San Miguel de Allende: Reflections Year II

John Gardner wrote of fiction as a vivid and continuous dream. Poet/musician Joy Harjo, at the writers conference, called language the response to destruction. One might describe San Miguel de Allende in the same contradictory terms: a dreamlike response to other ways of life that no longer please. 15,000 expats might agree.

Daily life in this overgrown pueblo is languorous, residents and tourists like fish swimming contentedly in a bubbling tank. No one rushes anything. Even I walk slower here.

It was the rhythm of the city I remembered from my first visit and what I suspect keeps people here. Rather than reactive, the pace is a steady easy ebb and flow, and it is this pace, the simple dignity of the good Mexican people, and the hybrid surprisingly sophisticated culture that has evolved, that is truly like nowhere else, surely nowhere I’ve been.

The days do not pass here on their way to the next. They are inhabited, much as I’ve tried to do in SoCal but, as they say, life there too often gets in the way. I think only surfers are able to completely stay in their moments, although they too are expecting the next.

I arrived early one evening at a rooftop bar to await my daughter and a new friend. For roughly 40 minutes, instead of reading [of course I had Kindle with me] I sipped a glass of wine, watched the sun set behind the giant elegant church spire that marks El Centro, and people wandering through the plaza. The sound of children's laughter filled the air. One of those rare moments when I had no book nor computer screen in my face, nor intensive thoughts on my mind. Nearly meditative. My daughter has urged me to do more of this and she is so right. Soothes the soul.

Only church bells mark the time here – and roosters, who contrary to myth, start early and keep on crowing. Sometimes they battle the bells at day's end. No fog horns, no trains or factories, and rarely a siren. One hears the breeze. Even the hummingbirds can be heard. And the "primavera" bird whose contralto starts high and diminishes as if a reverse musical scale. Beautiful sound.

At the writers conference I was taken with young Mexican women, sitting oh so straight and proud in their chairs, notebooks open in their laps, pens in hand, awaiting instruction as if from the Gods.

"Buenos dias" is more than said, it is sung, and at a favorite café they brew my “te helado” fresh and always add more ice because of course I am American; they accept my strange ways.

People passing on the sidewalk never fail to cross themselves as they pass a church – they do not halt in conversation or step, but never fail to fulfill their obligation, for better or worse.

Young men step aside on the narrow sidewalks to let me pass and almost always smile. This is after all a matriarchal society.

The Mexicanos with whom I’ve spoken are pained by the drug culture that is polluting their country and hopeful for better lives. One tells me she does not understand why Americans hate her people. Enough said.

The genius and genial professor-artist whose seminar on Zola I so enjoyed, said, after all, all the amenities we rejoice in come from somewhere. Sadly, we forget; we take for granted our blessings. Not so much here. She also spoke of the spiral as intellectual and spiritual metaphor, related to Proust and Kabbalah [never thought I’d put those two words together] as the spiral is open on both ends: wisdom accumulating over time, without end. Love this image.

A sweet Spanish teacher corrects every mistake I make [many] with a nod and a smile of genuine appreciation for the effort. Within moments, we were more than maestra and estudiante, we were friends. This happens a lot here.

The waiters at restaurants everywhere who delight in Dana’s fluency indulge my efforts to hablar Espanol and do not mock me when one night I order pescador, the fisherman, instead of pescado. Although, maybe I’d like to meet the fisherman!

“Nothing lasts in life, not even death,” Proust said.

“All the body wants to do is heal,” says Dana Kraft, Naturopath.

In the end, that is what might be the secret to San Miguel – a place to more fully inhabit the moment, thus to heal from whatever it is that ails us. Or simply to refresh. 

Se le recommiendo.

San Miguel Writers Conference 2012

The only bi-lingual bi-cultural writing conference in the world, the seventh year.

Scene: Four jam-packed days in the charming city of San Miguel. Close-up on the sprawling Hotel Real de Minas, set back from a noisy cobblestone street, tucked among bougainvillea and fruit trees. 200+ writers/editors of all types clustered to learn and to celebrate the written word.

