Shadows begin to form in the early evening, thick stones in old city walls seem less heavy and ancient, a softness wraps itself around the Parque Colon, the Santo Domingo Cathedral, the bars, restaurants and hotels in the Zona Colonia.
This World Heritage old city is a well visited area, picked by Unesco to celebrate because of it’s culture and history. In the evening, the sun light switch turns down in slow degrees and people come out to sit on benches, visit, watch tourists, and enjoy the feel of a place where Christopher Columbus once walked.
Plaza Billini recognizes the efforts of a well loved and respected Catholic priest who founded hospitals and orphanages in Santo Domingo. Plaza Duarte celebrates one of the founders of the Dominican Republic who was, ironically, a poet, writer and activist instead of being just a military man brandishing a sword and riding a horse.
Tonight, there are bursts of life coming from all directions. There is the Chu Chu train passing our two plazas taking visitors for a tour, explaining dozens of important locations where important people in Dominican Republic history lived and played their part on life’s stage.. When you walk the streets here there are plaques on the walls of residences everywhere that remind you that these blank faced, neglected buildings once contained living breathing hero’s and heroine’s.
Staying in the Zona Colonia, even a few days, lets you forget International Airports, freeways, Interstates, sky rise apartments, business complexes, urban scrawl and our modern world.
Our modern world has gotten too quick, large, and complicated.
Sitting in a little Plaza, off the main business streets, makes my world more intimate, personal, and endearing.
When was the last time we wanted to hug New York cities tallest skyscraper?
This little plaza is dedicated to an important poet with a simple stone inscription.
Pellerano was a man who moved to the Dominican Republic from Curacao, stayed, and also raised a daughter, Luisa Castro, who was one of the most influential woman writers of Latin America.
” La Nuestra, ” is a glowing statue in the plaza of a Dominican born poet and activist, Judith Burgos, who died of pneumonia in Harlem at the age of 39 who was, likewise, a shooting star.
Little niches pop up in the Colonial Zone as you walk, with simple signs on walls saying this was the residence of a past President, this was where a playwright wrote his searing social criticism, this was where a priest was martyred for his beliefs, this was where the first hospital in the New World was established.
Poets use few words but the words they use must fit exactly, contain enough punch to outlast time with time’s changes of culture, etiquette and politics. Poets write about grand things as well as things as minor as a cup of tea, a morning walk, or a cat sitting on a window sash as the sun rises on a bougainvilla bush outside the front porch.
This is a quiet little plaza towards the south of the Zona Colonia. on the same street as the Larimer Museo and the Cathedral at Parque Colon.
Societies recognize their fleeting spirits, the ones who touch clouds, see deeper and farther than the rest of us.
This plaza is a small intimate poem you read out loud to yourself on a warm March morning as you stroll the shaded walkways.
This Palace was built as a present to the son of Christopher Columbus who raised his family in the substantial home when he was the Governor of the Dominican Republic when this country was still controlled by Spain.
There are many rooms inside but there was no electricity back then. Chamber pots took care of personal business, hot baths were drawn up by servants for the ladies of the house, food spoiled quickly. Heat for cooking was generated by wood fireplaces and the multiple kitchens of this casa and government headquarters were located outside the home because smoke got noxious in the main house.The bedrooms have no closets and you look out at vistas through openings cut into stone walls.
Walking through the outdated casa, the huge, thick, stone walls are not cozy. The clothes displayed on mannequin’s in the entry were made for royalty, hand made with the finest cloths and craftsmanship, but they are restrictive in a climate that is hot and humid. These stoic figures have crosses around their necks to remind us and them that we are all here by the Grace of God and life is both dangerous and difficult.
The poor, in the time this Palace was built, didn’t own homes and ate the blandest of diets. They had few clothes, no personal vehicle and no cell phone. They hadn’t been to school, couldn’t read or write, and could be put in jail or killed without a trial.
It jump starts me to see how things have changed for the better for so many more people over time.
More people, in developed countries, are now closer to being equal in stuff than they have ever been, but why has stuff always been the measure of a countries or person’s value?
The LaFonda Hotel has been a fixture in Santa Fe going back decades.
The current hotel was built in 1922 on a downtown site where the first Santa Fe hotel was built in 1607 when Spaniards came to town. It is on the register of the Historic Hotels of America, was once owned by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe railroad, and from 1926 to 1968 was one of the famous Harvey Houses that took care of train passengers riding from back East all the way to the Pacific Ocean.
In the 1900’s this was the favored haunt of trappers, soldiers,gold seekers, gamblers and politicians. The hotel, in the 1920’s, was designed by Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter and John Gaw Meem and is still a favored watering hole for New Mexico state legislators and government officials who populate Santa Fe, the capital of New Mexico, affectionately called ” The City Different” by those of us who live in our state.
Santa Fe itself has long been a refuge for writers, artists, movie stars, and the local newspaper, ” The Santa Fe New Mexican ” is the oldest continuously operating newspaper in America. The world famous Santa Fe Opera is close by as well as Canyon Road with a gallery every other mailbox.
Up to Santa Fe for the day, Joan suggests I visit Boston. I’m thinking the Boston Tea Party Ship and Museum would be my cat’s meow.
