One year to the day.

May 30th marked our #ONE year in Todos Santos and we are happy to be in a town where everybody knows our name.

It’s a good feeling.

The fiber of my people.

Through the year after attending special regional celebrations like the one for the Patron Saint of Todos Santos “Saint Pilar”, the local dances in the town square, watching the whales go by and/or sitting to watch one of the surfers catch a wave I have started to carve my own space in this small piece of the earth.

It has all come back to me: the fiber of my people, the color of my country, the freshness of the sea water, the comfort of my own language and inevitably the nuances of my culture.

I giggle inside my head when I see the little car with a big speaker on the roof driving around promoting a restaurant, a new business, a politician or the next dance over the weekend. Or, look out the window when I hear the honking of the fish guy, or the gas truck, or the water delivery guy. Which one of them is it today?

It pains me when I hear the cry of the man who walks all over town saying “Vendo ollas, vasijas, tarritos y muchas cosas de barro”, over and over again. While he carries a big load of pottery on his shoulders. Or, when I see the 80 year old skinny guy, wearing his big old hat, push the ice cream cart all over town. Up and down busy streets.

The need for survival is the norm in every third world country.

Casa Montemar

Mid-February the beach house (which we named “Montemar” after my Grandmother) was ready for us to move in. Still with a few rough edges but mostly finished we made our move. It was so quiet, and it was so special to sleep & wake up to the sound of the waves crashing. This is a dream I always had and never knew I could actually experience every day.

This is happiness to me.

Christmas (Navidad) 2007

Christmas was special and spent with our family here in TS. We went to pick our tree from one of the neighboring desert hills. The tree has a long stem and horizontal branches with a dried flower at the end. It is about 6ft high. And it’s “dead”. This tree happens to be the flower of the agave cacti. And when it dries out it can actually be cut without hurting the plant. The horizontal arms give space to hang the ornaments. We just strung blue lights around it and it looked gorgeous.

Winter.

An opportunity arises to take over a small bakery business in town. George, in the last years has become an incredible chef and got very excited about the possibility of this part time seasonal business. Without too much thinking from the brain but mostly thinking from the heart we jumped. And the next few weeks were spent learning how to make bread.

Making bread is a noble business we thought… and it is.

December 1, 2008 we opened “Peace and Loaf” Bakery under cloudy skies and pouring rain (…it only rains 5 days a year in TS). Nevertheless lots of people showed up, the skies slowly cleared and the bread was baked and sold. The following four months the bakery was opened twice a week and I was able to spend less and less time in my art. My hands were getting sore from the kneading of more and more bread to fill the demand. But every ounce of work was worth it. The community came together in our little bakery. There was congeniality, sharing, eating, laughing and living. It brought life to us and we think to the town. Visit www.peaceandloafblogspot.com

6 Weeks in Connecticut.

A previously planned exhibition took me to CT for the month of September/October.During this time in addition to the events tied to the exhibition I spent all my time visiting our daughter, friends and creating some silk screen prints with photographs I took in Mexico. Everything seemed so very familiar; I kept driving to my old house instead of the friend’s house where I was staying. The visits with my friends were like a second round of “despedidas” (good byes). After the 6 weeks went by and I found myself back in TS, I realized how much I missed everyone and how connected I still was to my life in the US. It totally threw me for a loop. I had to start my adjustment exercise all over again.

It made me think that we are animals of routine, and it’s so easy to fall into the familiar.
We have to work hard at being open to new experiences and particularly new ways of doing things.

But soon enough the bumps on the road, the dust in the cars, the rooster’s crow and the occasional wild horses running loose on the country roads settled me back in.

Then another jolt.

Digging our heels.

As the months went by we dug our heels and decided TS would be a good place for us to stay beyond our sabbatical year. The next stage was dedicated to finding a permanent place to live. This led to the building of a beach house. A creative project encompassing doing something we had never done, the use of different construction materials, building trust on our contractor and workers, placing positive energy on our patch of land and managing our costs.