Theme: "Creative Crossroads of Americas" and indeed it is. Canadians, North-Americans, Mexicans, a smattering of South Americans and Europeans, find common ground.

Hotel Real de Minas, San Miguel de Allende, MX

Voices: A huge ballroom filled to the brim with folding chairs facing a small stage, flanked by large original Mexican paintings, three times a day features remarkable keynote speakers: Canadian Merilyn Simonds talks about a sense of place and the divine [and hysterically funny] Margaret Atwood speaks of writing and hope. American Naomi Wolf advocates for advocacy in writing and native-American Joy Harjo of music and poetry as the gateway to the soul. Polish-Mexican Elena Poniatowska beguiles us with a cultural and creative history of her adopted homeland. She moves me to tears with her humility and dignity – truly I wanted to kiss the hem of her long red skirt. Sandra Cisneros makes a surprise appearance to read from a work in progress and to introduce La Senora Poniatowska whose stories I am reading and who continues to wow me. How sad that so few of her works have been translated into English and how sad that Americans so rarely enjoy the works of great international writers.

Elena Poniatowska

Workshops: Fiction, memoir, humor, travel writing, blogging, etc., and a literary salon on Emile Zola presented by Bea Aronson, a French ex-pat professor of comparative literature. Later that day, I ducked out of my afternoon workshop to enjoy her seminar on Proust. Aronson hosts a weekly salon her on all things artsy and if I lived here, I would attend them all. One workshop on fiction is good, others not so much, more for beginners, which thankfully I no longer am, although always more to learn, and not all workshops are raves, there is a bit of griping about teachers who have come to promote books, but one cannot expect perfection in any conference or event of this scope, nor so in life. 

Tally: 42 speakers and educators, including four agents who take pitches every fifteen minutes between sessions, a little like speed dating but we take whatever opportunity comes our way. Note: Two agents I pitch want to read my new novel SHE RUNS. Oh happy day!

Lunch: Buffet or distributed in colorful bags by sweet young volunteers, accompanied by spontaneous conversations of not only writing but politics, media, personal journeys. I encounter a local, Lyn Prashant, a grief therapist, who spent the first seven years of her life in the same building in the Bronx where I grew up and we share memories of friends and locale. I meet a smart sassy retired lawyer turned short-story writer who is already winning awards. A middle-aged LA back-packer searching for her "inner Latina" and writing her memoir, an Australian screenwriter turned novelist who is definitely going to be a huge success, a sweet young editor who moves around a lot with her Coast Guard partner and is peddling her own fiction, a retired ex-pat living in Oaxaca, among others.

Bea Aaronson

Fiesta: The second night, held on the grand at Insituto Allende, the place that put this place on the map, on the grand patio facing the glowing spire of the Parroquia in the Jardin [center of the city] features fun food and lively indigenous dancers, and another opportunity to cement new friendships. Ms. Atwood is seated at the table next to mine, and when she is suddenly alone for a moment, I chat briefly with her [okay, at her] and she is most gracious. I feel more accomplished by sheer proximity.

Sidebar: Throughout the day, in the lobby, on the lawn, sitting on stone benches, writers write - computers, notebooks, ipads, on their laps, words flowing on their pages. Perfect punctuation.

Closing: A production of an original play on Dorothy Parker and a final reception that I miss because I am beat and opt instead to have a quiet dinner with my daughter.

Epilogue: I am inspired, exhausted, over-stimulated. Blessed to be here, staying in Dana's gorgeous apartment, enjoying time with her and also the company of new friends and her lovely colleagues at LifePath Retreats. I feel honored to have been in the company of so many whose voices demand to be heard. More than ever, I am proud to say:  I am a writer. Soy escritora.

Footnote: Here another week, working, playing, taking private Spanish lessons, enjoying more time with Dana. Have computer, can live anywhere, and especially happy to be back in SMA – a blend of Santa Fe, Laguna Beach and Berkeley, grounded in Mexican culture and sensibility. Like no place else I've been. Muy Bien.