While the LaFonda Hotel is super comfy, charming,historical, quaint, revolutions always ring my bells.
Joan misses some ambiance, on the phone, fixing who is watching her kids , and when, with an unaccommodating ex in Boston.
Fortunately for me, I haven’t fought in these kind of revolutions, and divorce and wedding bells, remind me of cannonballs whizzing by my ears.
This group belongs in cabarets in Berlin, London, Paris, after World War 2, without the smoke, SS Officers and floozies.
A first response to new music is often to discount or find faults with it because it is new. Another response is to recognize new music as new, overpraise it, and find no faults at all.
I leave criticism in my back pocket. If all music were the same, or all posts, or all websites, or all opinions, or all people, it would be a sadder world.
During one of the songs, vocalist Tina Panera, holds a hat up and sings a sad song about ” this old hat..”
I am enchanted.and drop a crisp bill into Tina’s old hat so she can buy herself a less comfortable new one.
Musicians know lots about tip jars, old hats, sad songs, war and peace, love, injustice.
You hear some great music in airports when you least expect it.
I’m getting whisked back on a time trip in the Albuquerque Sunport International Airport and I don’t even have to go through security or board a plane.
Wars experienced vicariously are much better than those you have to fight in.
Some sculptures exhibited are behind glass, others are open to visitors to peer at closely, peek at the small shadows in the creases of the faces. Some of the work is utilitarian, made to ornament balustrades and pillars. Other works stood in temples before kneeling worshipers and burning incense.
Antiquity never quite leaves us, though we try to leave it.
Conserving the past, especially if it is someone else’s, is precious.
The Amarillo College Museum has several floors and this Friday, after Thanksgiving, Alan, Cousin Jim and Scott ,visit both floors.
On the second floor, one of the museum’s permanent exhibits features sculptures carved from sandstone dating from the 1st century in Thailand, Cambodia, and India.The sculptures have been donated to the college by local Dr. William T. Price and his wife, Jimmie Dell Price. The exhibit seems an anomaly in Texas cow country with windmills, barbed wire fences and branding irons crossed over gateways the usual West Texas artistic themes.
When these sculptures were begun, the craftsman/artist started with a simple block of sandstone and then carved away sand till they reached what was in their mind’s eye. There is no going back with this art, no pasting sand back. If you make an error the entire sculpture is ruined and months and months of work are annihilated.
These sculptor’s, like brain surgeon Dr. Price, work slowly and meticulously with sharp instruments, good eyes, and patience.
These artifacts are safe here from the bumpy unknowable future.
The past is like a fine piece of china riding in the back seat of a car, with bad shocks, going down an unpaved mountain road.
This museum is that same car, safely parked in its garage, and the fine china purring in the back seat like a contented cat.
This home on wheels was originally owned by a couple from Louisiana who traveled from town to town with a carnival. They sold kewpie dolls and prizes, and, as far as we know, lived as happy as the Old Lady who lived in a Shoe.
Inside, it is roomy enough for a couple that gets along.
For a couple that doesn’t get along, there is no house big enough.
This car is no longer a car. It is a piece of family history.
In high school, Weston started banging out its dents, measuring from A to B, searching the internet for alternators and chrome. In college, he was home for holidays and fashioned new panels to replace rusted steel and grinder smoothed the rough welded seams. This week, he is back in the garage, with his dad, getting the El Camino ready for its final paint job.
He hauled his project to Thom’s country paint and body shop last week on a flatbed.
” You guys did a great job on this, ” Thom says, running his hand over the metal curves of the car, lovingly. ” We don’t see much here we have to do, a couple of coats of primer, a little touch up and then two coats of paint. She will be a beauty…. ”
When you have spent hours and hours wearing respirators, paint dust all over your levi’s and buried in the creases of your shirt, it is good to hear compliments.
After the paint job, Weston and his dad will haul it home, put in the glass, the seats, attach the chrome and dashboard, hook up the electric and lights, start her up and take her for a victory lap around the block.
This 1960 El Camino will find her place in parades, car shows and Sunday afternoon drives.
These old fashioned lawn chairs, made from steel with curved welded parts assembled in some long closed Iowa factory, have moved several times from their original homestead, on Bellamah Street. They used to sit in our childhood back yard under a cherry tree that grew tart cherries for Mom’s pies.Their final stop finds them in my townhouse front yard under a shade tree.
These two used to be a factory sprayed green,but, in succeeding years ,were hand painted white to match changing decors.They used to share back yards with green swing sets but now are the only surviving outdoor furniture from our elementary and preschool days..
Moments ago a freak summer hailstorm blew into Albuquerque and this photograph, just after the storm, is ghost like.
I can see my parents sitting in these ghost chairs, mom sketching and dad reading the newspaper.
I too will be gobbled up by time.
Till then I enjoy reclining in one of these chairs on warm evenings, watching the stars late at night when they are the brightest, listening to the wind rustle leaves above my head.
I’m planning on stripping off their paint, down to the metal, re-priming and re-painting them green.
Putting things back the way they were has been on my mind a lot lately.
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