IN MEXICO--A PERFECT FIVE MINUTE STORM

I am alone in Mexico at our home in San Miguel until my husband joins me in ten days
I had a moment happen to me late in the afternoon yesterday. It felt that way--like it happened to me.
It was a nice moment.  I had cooked dinner (which I don't do often when I am alone). I had cleaned the kitchen( which I don't do often when I'm alone). I had poured a glass of wine (which I don't do as often as I should when I am alone) and headed out to sit on the 'balcon' to enjoy. I didn't bring anything to read (which I don't do often when I am alone).

So I sat and sipped. It was the exact moment when the sun does its best work. All shadows were dappled. I looked out at pepper trees and palm trees in the mid-distance. The sparkle was just right to make every tree look like it was hung with tinsel (the old tin tinsel) They were streaked with a blinding shine. 

Next I heard a piano. A real piano, not a keyboard. We live above a popular hotel, Villa Xichu,
that often has weddings and quinecenera celebrations on the week-end. Let me just say that there is no sound system as loud as a Mexican party sound system. I once retreated to the closet to sleep and had a guest seriously ask if we couldn't pay to make the party stop!! Not so much arrogance but desperation. 

So the piano was puzzling and lovely. Then the opera began. Gorgeous accomplished voices rose to the balcony like a private serenade. In my pajamas with my wine and surrounded by beauty I had exquisite music appear.  My clacking battering humming birds (did you know they're not nice birds) arrived and just sat on their feeder. Next a sub theme of one bell sounding joined in. (The trash collectors announce their arrival with a lovely incongruous bell. Next the church bell joined in clanging to announce a Lenten Mass. It's not a great bell but it's 'our' bell and we love it. The chapel was built in 1540 and holds 100 people if we crowd in. Finally the mourning doves provided the descant. The kids choir at the Mass could be 'just' heard. A private concert for my balcony pleasure.

The moment hung fire for about five minutes. Then came applause and trucks with grotesque mufflers groaning and roosters crowing and a siren and a goat bleating and a Pollo Feliz
advertising truck blaring a Happy Chicken special sale. The phone rang. One symphony was over and another had begun. Both muy Mexicano.

Later I learned there had been a competition for young Mexican opera talent and I was hearing the winners perform.