Music Saves the Day

Ah, the blahs of new year's day. Ornaments come off the tree to be carefully wrapped and stored for another year. The tree is dragged first to the backyard and ultimately to the Xmas tree graveyard, thankfully, as this is CA, to a site where it becomes home to tiny birds and at last compost.

Blankets, muddled by daughters and dogs, are washed and dried and neatly folded away. Floors swept. A few gifts remaining to be returned for credits. Final holiday wishes e-mailed and a few phone calls to those most dear.

Bills paid and the rent check ready to deposit. A last glance at last year's budget and this year's prepared for future reference. A few final invoices. A new diary ready for scribbling [I still keep one in my purse for personal items but the calendar is at Google!]

A new book opened for the first of the year's reading. An old book closed with a review ready for posting. The Sunday NY Times read cover to cover with its intermittently bleak review of the future. A good laugh at Bill Maher's, a delight in Pico Iyer's point of view. A Facebook posting, a tweet for good measure.

The daughters are back in their world, friends busy with their own. New Year's Day can be a lonely day, filled with chores and reparations. I am less present than I should be, more in readiness mode, but that is what this day is for me, among others.

The savior: music. I dig out a few of my favorite CD's - yes, I still prefer to listen to albums in their entirety as their creators meant for them to be heard. Joni Mitchell honored by others, an old favorite soundtrack, a bit of the blues, gospel, the boisterous notes of Adele. It is the music that saves the day, as it so often has through my lifetime, as I find myself swaying to the rhythm even as I box up ornaments and sift through bills. I sing aloud, I wonder once again at the enormity of the human spirit in sound.

Tasks accomplished, the future looks brighter because no matter what happens, there is always the music. Even beyond the traditions, beyond books and words, friends and family, there is always the music.

In praise of a great first novel

Plot yourself on your couch and enjoy a fantastical magical journey in The Night Circus. Oh these fabulous first novels... Read the review
Happy reading.

Living the Balance

Another year comes to a close. And it came so fast, again.

One after another, and they add up. We reflect, we learn, and we move on.

I don't do much in the way of resolutions but I recall that last year I promised myself to stay true to my goals of good health, to make just enough money to live comfortably, to live more in the moment and finish my novel. Unbelievably, even to me, always goal oriented, they have indeed been fulfilled.

So I suppose we can say this was a very good year. It was, Mostly. I walk almost every day, I read every day, I speak or see friends often. My daughters are healthy and following their paths with satisfaction and success. That alone makes for a very good year.

I have good clients and meaningful work. I don't charge too much because greed is not good. I did only one volunteer gig this year, need to do more. I support the charities I can.

I finished a serious draft of the novel I wanted to write and it turned out well. Okay, better than I hoped. Where it goes, that remains to be seen in the 2013 year.

I wrote book reviews all year [always wanted to do that] and a new column and of course newsletters and annual reports and grants, all to the best of my ability.

I traveled to Turkey, spent just one weekend in the wine country and not enough time but good time in New York and Connecticut, days filled with the best of friends, plus art and  theater and the many joys of the Big Apple.

Most of my friends are healthy and doing well, for this I am most grateful. However this was the year I lost the man who became my brother. Not a good year for dear David and his family and friends. it would be easy to let this great loss wipe out all the other gifts of the year, but this is life. Every year - the balance of blessings and sorrow. The balance of wins and losses.

Perhaps a good year is merely the balance. Thus, it's been a good year.

A time for change

Change is in the air - the very essence of fall, and, to a large extent, the essence of those of us who have reached the autumn of our lives. I embrace change. I often long for it. For so many others, change is feared. I've never understood why, but it is ubiquitous.

Many of my favorite moments have to do with change. That day every year our family stepped out of a dark frigid February, through the clouds and into the heavy heat of a Caribbeanisland vacation. The first chill of Autumn, colored by falling leaves, or the first days of Spring, backlit by hyacinths on the hill and forsythia along the side of the road.

