6:45 a.m. in San Miguel de Allende
6:45 a.m. in San Miguel de Allende is preciously still.
From my balcony in Los Frailes, the high desert looks like it’s just woken up, too. The presa—our neighborhood reservoir—still wears the blur of sleep, its edges swollen from the rainy season. This time of year, the rains transform the desert into a sprawling, jungle-green landscape. Mama egrets crisscross the sky with twigs in their beaks. Hummingbirds joust over yellow flowers taller than my house. My old chihuahua stretches into the folds of a fleece blanket. Inside, my daughter is still asleep.
This may be the only moment I get to myself all day, and it’s soft with stillness. At 6:45 a.m., the world is mine. I don’t check my phone. I don’t open my laptop. I just sit, breathe, and watch the desert pulse.
Before my daughter was born, I never noticed how much one could live in a single hour. Now, I count it all: the way the breeze lifts the scent of lavender from a neighbor’s garden, the soft thrum of insects I can’t name, the occasional rumble of a bus climbing the hill. Everything feels like it’s holding its breath, waiting to decide what kind of day it wants to be.
Tourists come to San Miguel de Allende for the colonial arches, the manicured gardens, the Catholic churches. Most stay close to the heart of it all—where the monuments are lit up at night and the mariachi bands play on cue. But I live on the edge, in Los Frailes, a sleepy neighborhood named for monks but ruled by stray cats and retired Canadians. I’ve fallen for these margins—the garambullo berries that burst with juice in the Plaza de Los Enamorados, the neighborhood dogs who wag their tails from a block away, the people who wave even when I’m covered in glitter glue and peanut butter.
We have a playground, a corner store, and plazas where you can buy ripe mangos and hot muffins, and catch up on the latest neighborhood gossip: who wasn’t invited to whose birthday party, which señora hasn’t paid her housekeeper in weeks. Sometimes, the abuelitas chatter about me while I’m sitting right next to them—usually because my daughter isn’t wearing shoes. On Saturdays, the local market sets up folding tables and pop-up tents. The vendors know my daughter by name. She steals cherries when she thinks I’m not looking and climbs onto the tables like a tiny politician. I tell myself it’s good for her to be known, even when she’s being a menace.
In two hours, we’ll be running late for preschool. She’ll refuse to wear shoes again, and I’ll forget the lunchbox on the counter. She’ll pick flowers and hand them to strangers. We’ll tumble down the hill, past bougainvillea and broken sidewalks, jumping in puddles left from last night’s rain.
About the Author
Kelsey Erin Shipman is a writer, ghostwriter, and recovering Texan based in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Her work has been featured in USA Today, The Austin Chronicle, and HuffPost. She is the co-founder of Write Up, an online community for writers who want to make a living without losing their minds. When she’s not ghostwriting cookbooks or memoirs for clients, she publishes her newsletter Cheese Toast with White People and chips away at her own memoir about food, family, and the strange inheritance of Southern whiteness. She loves big dogs and breakfast tacos.
Illustration by Jane Demarest.
Edited by Aube Rey Lescure.
