Rest in Peace

Day of the Dead is just a few days away. I like to start looking at the cemetery before it is filled with flowers. This morning as I walked down the road approaching the cemetery there were a lot of old cars parked and many people standing around waiting. I wondered if maybe they were waiting for a funeral procession to arrive but while I was there no funeral procession entered the cemetery. When I left there was a man with a clipboard surrounded by people, some young men with tape measures.....so I guess that somehow spaces are being assigned or bought for the booths of flowers and food vendors that will line both sides of the street. I've wondered how that happened. Seems like there could be a few fights if there wasn't some method.

There were some men painting the outside walls of the cemetery. Sloppiest paint job I've ever seen. For months the street will be dotted with bright blue splotches about three feet out from the wall. And inside the cemetery there were already some painters repainting tombstones, Jesuses (Is there a pural for Jesus?), and Angels. One Jesus had a fresh coat of metallic gold hair and beard. I've never understood why painters seem to think Jesus had light brown or blonde hair but metallic gold hair I really don't understand. There were a few flower arrangements already in place on the large family plots. Also a few families cleaning up around the graves. But you could feel the anticipation of what was about to happen.

While I was there I talked with two photographers. I knew they were serious photographers because they had big tripods, the latest digital cameras and some expensive lenses on those cameras. Oh, and also both of them were packing two cameras, one on the tripod and another over their shoulder. I told them that on November 1, the cemetary would close at sundown. They were surprised. They had assumed that they would be able to take photographs like the ones they have seen where there are many candles and people stay all night at the cemetery. They were the second group of photographers I've met in the last week who had come to San Miguel de Allende to get THE Day of the Dead photograph. What happens here in San Miguel is wonderful and colorful but people don't camp out all night at the cemetery.

One of the things that always facinates me no matter what time of the year I go to the cemetery are the crypts that fill several walls that divide the cemetery into sections. Each individual crypt is decorated as the family sees fit and according to what they can afford. I always feel like I'm looking at folk art as I walk past stacks of crypts on the wall. I wonder what happened when the person died young, or who are the hijos who are waiting for a mother, did she die of a broken heart.

I'll probably be at the cemetery every day for the next few days just to see it blossom.