paulmuses

Our second January in San Miguel de Allende

This is Rebecca and my second January in San Miguel, a central Mexican city of 75,000, much more than a respite from the USA Iowa cold.

How can I capture what I mean for you?

We walk sidewalks like this every day.

Which requires constant attention to the person coming toward you — and she to you. Because we’re 73 and 75, more often than not, it is we who are accommodated. Regardless of who makes the first move, it’s ego-deflating to think every moment about the other. And then be grateful for their pivot.

Of course, some hold their ground.

For a gentle stroke.

The weather, you ask?

Generally sunny and around 70 Fahrenheit by mid-afternoon, dipping to 45 degrees at night. Unfortunately, climate change has shortened San Miguel’s brief rainy season, causing severe water shortages. (source)

Are we making things worse with our jet-fueled arrival and departure, daily showers, and eight glasses of water? In San Miguel’s case, the WE is considerable as around 10,000 ex-pats, primarily Canadian and USAers live here.

Last night, we attended a literary reading on a packed cafe patio. Four American authors read from their work, including a Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist. On Sunday, we couldn’t get tickets to an interview with Margaret Atwood by Martin Fletcher, a retired British journalist who we used to watch on PBS. Instead, we enrolled in a Lifelong Learning course on writing and storytelling, which Martin will teach next week.

This week, twenty-five mature students joined me for a course I taught on the 2024 U.S. Presidential election, also a part of the Instituto Allende Cultural Center’s LLP. Volunteers run this 19-course program. No one is paid. During our last week, we’re taking “Jung’s Map of the Soul,” which should help us recover from the election.

Speaking of civic renewal, sometimes art captures a feeling, externalizes it, and helps one move beyond. Say hello to my therapist, who works for free in the San Miguel Public Library’s cafe.

There are art galleries everywhere in San Miguel. Our favorite is the Fábrica La Aurora in a renovated textile complex, where I found this piece titled “The Search for Truth.”

Sometimes, a different environment can tweak what should be a constant quest in our lives. What is the truth about Donald Trump’s re-election? What is the essence of 10,000 North Americans descending on a Central American country? And why do I feel safer in a cartel-infested nation than in my own country?

Before I leave you, let me show you our accommodation. You’ve seen the view from the third-floor terrace. Here’s the gated front entrance common area.

The complex has four apartments. Rebecca is working at our dining room table. Just to her left, is a galley kitchen.

We have three small patios.

Where we ponder life’s truths in this phenomenal country.

This story was published in Medium’s Fiction Shorts.

A Drabble is a concise 100-word story that respects your busy schedule. Your presence here matters. Please stay on the page for thirty seconds so you will count as a reader. Thank you.

The story will be based on the image of a nicely garnished tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwich.

*

She still feels guilty, every Friday.

Today, a Friday, lunch will be fish sticks. Later, coincidence or not, Father John will say mass in the common room. She’ll attend the Unitarian service Sunday morning.

She raised her children in the Faith, as did her mother. But Kathy hated anything orange and Peter said those crusty filets looked too much like fingers. And Bob — how she misses him — was a Protestant.

So it started with hambugers on Friday. And ended with priests covering up for other priests.

She loves the food here, except on Fridays.

And isn’t fooled by the garnish.

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Random word challenge #363: Horses

This tale was published in Medium’s Fiction Shorts.

A Drabble is a concise 100-word story that respects your busy schedule. Your presence here matters. Please stay on the page for thirty seconds so you will count as a reader. Thank you.

This story is based on this image.

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I’m not like Silver, Trigger or even Mister Ed. They were famous horses.

And full of themselves. All glitter, colorful bows, and pretty wrapping. Fragile. Easily shattered. And now, forgotten.

What does Thoreau say? Most live lives of quiet desperation.

Whether horse or human.

You’re like me, I’ll wager. No one would ever wrap you up and put you under a Christmas tree. Life has taught you to see through all that.

Now, at this ripe age, we’ve become friends with unrequited desire.

Disappointment doesn’t destroy us. Common wears well; fits comfortably, like an old saddle.

Yours truly, Mister Ordinary

Random word challenge #360: Monstrous

This story was published in Medium’s Fiction Shorts.

A Drabble is a concise 100-word story that respects your busy schedule. Your presence here matters. Please stay on the page for thirty seconds so you will count as a reader. Thank you.

