to figure it all out.

A White Ibis in a high perch at Ding Darling

Stefanie’s shows in Marco Island, Fort Pierce and Holmes Beach garnered some sales and she sold her beautiful watercolor “La Maceta” to a lady who teaches with her sister. That piece has been a favorite of mine since she created it. I told the buyer quite sincerely that she has excellent taste because I really think it is one of Stefanie’s best pieces.

Two Great Blue Herons look to filch fish on the beach at Captiva

So, our first spin through the Florida art fair circuit is over. Our relatives in Ft. Myers were gracious and generous hosts for us in the days between shows. The weather was spectacular with no rain and very little wind (the bane of Florida art fairs). Our little art fair travel kit held up well and with some small repairs will be ready to go in the fall. We even got in some quality wildlife viewing time with a memorable day spent on Sanibel Island viewing various critters at the spectacular wetlands reserve called Ding Darling.

We’ve returned to our casita in San Miguel now, seeking forgiveness from our emotionally starved kitty cat, getting on with the next phase of our lives here. That will include some long hours happily creating more art, completing our small house on our land in Alcocer, and attuning our senses more acutely to this life we have in Mexico.

Stefanie standing at the threshold...

Be careful what you wish for, as they say. That didn’t stop us from wishing for a piece of land in the hopes of building a house here in San Miguel. All came true in due course. And now our wall is going up around the property, looking enough like it belongs on some grand estate to make me wonder who we are. Indeed, that’s probably what our neighbors wonder.

Mixing cement by hand

Another part of our dream, another wish really, is to have a home base in Paducah, Kentucky, all the better for staging our art business to parts far and near around the country. We sent our proposal to the Urban Renewal Board last week for their February meeting. If we’ve crossed all our T’s and dotted all our I’s then we’ll have deed in hand for the empty lot we’ve requested. And we’ll have the right to build our second house. The first being our cozy casita down here in San Miguel, scheduled for construction to start within the next month. So what that means is that at some point this year, most likely the midpoint, we’ll have two separate constructions going on simultaneously. The gods must be crazy. Perhaps this is a test of our mettle or maybe it’s meant to be a comparison of the two processes. In San Miguel we’ll be our own contractors, a way of saving money and entirely do-able, we’ve learned, from building the wall. We hope to continue with our crew of five locals from our village of Alcocer when the casita begins. They’re steady, dependable workers and skilled craftsmen to boot. Paducah will be a different story, requiring a builder to do the honors of coordination and running the regulation/inspection gauntlet. We’ve already found our man, an easy-going but businesslike kind of guy who’s not intimidated by long distances and communicating his progress to us via e-mail. This will definitely be the year of the house.

Building the rock foundation for the wall

In the meantime, we continue our preparations for art fairs in Florida during the months of February and March. This is our introduction into the Florida art scene and we’re filled with anticipation, though it requires another very long road trip north. Our confirmed schedule to date is as follows:

February 22 – 23, Marco Island Arts & Crafts Fair at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church – Stefanie; February 25 – 26, The 16th Old Hyde Park Art Festival, Tampa, FL – Dave; March 11 – 12, Springfest Festival of Fine Arts & Fine Crafts, Holmes Beach, FL – Stefanie

Dave takes the weekly orders for supplies

Stefanie enjoys the progress of the project

We’re still waiting for confirmation for fairs on the weekends of February 18 – 19 and March 4 – 5. Look for an update of our confirmed schedule on our website homepage.

The corner castillo being formed

Both the art business and our home building will require a magnitude of planning in this new year. We’re hoping for smooth sailing but know better than to believe that all will fit so neatly into our plans as scheduled. But we’re crazy enough to give it our best shot and wise enough, we hope, to build a wide margin of flexibility. Stay tuned for more high-flying adventures!

The horses were first to water in Alcocer

I’m sitting in Benito Juarez Park (Parque Juarez), a place newly fashioned into a prime venue for Sunday afternoon lounging. When we first came to San Miguel this park had a ragged, abandoned look. Those features were pronounced in daylight and truly intimidating at night. Now, thanks to the determined efforts from friends of this park it has been reanimated: new paths, benches, greenery tended with care. As a result the life has returned. The young lovers cling to each other on park benches as before, but now their furtive glances are placed appropriately, towards the interest of their affections and not towards the old gloomy surroundings.

A trench comes before a wall

Today is Revolution Day and as a result the park is busier then normal. During the morning I watched parades of school bands, cheerleaders, small boys dressed as armed campasinos, young girls in prime early-century senorita dresses, fill the streets heading for the Jardin at town center. Now it’s afternoon, the brass has stopped blaring, the drums are silent, and the park is full of loungers like me. Groups of young people talk and laugh as they stroll. Families do what families do in parks everywhere; sit, talk, eat, play. I noticed the food kiosks were more numerous today, many providing extended food service with a hot grill on the side for making delicious-looking stuffed gorditas. It’s the middle of November, and the air is cool, but fresh, not chilly. The crisp night air this time of year is banished every day by the salubrious Mexican sun.

