A friend, an artist friend, was from this family who owned a ranch that she inherited. Her grandparents built it. Her mother and aunt got to pick out the furnishings for their rooms. It wasn’t something you’d expect to see in the house so far as architectural. It was The style of their times. And gave it a liveliness unexpected.
The remainder of the home was complete with hand made furniture that reflected the architecture of the home. It was placed in a desert setting, oil country and had very high ceilings. Like my Victorian home, too, with transoms for the hot air to flow out of the house.
I’m sure at times I was there two weeks at a time. Other times, a month to 6 weeks. I recall walking in the dry gulch looking for fossils a lot. This used to be an ocean. It was the Permian basin. We found many fossils. Left some at the foot of the bannister. Others I have tucked away somewhere.
Her mother taught at Cranbrook and write the definitive book on textile design at the time. She’d moved to the budding artist colony of San Miguel de Allende and was a founder of San Miguel as an artist colony along with her boyfriend from around there. When my friend graduated from art school she moved there with her mother for 10 years.
She’d married a part Arabian man from there and had a child but left with the child returning to the US and started a dye business. Her mother was in that too.
Anyway it was a nice change of pace at times to be there and later I traveled with her and her son and his friend to Mexico, the city and San Miguel and other villages and cities.
Her friend was the secretary to the son of the president of Mexico. She was away so I stayed awhile in her home before going to stay in another friends home.
Everyday we met for lunch and took the boys and later were invited to dinner parties. The invitation might be fir 6:00. That meant, at 6, start think ng about going. Then think about getting ready. And it meant. Don’t show up too soon. It was perfect for me. That’s how I operated.
There were gallery openings, authors from everywhere. And international intellectual conversations. It was not like anywhere in the USA.
We drove to the city for a few weeks and stayed in the Santa Rosa district. The city was referred to as Mexico, not Mexico City. Ii took the boys to the museum of archeology and to the pyramids while my friend arranged an art show.
In town walking around men whistled and whispered at me and if I’d paid them attention, they’d have followed me. So you try to ignore the sounds you stir up while walking in town.
Later I returned often to San Miguel. I stay with a friend there. My old friend passed away. She was a relaxed and interesting person who had lived an interesting life. It was nice being exposed once again to Mexico I started going there from my home in the east of the US as a very young child. I felt at home there.
Well we’ll do this is the ranch house and I have photos of SM . I may post some later. This house had 100 windows there wasn’t much to do there mostly relax and read and watch out for snakes and collect fossils
I thought about buying it at one time but I really wasn’t that in to the desert, the skies tho, full of stars at night. Deep in the Heart of Texas!
