Under San Miguel's spell

When I reached what I call the Continental Divide of my existence — age 50 — and discovered half my life behind me and half in front (or so the longevity in my family would lead me to believe), I was perplexed. Should I head east? West? Should I stay in the milieu I have called home off and on for most of my life? Or would it be more productive to shake it all up and recreate myself?

As I pondered the possible geography of my future, many tempting locales came to mind. Yet none stuck with me quite as tenaciously as San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.

Built into the side of a hill, San Miguel faces a plateau edged with craggy mountains that cut the sunset into fiery splinters. For half the year, the landscape is arid and Arizona-like; the other half, it’s a lush, flowered spectacle. Recently dubbed a UNESCO World Heritage Site, most residents merely wonder why it took so long.

San Miguel's undeniable draw

I’d been six times in 12 years. I’d made friends there — in Spanish lessons, on bird walks, at yoga classes, by connecting with expats whose conversations I overheard in cafés and while reading the local English-language newspaper in the world-famous central square, the Jardín.

The small colonial town had always been kind, returning me to my northern existence reinvigorated and relaxed. But now the question about going back was more pressing: I needed a setting that would encourage a new sense of purpose. Silly me, I thought, a place doesn’t do that — you do. But still, San Miguel had always had a nurturing effect, prompting me to explore my creativity much more profoundly than I would back home.

I decided to rent a house and, in my quest to discover how others had evolved in this magical environment, I met Sandra Gulland.

A sylphlike blond of virtually indeterminate age (it’s hard to believe she’s 65), Gulland’s successes are well known: The internationally bestselling The Josephine B. Trilogy, based on the life of Josephine Bonaparte, is published in 15 countries and has sold more than a million copies. I googled “Gulland” and discovered she’s also
a tech diva, with active blogs and a super-busy Twitter presence, who has spent the past 29 years living and raising a family in Killaloe, Ont. Most importantly for me, she resides in San Miguel five months of the year.

“My husband and I were looking for a spot to go in the winter,” Gulland recalls of their mission. “We knew the place had to have an arts culture and we had to be able to drive there. We came to Mexico and toured around. When we got to San Miguel, I said, ‘We don’t need to look any further.’ That was 13 years ago.”

First, they stayed with friends. But as their ardour grew, it made sense to buy, even if it meant a full year of work to turn a 17th-century ruin into something livable.

Finding a balance between home and away

“What we have at home in Canada is grounding because we have deep roots and old friends; what we have here is stimulating — I like that balance,” explains Gulland. “They’re completely different lives — one is out in the middle of nowhere and one is right in the thick of things. Sometimes, in San Miguel, I feel like I’m at a feast.

“The physical beauty really knocks a person out — you just go around with your mouth hanging open and smiling all the time. Every day, I say, ‘Boy, is this ever beautiful.’ And when I head down to the Jardín, I typically run into two, three, four people, have a chat and go back home. It’s an extraordinary place full of people I enjoy.”

As for Josephine B., much of the second and third novels of the trilogy were written here, as well as her fourth novel, Mistress of the Sun. “In many ways, San Miguel is similar to the 17th-century world where my characters lived [in Mistress], especially the intense Catholicism of the village life,” says Gulland, who attended church services and stayed at a nearby monastery as part of her research.

“When I turned 40, I read a self-help book that said, ‘Imagine the words on your tombstone.’ The words I saw were: ‘She never got around to it.’ I realized if I wanted to write I had to start doing it. San Miguel is where I went to work on my second novel, Tales of Passion, Tales of Woe, and my third as well. It has been a place of creative retreat for me.”

What will her epitaph read now? “She did it.”

As a role model, Gulland is sublime, as I too am seeking the creative path. But what about someone who’s trying to make a career here — who, like me, hasn’t yet found fame and fortune? My quest for inspir-ation led to an encounter with Shannon Reece, who lives in San Miguel full-time. She’s gone local in a way I’ve never imagined for myself.

As 54-year-old Reece manoeuvres seamlessly among friends at her art opening ­— such events are de rigueur Thursday evening rituals in San Miguel — it’s clear she has found both her calling and her context.

“It was just before Christmas 1993 when the person who sat beside me in art history class told the story of a friend who lived in San Miguel studying photography. It sounded like the ideal place,” Reece recalls of the first time she heard about the town with the perfect climate. “Eventually, she convinced me to visit even though I didn’t know a soul. I got the name and number of a Spanish teacher who lived in a hotel. She booked me a room for $50 a month. The next thing I knew, I had a plane ticket. That was the year I received both my BFA [bachelor of fine arts] and my final divorce papers.”

