by Laurie Wagner | May 24, 2022 | Blog
It was like this, you were in Mexico, and the moment you got there you wondered why you’d come. You tried to remember the plans you’d made months ago, why you thought five weeks south of the border was a good idea. Your story was this: you liked San Miguel, a big city that felt like a small town. You liked stepping out of your rented house on Animas St., how you literally fell into the flow of people heading into the day; the rag-tag group of kids with backpacks, mothers strolling babies, the bakery owner pushing open her doors, a man throwing a bucket of water onto the cobblestones. You liked cobblestones, how they huddled together like thousands of baby hippos, the short walk to the town square that took you past the school where Mexican teenagers in uniforms and pink hair lounged alongside grandmothers on benches. The churro man would be there, sitting in front of his pyramid of sweets. He’d be asleep in front of the pile by noon. And the balloon lady, she’d be there too, minding her toddlers, as she tied strings to balloons so they didn’t fly away. You knew that Pamela’s house would be perfect with its shady living room – a respite from the 93-degree heat – the big wall of bougainvillea in the courtyard that you could stare at from the couch. On the roof was a stand-alone bathtub where you imagined yourself floating in warm water, watching hot air balloons rise from the hills. You’d tuck into yourself a little more, get a little quieter. “This time you’ll fall...
by Laurie Wagner | Apr 12, 2022 | Blog
Last night I lay in a hot bath in the bright lights of my bathroom, watching a woman on TikTok, a stranger to me, a blond therapist with a soothing voice, assure me that in her lifetime, and in the lifetime of her parents, who are also therapists, none of them can remember a time like this. And so if you’ve been feeling tired or foggy, she continued, her eyes resting on me, if you find yourself drifting in circles around your house looking for the list you’re sure you set down somewhere, and which will dictate your next move. If you’ve veered from some sense of purpose, she says, if you find that your appetite for conversation and company has dwindled, and two hours with anyone is just about all you can muster… If you find yourself, I murmur aloud, as I lay in hot water, eyes closed against the brightness, if you find yourself declining dinner invitations because you are speechless, and there’s nothing left to say, if you find yourself at home alone, night after night – not because you’re afraid of a new variant, but because these last two years have taken the chat right out of you. How last week, you found yourself speaking aloud to yourself in the car as you drove to meet your friend, Laura, for a walk around the lake. “I’m well,” you practiced saying, “you know, working and…” the words stumbling out of your mouth as you readied yourself to be with another person again. If you find yourself looking forward to another episode of Bridgerton so you...
by Laurie Wagner | Mar 11, 2022 | Blog
I don’t know how to write about war. But I do know how to get up in the morning, after an election, a pandemic and an invasion in Ukraine, wipe the sleep from my eyes, and stumble into the day, angling myself to the promise of hot coffee, music and poetry. I don’t know how to write about war, but I can tell you about the picture I saw of a row of strollers that Polish mothers had left at a train station for the arriving Ukrainian mothers and their babies. And while I can’t tell you where the human corridors were supposed to be in Kiev, I do know how to cross a busy street in Oakland with my 26-year-old daughter, our elbows interlocked, me looking left and right, protecting my child as we head toward an outdoor cafe for a meal. I don’t know how to write about war, or how to pack a bag in ten minutes, or what to do the night before a war, how one young man in Kiev said he had planned on making a banana chocolate pie to bring to his work mates, how that same night he was online looking to buy a new game for his PlayStation, but how the next day there was no work, and no pie and he was researching Molotov cocktails instead. He is the same age as my daughter, who told me that she realized that for two years she has been working for 9 hours a day in her apartment for a large company that she is making rich, and that she is...
by Laurie Wagner | Feb 15, 2022 | Blog
How when I let my cat inside in the morning, he skims his body alongside my ankle, practically the only time he’ll make physical contact with me all day because he knows I’m about to feed him. I know I loved the morning coffee, but I didn’t know there would be a desire for more in the afternoon, and that sometimes I’d give in to that the way I’d give in to another game of solitaire on my phone, which I thought was me wasting time, but which my friend Catherine says is me simply finding another way to rest. I love all the green leaves from the trees outside my living room – a wall of green that enters my house – and how today I fantasized that if I were dying I’d want to bring my bed into the living room so I could watch the trees and take all that green inside of me. And at night, how, when I finally turn out the lights, I make my body into a comma, bringing my legs into my belly and pulling the pillow under my head. Or the way my hand moves instantly to my chest in the morning, a silent prayer to move slowly, to not tumble toward the list or check email too early – an attempt at keeping things fuzzy and unassembled and a little closer to the dream. I loved the idea of moving the woodpile. And I loved the idea of starting the mosaic project, as well as the collage project, but I didn’t move toward any of it. Instead I took...
by Laurie Wagner | Dec 27, 2021 | Blog
You feel pretty buttoned up. Your writing workshop is coming together like a dream. Twenty-two people. A small city tucked into the mountains of Mexico. You spend months organizing the hotel, the shuttles, sending emails back and forth with participants, extolling the virtues of the magical town; the giant puppets parading the streets, the churches lit up all baby pink at night, bougainvillea crawling the city walls. You bring in a bad ass teacher from New York, one of your mentors, one of the most inspiring writers you know, and someone you’re grateful to teach alongside. Weeks before people fly in, you write your opening notes, talking about what it might be like to write in this ancient city, saying things like, “You’ll wake up, you’ll let go. You’ll be asked to step into the mystery.” You love what you write. It’ll be a great beginning to the workshop. Some people might even take notes as you speak. And to sweeten the deal, your family is coming to town for Christmas, a week before the workshop. You imagine yourself strolling the square at night with your niece and nephew, your sister, your mother and your oldest daughter. Churches from the 1500’s line the path, violinists spring up behind park benches for impromptu concerts, churros ooze caramel, everyone walks the cobblestone streets in the moonlight with their arms around each other. You know how to make things nice, so you head to the Church of Immaculate Conception early one foggy morning, weeks before everyone’s arrival, to place an order for Christmas tamales because you’ve heard that the nuns make the...
by Laurie Wagner | Nov 23, 2021 | Blog
Because if I hadn’t I wouldn’t have met the woman with the large telescope in the street one night, selling us a glance at the moon for 50 pesos. And how far 50 pesos can take you in this town – all the way to the moon, or just a taxi ride up the hill to where my mother used to watch the bullfight. If I’d stayed home, I wouldn’t have understood why the man in the neon green vest was walking up and down the street banging a pot the other morning, reminding everyone that it was trash day. Or how when you enter a store, you place your feet in a shallow pan of water before you go in. You’ll be wet, but you’ll be clean. I wouldn’t have met the hippie dude with the handle bar mustache who makes a huge vat of soup every week – something he started doing during the pandemic when people couldn’t leave their homes because of the three month lock down. If you’re on his WhatsApp list you can tell him how many pints you want, and he’ll deliver it to you if you can’t pick it up. This week its corn chowder. If I hadn’t said “I’ll do it!” when my friends, Dan and Jenny, asked who wanted to sublet their house here in San Miguel de Allende for 11-weeks, I wouldn’t be waking up to church bells, which wake the roosters, which wake the dogs, which wake up Max, the cat I’m taking care of, and the way she takes a soft paw to my nose every morning...
