Columns

Explaining legal terms sometimes seems like trying to translate the entire four original volumes of William Blackstone’s hugely famed “Commentaries on English Law” (1770) into a familiar language.

Winter weather in the Jalisco highlands traditionally arrives after harvesting is finished in mid-October, a bit later if the rainy season is bountiful.  And frequently there are some cabañuelas in January – brief soakings that are popularly believed to forecast the next temporada de las aguas.

When internationally recognized Jalisco ceramicist Jorge Wilmot Mason talked of the halcyon stretch he and others in Mexico shared — the 1950-1960 era of surging creativity — he termed those days “another world.” It was an era when Octavio Paz stunned Mexican society and attracted international acclaim with his analysis of Mexican character, “The Labyrinth of Solitude,” when Carlos Fuentes did the same with his novel “The Death of Artemio Cruz.” Mexican culture in all its forms seemed to catch the world’s eye.

Jose Maria (“Chema”) Flores, a dark, crease-faced campesino of 57, was having family problems. He and his wife, Lupe, have eight children. One of their older sons, Jose, had gone off some time ago to dabble in crack and marry a woman also drawn to drugs.

Morey Leonard lived alone. He was a quiet man of 75 who dealt with his five-year bout with illness in a private way. No complaints to friends or acquaintances. His kitchen and refrigerator were stocked with nourishing stuff. No junk-food, no high cholesterol or high sugar-foods. No booze – unlike earlier times, times that were now catching up with him. His maid found him on the living room floor unconscious when she made her regular Tuesday cleaning-day round. She immediately called the Red Cross.

The New Year’s first days – and weeks – traditionally pique the challenging urge to create a list of well-intentioned resolutions. For many people this is a briefly uplifting but ultimately doomed effort. It seems natural for humans to pine for ambitious, scribbled columns of what turn out to be miracles.