Carrie Classon

“Fireworks in the Morning” I start noticing the planes overhead when it’s nearing the time to go. Planes don’t fly low over this small Mexican city. San Miguel de Allende doesn’t have its own airport, so the few planes flying overhead are high in the sky, headed off to somewhere else. I rarely notice them…

“Burro in Pants” I saw the burro wearing pants and carrying a basket filled with paper flowers. “Oh, my gosh!” I said. “That poor burro.” There are several burros with this job in this Mexican town and, as burro employment goes, it’s a pretty easy gig. The burro wears a rustic basket filled with bright…

“Enough Steps” Anxiety likes numbers. I only recently realized that a lot of my anxiety fixates on meaningless numbers. I like to know how many there are of a particular thing and then attach meanings—usually sinister, sometimes hopeful, always unreasonable—to these numbers. How many words are in this column? Six hundred exactly. Why are there…

“Tourist Town” My husband, Peter, and I are staying in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, which is, according to a lot of folks, a tourist town. Sometimes, the person saying this means it is not a place they would want to spend time. This puzzles me. I’m not sure why a town known for meatpacking…

I spent last week trying to be useful. I volunteered for a writers’ conference in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, where my husband, Peter, and I stay. I love writers’ conferences. I love that people will travel from far away just to talk about writing, to meet other writers, to learn about writing, to listen…

“Mr. Muscles” My husband, Peter, is learning Spanish his own way. I do Duolingo online. It is free. It is easy to do. The whole thing is designed like a game, and dancing animated creatures hop up and down and celebrate every time I get five answers in a row correct. This shouldn’t matter to…

“Chia Pet Moment” “You know, since I’ve been eating these chia seeds, I’ve noticed my beard has gotten heavier.” My husband, Peter, was talking to my father downstairs. I sat up at attention. This comment about the chia seeds was news to me. I knew Peter was eating chia seeds because he thought it might…

It was snowing hard, the way it almost never does anymore, and I decided I needed to go for my walk, heedless of the weather. “I probably won’t be gone long!” I texted a friend in California as I headed out the door looking like an Arctic explorer. The snow was coming down fast and…

“I have to say, that is a very nice hat!” I told the man as he passed me on the sidewalk. The man in the snazzy blue fedora had a serious look on his face, as if he was thinking deeply about something far more important than the indigo-blue hat with the red feather sitting…