The last line is Happy Christmas to all and to all a good night.

---

It’s a monstrous responsibility.

There’s something different about this night, even for nonbelievers.

Can you hear it? The silence. Wars have stopped, all too briefly. Yesterday, I overheard two old friends greet each other after years of separation, hugging with a heartfelt Feliz Navidad.

Everyone carries a little bit of childhood throughout life. And a lot of pain. I can’t make the suffering go away. But I’m part of the world’s magic — a cool breeze on a hot day.

However, I need your help. I can’t do this alone.

Please!

Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

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Why couldn’t it have happened to this aunt, Sister Marilyn Thomas? She had worldly and other-worldly protection. Besides, this cowboy had just returned from protecting Davey Crockett, alias Fess Parker, at the Alamo. He would have lassoed or caught it in his coon skin cap.

But it didn’t. More on Sister Marilyn and my unlucky Maryalice shortly.

The year is 1957, and a lot is happening outside the Gardner household: Sputnik, the Little Rock 9, Elvis on Ed Sullivan, and the Cuban Revolution.

Inside, on a typical day, my father, Paul, worked as an engineer at Bendix Corporation. My mother, Dody, managed three children: myself, eight; my brother Peter, six; and my other brother Pat, three. There’s also a one-year-old beagle, Sam, who Santa placed in a squirmy turkey box the previous Christmas.

As you can see in the photo, Dody had been busy taping Christmas cards on the living room wall. Did she stand on a step ladder? Did my Dad help her? Did I? I have no memory of the process.

She would live in this house for 65 years, hosting Christmas’ for roughly half a century. Fortunately, she gave up the card wall after this incident. Violence and change were afoot, not only in Cuba.

Mom died in 2017 at the age of 96. I never asked her where the idea for the Christmas card wall came from. Or why the out-of-your-sight Aladdin lamp-shaped purple glass planter that lay to the right of the cone-shaped thing on the mantel under the cards sat too close to the edge?

*

Uncle Al, Aunt Maryalice, and cousins Jim, Dan, and Terri arrived from Des Moines late one morning, a few days before Christmas. Sister Marilyn, whom we called Fawny, had come from Dubuque the day before. She got the name Fawny because little brother Al couldn’t pronounce Florence, her given name.

Fawny was staying with her mother, also Florence. My maternal grandfather, Al Sr., had died of a heart attack in 1944.

Before I return to the foreshadowed event, I must say something about my mother. Normally high-strung, the string tightened when high-maintenance Al visited. They were cut from the same mold. Each married a calming presence. Maryalice was a red-haired, sweet woman who died of diabetes at 42 in 1970. My father, who exuded equanimity, died of sinus cancer at 71 in 1993. Interesting. Edgy Al lived to 88, my mother — no sense repeating myself.

Sister Marilyn, who refereed the Dody and Al matches, died in 2019 at 103. She had been a BVM (Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin) for 75 years. A traditionalist, she wore the square coif headdress long after other BVMs had changed to a rounded one.

My family only used the living room during Christmas when Dad lit a fire from logs piled in the garage. In the photo, you can see a corner of a fire screen to my left. You can’t see a handle or damper that opens and closes the chimney flue. Dad needed both hands to turn the damper, which he would do before dropping the first match.

On this day, Aunt Maryalice sat on the floor with her back to the fire guard. When Dad cranked the damper, the vibration moved up the brick wall to the mantel, nudging the triangular front of the heavy glass purple planter off the ledge where it glanced off the top of the fire screen onto my aunt’s head.

*

My WW II Coast Guard medic Dad retrieved his usual assortment of bandaids, cotton, and turpentine and treated her wound while my mom picked up the unharmed planter and took it to another room. I don’t think she ever put it back on the mantle. Uncle Al helped Aunt Maryalice to a chair across from the fireplace. I noticed a little blood, but otherwise, she seemed OK, if a little stunned.

The cousins waited patiently for the signal to attack the gifts under the tree.

Whenever I recall this incident, I wonder why Mom didn’t see the danger. The mantle was her territory, and everything was in its place. But the planter must have nudged out just enough that all that was needed was a little jolt. My mom was a worrier who always erred on the side of caution. Under normal circumstances, she would have put it somewhere else or suggested that Maryalice not sit under it.