The smell and feel of a new car. The rush of new furnishings and new shoes. Freshly painted walls. The first settling under the fluffy quilt that replaces the flat cotton blanket.

I am reminded often of Peggy Lee's "Is that all there is?" Her sultry voice whispers often in my ears. I cannot imagine the sameness of days, the permanence of place or work, the constancy of the same people, however much I find myself, now and then, admiring those who have that.

And now, I face a life ahead without my anchor. My dear friend is gone. Only memories to make me smile. This is the change, unwelcome and jarring, that defines aging. Loss, and its sister, longing, diminish the pleasure of change, unless we can accept, fully and peacefully, that losses define us as much as the memories and more than the promise of what will be.

I believe every day that the best is yet to be. A personal mantra. Although, of late, I might be happier to stay put in what is good, without losing anyone or anything - willing to trade intransigence for loss.

Then again, tomorrow I may change my mind.

The Werewolf Within

This blog for the most part has to do with change - within and without. Or, in contrast, the rut one easily falls into without sufficient change, even the littlest bit, day to day. Even reading the same sort of material, which I generally do, preferring literary contemporary fiction with an interesting story, can become its own rut. Thus, when presented by a knowledgable friend with a new novel that has to do with a werewolf, my first reaction was, no way.

And that is the AHA moment - why not try something that seems otherwise out of my range of interest? After all, it's just a book - not a paradigm shift. Following are the results. Once again, change is good.

This is not a book I would have read. Yes, the reviews were excellent. And yes, it is published by Knopf, one of the best fiction publishers in the world. Still, I don't read about werewolves. As a rule. But every rule has its exception and much to my surprise, I can wholeheartedly recommend THE LAST WEREWOLF by Glen Duncan. It is one helluva read. [And many thanks to Robyn at Laguna Beach Books for the heads up.]

Smart. Exciting. Philosophical. Jason Bourne crossed with Sherlock Holmes and Frankenstein. Erotic. Violent. Gruesome in parts, oh yes. Touching, yes that too, much as that seems unlikely. You will absolutely fall in love with the Jake – the last werewolf on earth after the systematic destruction of all others by an occult group bent on vengeance. But, as every action has a reaction, there are the others who want to keep him alive [I won't say more, too easy to spoil the fun]. Of course there are the moonlit victims. The lovers. The advocates. Quite a line-up of characters, all well drawn.

In the end, like all good fiction, the writing makes the book worth reading. The descriptive prose and existential angst reads like literary fiction. The voice of a lonely creature, not so different from all the lonely creatures who have wandered the planet for hundreds of years. "Humans are moving into a new phase, one based on the knowledge that talking about their feelings has never got them anywhere. The Demonstrative Age… I shan't be around to see it. That, since I asked the question myself, is how I feel, surer than ever that my clock's been right all along, that I've had enough, that it's time to go, that I really can't stand it any more, the living and the killing and the wandering the world without love."

I tend to see all good literature as metaphor, so I spent the better part of the book, while entranced with the complex plotting and captivating characters, wondering what it is that the author wants us to understand. Or, perhaps, this novel is merely a grittier sexier Harry Potter for grown-ups [although not so many wizards to keep track of]. I’ll leave that to you to decide for yourself, but consider this:

"Monsters die out when the collective imagination no longer needs them. Species death like this is nothing more than a shift in the aggregate psychic agenda. In ages past the beast in man was hidden in the dark, disavowed. The transparency of modern history makes that impossible: we've seen ourselves in the concentration camps, the gulags, the jungles, the killing fields, we've read ourselves in the annals of True Crime. Technology turned up the lights and now there's no getting away from the fact: the beast is redundant. It's been us all along."

Now you want to read it too, don't you? So, take a break from the classics or the mysteries or whatever reading rut you are in, and enjoy something as intelligent as it is improbable. Or is it?

And doesn't he just look like a werewolf???

Bravo to Glen Duncan.
Author of The Last Werewolf.
A great read.