San Miguel de Allende

There's a place that I like to go to when I am stressed.  Although I've physically have travelled there many times, most of the times I take the journey in my memory.  It's a tranquil place.  A place where I hear birds sing, children laugh, and church bells  ring.  It's a place full of life yet you only want to sit, sip coffee, or drink a cold michelada.  The Place:  San Miguel de Allende, GTO, Mexico.

It's a place of mangos and melons and cobble stone streets.  You walk and you talk with friends new and old.  I like to think of  San Miguel as my mental oasis, a refreshing renewal place.  It's a place where I can gather my thoughts, yet feel like I am still participating in the life that is happening all around me.

Simplicity is a complicated thing.  How can so little be so much?  It's something that I don't understand.  A theorem to be proven true, I suppose.  I know that in the details of a single element, I find the essence of what just is.  In experimentation comes the peace of understanding.  So simple and so complex.

A stranger walks by and I wonder about where his journey leads.  We seem to be on the same cobblestone path, but we are headed in what appears to be different paths.  Should I follow his lead?  The only frills he has are simple broad brimmed sombrero to protect him from the high desert sun and a back pack of provisions for the day.  He seems to know his destination and I wonder if I should follow him. I don't know where I am headed right now, but I don't seem to care.  Should I follow him?

From mango to melons, I wonder what is missing for me.  i look at a vegetable stands and the answer is obvious.  It's a medley of onions and squash.  That's it...I need more variety in my life:  its time to harvest what's missing.

The lone sojourner, a simple man, is gone and I wonder if I can retrace his steps.  Why retrace them if I can find a better path?  Perhaps I should do that instead.