Stefanie sits in the courtyard at Museo Allende outside the gallery

This placid setting provides a moment for me to report to you about our recent eventful weeks. We closed on our purchase of land in Alcocer about two weeks ago. That marked nearly a year since we first made the decision to build a home here. Stefanie and I are very happy with the result, about a half-acre of land by a small lake in the old rancho of Alcocer, four kilometers or so from San Miguel. It’s really an odd turn that brought us out there. Earlier prospects fell through or were non-starters. A moment came last summer when we began to re-think the whole plan. That was right after the piece of land we waited to buy for six months disappeared in a cloud of dust on the heels of some high-rolling Houston developer. We picked ourselves up though and got back on that horse. It took us to Alcocer.

The gallery door, upstairs from the courtyard

We were really fortunate. The land we now own is much better for us. I’ve been spending a lot of time out there recently. Last week began by getting the boundary lines marked out and finished with eight hours of backhoe work, digging the trenches for the wall and holes for cistern and septic. I get to be county road crew supervisor. They work, I watch. For some reason I come home dead tired every day. Early in the morning by the lake I watch a solitary Great White Egret feed by the shore, or else track a group of cattle egrets as they swoop the lake, settle, then start again. One morning a formidable herd of cattle lowed and trooped to the lake to drink, chasing about ten horses who had had first dibs. Every day flocks of sheep and goats head through the creek valley that traces the now dry gully down from the Picacho Mountains behind Alcocer, as they make their way up the slopes to feed.

Our opening at Museo Allende

Tomorrow we start building. A crew of four will be there to begin at around 8am. The first project is to build a small shed for supply storage before they begin with the masonry on the wall and other infrastructure projects. It will be a real treat to finally see brickwork appearing, after a wait that sometimes seemed eternal.

David and Stefanie with our neighbor Barbara from Atascadero

The other main event these last weeks has been our two-person show at the gallery near town center. We opened “encounters/encuentros” on Friday, November 4th. We had an evening of wine and conversation, surrounded by friends enjoying the artwork we’ve created, most of it in the last year and a half. We met so many enthusiastic people that night who were generous with their support. Sales have been somewhat slow but Stefanie and I both feel this early period will be one of getting exposure and recognition and it would be a mistake to assume that massive sales will result immediately. If I’m saying the same thing two years from now I might need a reality check. Now is time for patience and more work. We take turns during the month-long run of the show, sitting in the courtyard full of bougainvillea and orange trees outside our gallery door. The gallery itself is above the old stable in the former home of Ignacio Allende. Where horses once fed we can offer to humans a treat for the eyes.

It’s a different story doing the art thing on a full time basis. The show is just one of several balls we have in the air right now. We’re in the midst of applying to about 8 different art fairs in Florida for the months of February and March 2006. That has required us to make slides for most of our new paintings as well as slides and duplicates of our tent and displays of our art. Because we’d never taken slides of the tent with everything displayed, it meant that we had to put up the tent and some of our art work to take slides of both Dave’s and my work separately when we were in McAllen in late August. Texas summer heat made for an early morning start on the task and bucking a not-so-gentle breeze that started up soon after we got things in place. Our to-do lists have expanded and shrunk depending on what next big project has loomed on the horizon.

I don’t mind juggling multiple “balls.” All my past professional life has served me well in that regard. One learns to simultaneously manage a dazzling array of tasks as a nurse, that is if you’re to stay effective. But ferreting out the shows, designing promotional strategies, seeking grant funding all must happen alongside the act of inspiration, the thing that makes and keeps us doing the art in the first place.

I admitted to Dave not so long ago that I had come to realize I hadn’t anticipated that part of being an artist full time. The part that requires that in spite of show rejections, gallery rejections, grant rejections, and low sales I still need to find inspiration. Painting is a breeze when things are coming your way. All that positive feedback by way of sales, acceptance into shows, and other accolades serves as a magical lubricant to the creative juices. I’ve not had the happy experience of this phenomena regularly, but the sporadic sales and elation of getting into a show have always tantalized me with their heady possibilities. But when “no” is the more common phrase one hears it’s easy to get caught up in the questions that buzz around your brain attacking your intensions, your efforts, and finally the work itself. Is it good enough? Will it ever be? Am I up to this? Do I have what it takes?

Being successful as an artist is usually equated with regular sales and consistent acceptance into shows, and most times gallery representation on top of all that. While there may still be rejections from time to time they are fewer and less frequent. For now we’re still struggling to achieve that height. So until then, we keep buggering on, as Churchill and his fellow Englishman are famous for saying. Keeping up the good fight with faith that what we have is more than enough, and that with effort we’ll finally get to that happy place of recognition and all that it entails.

