Guanajuato Day 15

Last night we have a lovely dinner at an Italian restaurant that’s been decorated with tons of folk art, painted furniture in bright colors and woven fabrics, heavily carved beams. European cuisine is welcome after a week of burritos, tacos and enchiladas, although the kids fall asleep waiting for the ever so slow service. I forget how meals are really a time to relax, and not a rushing, re-fueling station they tend to be at home during school time. The restaurant over looks the centro and one of the churches had a light show in which the windows light up from the inside with various hues, like passing fancies.

More rain on our next to last day and I do a spin class in the morning to replace my morning hike up the hill to school. I already miss the morning conversation class and requisite grammar practice which I will have to keep up at home if I’m ever to beyond this level I’m at.

The Diego Rivera house where he was born, now houses some of his non-mural works, which reveal his many varied styles, from pointilism, to cubism, to representational portraits and a style which I can only liken to Koonig. I was only familiar with his murals which are fantastic, but these pieces reveal so many talents and also the evolution of his subject matter from traditional oil renditions of wealthy family members to the depiction of socialist topics in his later and bigger works. Frida Kahlo was featured in one room and heavily in the gift shop. Of course, she’s much prettier to look at than he was, but the museum was really about him and his work so I was disappointed not to find a gallery book as I was caught taking the only 2 pictures I got.

The rain is beginning to get a little boring even to this desert dweller, and I wish I had my cello for practise while we wait out the thunderstorms. But I like the groove we’ve gotten into, with lunch at the Senora’s and then more exploring in the afternoons and dinner at some new place. The kids are trying to convince us to adopt the 2 german shephards on the roof nearby as they’re convinced they’ve been abandoned. Someone finally came up to clean up all their poop so we’re relieved that they’re not truly strays. I am understanding more and more their desire for a pet, although I’m not quite ready for the responsibility which will ultimately be mine as I’m at home more. Some of these big brown eyed creatures to just cry out to be taken home, given a warm hearth and a few thousand strokes behind the ears.

As our visit draws to a close, I feel unfinished business. Not sure what I had expected to accomplish here; certainly benefited from the Spanish immersion, but also had some ideas about international living. Perhaps because my childhood included so many wonderful experiences in other countries, I have a peripatetic gene which went dormant for a while and has now awoken. This stay was too short to have a real sense of living/working abroad, but I did approach the school about coming back to offer a workshop I’ve recently been trained in and I like the idea of bringing my limited talents to places I want to know more. I love this cross-roads where people come together from different places with a common goal and hope to make this kind of “vacation” a habit.

These 2 pictures of Rivera’s caught my attention for their different textures and imagery. The Virgin receiving her “saliva” from the tree in all her fertility and the woman holding her hair. As I know a little about Rivera and his treatment of Frida, and perhaps women in general, I wondered if he held a Madonna/Whore dichotomy vis a vis females. Don’t know enough; would like to know more, but at any rate appreciated both these pictures for their divergent depictions.