I’m not good without a timepiece. I want to know the time. I want to have a structured day. I want to have a list. The list is handy for checking off tasks completed. If you have no list to check off, how do you know that you are moving forward?

Without a watch… without a checklist… I am lost… at loose ends… without an anchor… without a goal. I’ve never quite gotten the hang of “living in the moment” which seems so short-sighted. Decadent. Shouldn’t our lives be purposeful and lived with intention?

"Bahia Morning" Barbara Strelke

Beach life doesn’t really work for me. I feel as though I am in a box under the Christmas tree and it is only November.

Given that we are on the Sea of Cortez, off the Pacific protected by Baja, the surf is gentle. It is the reassuring, sleepy-time surf that a baby must experience in its watery womb. The surf is the soothing voice of the anesthesiologist who puts the mask over your face and asks you to count backwards from ten. The surf wraps its arms about you and whispers in your ear. List? What list?

Lethargy descends. I am immobilized. It seems like too much trouble to make a list.

I much prefer waking to the energizing sound of a rooster crowing. San Miguel de Allende is a great place for roosters. (I could wonder if the number of roosters correlates in any way to the number of cock-fights, but I don’t go there.) The competition between roosters is fierce. One rooster will crow and others, each trying to out-do the others, chime in.

Roosters and church bells – the only way to wake up.

"The Farmers Daughter" Audrey Johnson