Making it permanent

After two months studying photography, Reece decided she wanted to live in San Miguel year-round. She returned to Canada to pack up her old life and everything fell into place. Well, almost everything. Reece grew up in Westbank, a small town across the lake from Kelowna, B.C. “I have 41 cousins there — my whole family. It’s like a clan. Some of them said to me, ‘You can’t move away. You can’t do that.’ I told them it wasn’t because I don’t love Canada — I do. It’s just that there’s something about Mexico that really attracts me.”

It wasn’t long before she met a Mexican actor who became her boyfriend for five years. Cultural differences pulled the relationship apart. Mostly, it was attributed to what Reece refers to as the “open door policy” that happens in Mexico when the entire family lives together in one place. In this case, it was her modest rental house.

“The whole Mexican thing is there’s no my space. There’s a space where your family is and, as far as my boyfriend was concerned, he’d have had everyone he ever met and loved in his life under one roof. In the end, I needed my space. It wasn’t understood why and never will be.”

In spite of the failed romance, Reece is as confirmed as ever about her decision to move here. Since she can’t make ends meet solely as an artist, she also works as a teacher and organizes estate sales through a local website.

“San Miguel felt as though it was supposed to happen — I was looking for courage, like the lion in the Wizard of Oz, and found it,” confirms Reece. “You need a lot of courage to be an artist. When I got here, I finally started breaking my own myths about what I could and couldn’t do, and haven’t looked back.”

I admired Reece but realized I was more scarecrow than lion. Since my brain seems to suffer from seasonal affective disorder, I wondered if anyone else similarly afflicted might have come here seeking a solution.

It was indeed the sun that attracted Vancouverite Joanna Francis, 39, to San Miguel. She had heard light would help with her debilitating depression. “I spent much of my early life buried away, sick,” she says. “Then one day, I pushed myself out into the world.”

Francis arrived in San Miguel a decade ago with the intention of studying painting and drawing, but ended up pursuing jewellery making. “I feel like I belong, that this is my town,” says the tall, fit brunette. After a year, she met her restaurant-manager husband while working as a waitress. The couple has two children, Diego, four, and two-year-old Maria. Today, Francis teaches yoga four days a week. “Like everyone who comes here, I’ve had to learn to be a lot more patient, to not get frustrated as easily,” she says. “Mexicans don’t fight reality, and I think that’s one of the most valuable things they can teach us.”

When the conversation turns to raising children, Francis says she believes her two kids have a stronger sense of community growing up in San Miguel than they would have elsewhere. “I think many people arrive looking for some kind of grounding that they don’t have back in North America or Europe. My kids have had that from a very young age, so they can go anywhere and always know there is a special place where they belong.”

Finding myself in a foreign country

After four months in San Miguel getting to know my compatriots, I understand why they have chosen this place: Each woman connects to a part of herself here that she couldn’t do as passionately elsewhere. As for me, I’m still on the fence. Unlike Francis, I haven’t learned the patience required to accept the noisiness of living in Mexico. Fireworks boom night and day, dogs bark incessantly and it seems to be a macho badge of honour to drive a car without a muffler. Plus, the San Miguel of a decade ago, when people passing on the sidewalk always greeted you with a “Buenos días,” is no longer. It’s a bigger, brasher place.

Yet I have thrived here in ways I’m just beginning to realize. I can be on my own, away from my husband and cats, and not feel that life is passing by without me. I have created a new social circle with good friends, both expat and Mexican. Plus, the sun shone every day of my tenure. That meant no winter blues and a pretty regular smile. I walked everywhere and actually lost weight — unheard of Canadian winter experiences. In a relatively short time, I carved out a niche for myself and felt I belonged.

To this day, one of those silly smiles spreads across my face when I recall the riot of primary colours, raucous fiestas and toothpick-legged burros laden with wood clopping along uneven streets. The elegant elder stateswomen with their hair fastened in chignons and rebozos wrapped around their rounded bodies continue to permeate my mind, as does the sight of young girls learning tricky folkloric dance steps, glasses of water perched on their heads.

San Miguel helped me realize that, regardless of age, the place where you feel the most connected is where you should be. For now, I’m still casting my net about the globe, but I’m certain I’ll return one day — maybe even to finish the novel I started there.

Looking for more warm-weather getaways? Beach bummin' in the Caribbean and touring Hawaii might hit the spot. Nurture your creative soul with jazz-filled Cuban nights and a writer's retreat in Nova Scotia.

This article originally appeared in the December/January 2010 issue of More