ROUNDABOUTS noon on a spring day is the perfect time to sit in the yard with an electronic book.
If the natives have nothing to celebrate, which happens often enough, you’ll find a smooth calm. The air will be cool. The sky will be blue. The breeze will be blowing stiff enough to wiggle the wind chimes hanging in the nearby veranda.
At this hour the hummingbirds will be dining about the bottle-brush tree and so will butterflies. Sparrows will be chirping.
I’ll be sitting in a mesh chair next to the glass-top table, and I’ll be shaded from the sun, which grows a bit brutal in spring, by the big brown umbrella. It’s a good mix altogether.
Two things might disturb this scene. One is that I doze off, which is common, no matter how engaging the book. This does not affect the calm. It simply renders it moot for moments.
The other is that a freight train will blow by, but this lasts no longer than 60 seconds, and the calm returns. The butterflies and hummingbirds don’t seem to notice.
Even on a calm spring midday, I like the passing train especially since it’s brief. It sounds of vagabonds, a life that appealed back when I was very young.
This midday peace is broken when my child bride comes out of the house and says she’s ready to go to the restaurant.
She looks very pretty.
Sounds like a lovely day for a lovely lunch. I fall asleep when I read print books so I switched to Audible. Much more engaging and I can re-listen if I want.
BTW, qué pasa en la Meseta Purépecha?
LikeLike
Carole: It was, and continues to be, a lovely day as I sit here awaiting sundown. As for what’s happening in La Meseta Purépecha, well, I got no clue specifically. Apart from what happens here on a daily basis. It varies.
Today there was a calm afternoon.
LikeLike
Thought you might pick up on a local news station now and again. Something violent is lurking there.
LikeLike
Carole: The Meseta is a huge chunk of Mexican real estate. There are always some bad boys up to something or other.
But here, it’s utter calm.
LikeLike
Carole: Just found what it was you were, I imagine, referring to. Like most such things it took place out in the boonies and involved the Mexican version of hillbillies.
https://goo.gl/E8FuT6
LikeLike
Lovely. I can almost duplicate the scene in our little homestead here in Dixie. I too, miss the trains, which I imagine are more viable in Mexico. The gov’ment has ruined the railroads up here.
LikeLike
Ray: We have plenty of freight trains, but passenger trains are gone. The only rare exceptions are some relatively short tourist lines.
Alas. Pathetic situation.
LikeLike
What happened to the much promised return of passenger service? like most political promises, gone like a fart in a high wind.
LikeLike
Like a fart in the wind indeed, Señor Gill. Sure would be nice to have passenger trains again. I’m not holding my breath, however. Could prove fatal.
LikeLike
I should have sat down to enjoy the day. It was lovely here, as well. We have had some unseasonably pleasant weather (here that means cool). Instead, I started whacking away at one of the four vines that require being brought to heel.
LikeLike
Señor Cotton: Physical labor too can be soul-satisfying. I don’t diss it.
LikeLike
We get that feeling of calm around 2:30 every morning when we can hear the distant roar of a freight train. I have no idea which direction it’s headed, but it’s a sign that all’s well, more satisfying and reassuring than a velador’s whistle. And shortly after the train races past, the hum of traffic slowly builds, trucks headed toward Morelia from Patzcuaro or maybe in the other direction or maybe a little of both, signalling that a new day’s on its way.
LikeLike
Ms. Shoes: Yes, the night calm comes too, and it would be around that time when everyone finally shuts up. And the occasional train passes here also, but being far nearer it cracks the calm quite effectively. But then it goes away. Some train engineers are much more enthusiastic with their bells and whistles than are others. We prefer the more considerate of them.
LikeLike