It must have been because she was so distracted: three young boys, a challenging brother, a cloistered sister, an aging mother who lived alone, and organizing those cards. But there was one additional thing.

Our family always celebrated two Christmases, one Protestant and one Catholic. On Christmas Day, we traveled forty miles to my dad’s Protestant parents’ farm in Tipton. Paul Sr. and Edith hosted their five grown children and families. Christmas Eve was with my mom’s Catholic side.

Mom always felt underappreciated by her mother-in-law because of the religious difference. And she always resented that her mother had never been invited to spend Christmas Day at the farm.

She must have been stewing over all this, so she never noticed the purple planter was waiting to fall on Aunt Maryalice.

By the evening of that day, this incident would begin its journey in Gardner family lore.

Without it, would anyone remember the Christmas of 1957?

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Challenge #350: There is no random word or twist today

This story was written for Fiction Shorts.

We’re free— no random word and no twist, except today’s story will be a Drabble n’ a half — 150 words.

Freedom’s just another word for…

*

Setting: Church Bar, Baltimore

John: “Bill, you look a little down tonight.”

Bill: “Today’s my birthday, 75.”

“We’ve known each other for, what, ten years. You don’t look your age. Your two Bobby Burns are on the house. Why so down on your birthday?”

“John, do you believe in something more than us?

“If you mean a god, no. After all, I’m fixing drinks in a former church.”

“But humans have always created gods, something around 18,000. Doesn’t that mean something?”

“Maybe we’re afraid of being alone. If there’s no God, it’s up to us.”

“That’s what scares me, John. Have I lived all these years never really taking freedom seriously? I’ve always looked up and taken directives from someone, starting with the god of my childhood. Now that I’m nearing the end, I wonder, what if we really are alone?”

“It’s a start, Bill, another Burns?”

“Scotch, straight up.”

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Note: The idea for the setting for this story came from an article on churches that have been turned into bars. The idea for the title and theme came from my life-long spiritual quest and this article on spirituality.

Desperate, I read Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol for the first time in December 1972. I had just replaced — I’ll call her Mrs. Cratchit because I don’t remember her name — who had been driven into early retirement by the 44 6th graders sitting before me.

That’s right, 44. It was a Catholic school. My Catholic first-grade class had 60.

I say sitting, although that sounds like a regular classroom with a teacher in control. It was nothing like that.

Sister Nancy, the Principal who hired me, was also desperate. Mrs. Cratchit, to save her sanity, had decided not to return after Thanksgiving break. I would learn later that this group was the subject of several evening meetings with parents. Sister thought a man might bring order to the chaos.

I was 23 and had just earned a teaching certificate. With a few education classes, a student teaching semester, and a few months monitoring study halls at a local high school under my belt, I was a babe in the woods.

With a penis.

About to be thrown into the fire.

*

The penis part was relevant not only to Sister Nancy but to that young man. I quit every night, and I mean EVERY night, for the rest of that school year because I thought I was in over my head with no hope.

It wasn’t just the unruly kids. My academic major was Sociology — wasn’t it everyone’s in the early 1970s? But I had a self-contained class, meaning I taught everything.

I’ll leave math for another day. English was hard enough — there’s a reason I’ve hired Grammarly! Rooting around my classroom closet, I found copies of The Christmas Carol.

I bet you didn’t know there are exactly 44 characters in this Dickens classic. Of course not, but we read it out loud and acted out a few scenes. I also ordered the 1938 Alistair version from the local Education Agency, which is still my favorite.

*

Only in hindsight do I see that I was slowly figuring out this teaching gig. I’ve linked below a story about another nun who helped me figure things out.

At the moment, it mainly was chaos. And what it means to stick with something very hard without knowing exactly how it will end.

In May 1973, I handed out 44 report cards. Then, I went to Sister Nancy’s office and signed a contract for the following year.

I had become a teacher.

And had taken a step toward becoming a man.

To that kid, the experience suggested the possibility of redemption — an internal resource he has carried with him for fifty years.

Random word challenge #352: Sharp

This story was published in Medium’s Fiction Shorts.

A Drabble is a concise 100-word story that respects your busy schedule. Your presence here matters. Please stay on the page for thirty seconds so you will count as a reader. Thank you.