A very generous interpretation of events from you, my dear lifelong north-sider. I'm still not exactly sure what went wrong during the pedagogical phase, maybe nascent rebellion (at ten?), maybe it was the performance of the two teams in my formative fan year of 1964. Maybe I was just following the hype (Sox missed the pennant by one game that year, Cubs were 17 out). I do know that brother Pete went to a Sox game in '63 or '64, so I can remember being eager to do like my big bro'. My case was thoroughly hopeless in short order since modeling tends to fix permanently at that stage (if I got my "Child Psyche" right).

And hopeless was certainly the word for over 40 years, lost in the wilderness, eating locusts and honey (many locusts with small spoonfulls of honey in '83, '94 and 2000) until Sunday, October 16, 2005 rolled around. Stefanie and I were curled up down here in Mexico around the softly glowing computer screen watching the updates flash on our play-by-play scoreboard screen, all the while listening to ESPN Sox Radio chime in a half-beat later with the audio accounts (all via mlb.com). When it came down to two outs in the ninth and the scoreboard on our screen read "ball in play, out(s) recorded", we both went over to my desktop where the audio had been cued up and cranked the volume for the words I've waited to hear since I was ten, "The Sox win the pennant! The Sox win the pennant!".

Hours later after soaking my long-abused loyalties in the sweet balm of victory, I went to bed repeating those words. I tried them out again this morning and they still sound highly unusual.

It was quite a run. How can this team that was gasping for air down the stretch turn on a dime and run off twelve out of thirteen? And against the Indians, Red Sox and Angels, three of the four strongest Al contenders in September? My only regret is that we couldn't mangle the Yankees a little bit while we were at it.

I'm glad you can enjoy, crazed Cub fan I know you to be. I know I'd be on your bandwagon if the roles were reversed. As for those Sox fans who still are inclined to freeze out Cubs fans for enjoying this, I say just let it go. At this point in time we're supposed to be patronizing, not CRUEL! This one's for the whole city! Getting to the World Series is a battle in the trenches. Once you win the pennant I say, pitch the big tent and invite everyone in.

I've been e-mailing back and forth with a pathetic (but comparatively more rewarded) Cardinals fan friend of mine. He has been warning me about the obstacles presented by Astros pitching for several weeks now. I would dearly love to see those Cards win tonight and get on a roll so we could face them in the World Series. Maybe beating them would pour us a dram of sympathy from the those supplicants to the Wrigley Shrine. Then "my enemies enemy is my friend" can be the pivot as long as Cub Fans can remember who the real pains in their keester are.

You're right about the personalities on this team. A nice ethnic mix. No superstar hydocephalia (yet). A heavy current of ice water flowing in veins of guys that give every indication they don't realize what the fuss is all about. And Ozzie. My favorite player in the late 60's was Luis Aparicio. In the 90's it was Ozzie. And now this inflection-impaired goof returns to Chicago and promptly dumps a World Series in our lap.

If I'm dreaming don't wake me.

Dave

Where do we start when it seems like the whole world could basically use a good spanking. Me included. I’m no big fan of corporal punishment but maybe just this once it might be justified so that we’d all WAKE THE HELL UP! I don’t think we’d suffer any lasting emotional scars.

Yes, we’ve been naughty (some of us more than others of course). Some of us have skated on our responsibilities as citizens. And sure New Orleans is a Party Town. But that doesn’t mean Katrina was some big ham-fisted house-frau bringing a willow switch down across the Big Easy’s bare bottom. I mean she struck Biloxi too! Most of those folks only head for the riverboats on the weekends.

So that’s not it. I noticed even Pat Robertson kept his mouth shut this time.

Maybe it’s a wake up call then (the people down at the desk are usually pretty darn good about doing that). That’s a much less punitive image for me than that old proverbial lightening bolt from heaven. Too incomprehensibly arbitrary. More like that friendly little phone call from the hotel’s computer where you pick it up half asleep and know you got your wake up call just about the time you realize nobody’s there.

Let’s hope we’re all in the shower by now. I could’ve used five more minutes.

I heard it was “just one of those things” and indeed it was, if by that you mean, “I have absolutely no clue”. I really wish I knew why some of “those things” happened but if I did I’d probably have a whole lot of explaining to do to some very pissed off people. I’ll understand it a lot more when I watch the Hurricane Katrina special on the Nature Channel. They can break out the old “awesome power of Mother Nature!” and “nature’s fury” to help me capture the moment.

I prefer to think of it as “One of life’s little Category 5 mysteries.”

The whole inept response by the designated governmental agencies was painful to behold. But then they were caught off guard. Maybe our expectations were too high. You know its one thing to be screwed slowly over the course of a lifetime by faceless bureaucracy. Its another when the whole thing happens on a weekend.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t mean to minimize the suffering. My attempts at humor here can be read strictly as survival mode after a very traumatizing experience. I’m only just now re-emerging from a dark bunker. While my eyes get adjusted to the light I’m acting kind of giddy with the thought of having survived. They say what doesn’t kill you makes you suffer (I think that’s right…). Anyway, I heard some really stupid things while I was down there. Come to think of it, there was a bit of an echo…