END OF SUMMER UPDATE
Summer is over? Well, that was fast! The chill in the air these mornings in San Miguel is a refreshing change for those of us who live here. But days are still hot, with intermittent breaks for a little rain here and there. With it comes dazzling cloud formations, outrageous lightning and thunder, torrential downpours, followed by sunshine that clears away the water so fast you'd hardly know it had rained. Right on target for our rainy season.
Many of you have told me that you just can't get away for an entire month, so I've recalibrated the possibilities and can now offer them to you. There was a cancellation last week, so as of right now, there is availability from October 2024 through February 2025. So now, I present you with the whole scoop about the rental!
CASA ELENA: A Room of Her Own
Solo Women’s Retreat Space in Mexico
Have you yearned for an experience in another place, something other than just a vacation? Perhaps a yoga retreat, or a chance to do some writing. Escape from your mundane or overly busy life, while contemplating what comes next. You also want inspiration, a safe place to land, and walking distance of everything from coffee culture to organic tienda. Come live in “the arts district” where your neighbors are international writers, poets, and other creatives. This solo residency casita offers a meditative yet energized space in San Miguel deAllende, ‘the heart of Mexico.’ Hole up in your beautiful casita, and take workshops in art, jewelry making, yoga, cooking, or writing, they’re all available at your fingertips. At Casita Elena, it’s always your choice, on your own schedule.
Your terrace casita features:
Deliciously comfortable Queen bed, with sheets, pillows, and blankets provided. Heater in the winter, fan in the summer.
Kitchenette / Cocinita with refrigerator, hot plate, toaster oven, coffee maker, electric tea kettle, dishes, utensils, water filtration system, and pull-out cabinet with cutting board.
Bathroom w/ shower, sink, toilet, toilet paper, towels.
Computer desk, 2 chairs, hi-speed internet.
One of two covered terraces surrounded by trees and plants, with dining or worktable.
About your lodging
Casita Elena is a living space, built in 2021 above my Artspace, at Julian Carrillo 1, in Colonia Guadalupe. Just 3 blocks to the central plaza, an easy flat walk, plus our neighborhood features long and easy walking/running paths and close-by parks. Restaurants and grocery stores within a 5 min. walk.
New Rates
Beginning September 1, weekly rates now available.
Price in USD: 1 week, 300. - 2 weeks, 500. - 1 month, 800. 15% discount May through August. Rates include weekly cleaning service, internet, and all utilities. Please note: “month” in this instance means 28 days, or 4 wks.
Getting here
Flights to Mexico City, Leon, or Queretaro airports. Ground transportation to your rental can be reserved atBajioGo.com. Please plan for travel time to San Miguel arrival before 7pm.- no late-night arrivals. (Airport hotels are suggested to avoid being on the highways at night or pre-dawn here) Check-in: 2 pm – 7pm, check-out: 11am
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Comments
by Roberta Schine
A few moons ago, I stayed in Casa Elena, a magic cottage, in San Miguel de Allende created with care by Lena Bartula. Just me, a mountain of Spanish grammar books, a pencil, and some fairy dust. I intended to immerse myself in Spanish. Maybe this would be the year I lined up my grammar, including those despicable imperfect subjunctives.
Before leaving New York City, I told a friend, "If I die and end up going to hell, the first thing I'll do is find the guy who invented the imperfect subjunctive and tell him to go to hell. So, to speak.” She said, “It’s your fears, Roberta. You need to open up more.” My response was succinct, yet, profound. “OY!” was all I could say.
For my flight to Mexico, I brought along some novels by Elena Poniatowska and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. As soon as the plane took off, their words began seeping out of my backpack, words like, "fear, mystery, magic, immortality..." Gabriel Garcia Marquez kept insisting that I unfasten my seat belt. "No way!" I yelled.
The first morning at Casa Elena, I brought my clay teapot out to my roof deck. Surrounded by beautiful mountains and participles dangling from purple Jacaranda trees, I drank in nouns, adjectives, gerunds and stem-changing verbs. It was all very pleasant. I thought to myself, “This must be what they mean by present perfect.”
Grizelda, my beloved Spanish teacher and friend, stopped by in the afternoon to work on vocabulary. When she told me the word for breast, (pecho) was masculine, (EL pecho) I wondered, “How could breast be a masculine word?” Jokingly, I told Grizelda I knew she was part angel and I asked her if she had a magic spell that could make breasts feminine (LA pecha). She said her divine powers were limited. (Looking back, that surprises me because teaching me to speak Spanish was nothing short of a miracle.) “But,” she continued, “I know an incantation to make the word “penis” feminine (LA pene). She jumped out of her chair and shouted “Abracadabra” as she spun herself around in circles eighteen times — counterclockwise, of course. And then, POOF! Penises throughout the land became feminine!
That night, I collapsed onto the turquoise blanket that covered Casa Elena's bed and, with my head submerged in a cocoon of Mexican pillows, fell into a deep sleep. The spirits who inhabited dozens of Lena's Indigenous huipils many past preterites ago left her downstairs art gallery and ascended the stairs where they cavorted around my room. The one with a lot of tattoos asked everyone what our pronouns were while another prepositioned me.
Then, the whole coven began sprinkling imperfect subjunctives into my brain. I heard them say, “Let’s do an exorcism for ridding fears. Gringos have a lot of fears, especially of the imperfect subjunctive.” More “Abracadabras.” My body began shaking.
When I finally stopped shaking a few days later it was time to emerge from my retreat, I stepped out of Casa Elena. Grounded in the cobblestone streets of barrio Guadeloupe, I opened my mouth to speak and flocks of imperfect subjunctives flew out.
"Si hubiera sabido sobre del poder de la magia, no habría tenido miedo."
"If I had known about the power of magic, I would not have been afraid."