The story will begin with “as gray as the day was…”

---

As gray as the day was long, he thought.

He urged the minute hand tick in Geometry 65 years ago: five minutes and the bell. Are these those lost moments?

He thinks of her every time he sees a birch tree. Somewhere, he learned dead trees sustain life in a forest.

She often recited the day’s poem to him. Today’s shared “the quiet diminishment of daily life” just before the first sharppain.

Thank goodness for this bench. She liked sitting here; he was restless, anticipating the next tock.

He memorized it for this final moment: “Celebrate the meager light.”

---

The poem in the story is “A Gray Day” by Elena Shvarts.

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If Grammarly can quit, so can I

*

The protruding tongue is not meant for you.

Unless you are Deanna Bugalski 💋, who asked, “What are you judgmental about?”

Or Rodrigo S-C, who answered in his inimitable way.

Here Comes the Judge
Tiptoeing into dangerous territorymedium.com

Both were over there in the corner of my writing room with their arms folded in condemnation as I wrote another story this morning. I thought, they’re right, I really should be writing about this judgmentalism deal.

But to finish THAT story I imagined aiming my tongue at them. You know, what we did when were eight years old.

Even Emmy Lou wonders when I was going to get around to this story.

Of course, astute reader, you know I’m projecting my critical assessment about what I should be doing onto Deanna, Rodrigo and Emmy Lou.

And playing it lightly with a tongue-in-cheek approach.

---

Judging is forming an opinion about something. Who wants to give that up? Who could give that up?

What do you think about Donald Trump?

Was slavery a good thing?

Is Global warming caused by human behavior?

Do you like Grammarly?

I’m guessing you have an opinion about each.

However, judgmentalism is something else. It’s having an overly critical point of view. That’s where I struggle, have always struggled.

So much so that my deluxe writing assistant has, much to my confusion, refused to render judgments on this story, other than “nice job, you made that look easy.”

I’ve tried everything including misspelling words and, the ultimate test, typing old man. Old man usually brings the politically correct god down, as in “The term old man might be considered disrespectful.”

Nothing works. The G stays green even after the yellow frowny face.

I’ve shut down Medium, Grammarly, and my MacBook Pro. I’ve even copied the story and added it as a new story — the Green G mocks me.

Grammarly eagerly flashes purple for my email, Facebook, and Medium comments’ transgressions. For six Medium drafts as well.

I feel like the narrator in Edgar Allen Poe’s Tell-Tale Heart,

Am I mad?

---

Or, perhaps, Grammarly is teaching me a lesson, by momentarily dying for my sins.

Judgment is fine, it’s saying, but judgmentalism — having an overly critical point of view — is going too far. It’s a lousy way to go through life.

For example, this morning I went out at 7:15 AM to get us coffee and pastries at a new shop downtown. As I manuevered into the empty parking lot bordering the darkened store, I squinted at the tiny hours sign: 8 am — 2 pm M — S.

All the way home I muttered over and over, what coffee shop opens so late, particularly one just getting started. Why aren’t the hours BOLDENED AND IN CAPS.

And why have I let my car’s dashboard get so dusty?

Medium, taking control and channeling 2001 Space Odyssey’s Hal, seems to be saying “Who wants to go through life this way?”

Instead, why not, as a default perspective,

Take the advice of the Christmas hymn, “All Is Well.” 

I’ll give it a go.

I hope you do as well especially after you’ve counted the cumulative grammar mistakes in this story.

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Random words challenge #346: Attempt, Century

This story was written for Fiction Shorts.

A Drabble is a concise 100-word story that respects your busy schedule. Your presence here matters. Please stay on the page for thirty seconds so you will count as a reader. Thank you.

*

Irene: “Can we sit next to him, Gramps?”

Gramps: “OK. But let’s not bother him.”

“Maybe he wants to be bothered.”

Old man: “How old are you?”

“Eight. How old are you?”

“Do you know what a century is?”

“One hundred. What’s it like to be 100?”

“I’m not sure. Today is my birthday.”

“Did you get a present?”

“Not until now.”

“What about a cake? Can you blow out 100 candles?”

I will attempt it. I live around the corner with other old people. Would you join us for cake and ice cream?

“Can we, Gramps”?

“Let’s eat cake.”

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