International Living’s Latin America Editor, Suzan Haskins, moved from Omaha, Nebraska, to Quito, Ecuador, in 2001. Since then, she has lived in Mexico, Panama, and Nicaragua.
The year 2000 was not a good one for Patrice Wynne. That spring, the Berkeley, California, bookstore she owned-and had poured her heart and soul into for years-was forced to close. Her income dropped precipitously. Shortly after that, her marriage ended, her beloved grandmother passed away, and a significant love affair came painfully to a halt. Even her cat died. That fall, it was more than the longtime political activist could take when the Supreme Court sent George Bush to the White House.
To escape the turmoil, in the winter of 2001, Patrice headed south-to Mexico. During her sojourn there, San Miguel de Allende became her haven. In colonial Mexico, she says, she found a place where life was "simple, sweet, sane, safe, slow, sensual, sanguine, spirited-and sophisticated."
She started to wonder whether she could possibly be happy in a place as un-Berkeley as San Miguel. Could she give up Thai food, her Salon Group at the French Hotel Café, and unlimited choices of everything from books to toothpaste to 15 varieties of organic arugula?
She could and she did. In 2004, Patrice took the plunge and bought a home in San Miguel, where she found a new, if different, realm of sophistication.
"I exchanged my Saab for my feet, as this is a walking town of cobblestone streets," she says. "But I now wear sensible, sturdy shoes and I’ve never looked back. I read the paper once a week at most, instead of three times a day, and I never feel an ounce of guilt for what I don’t know."
In place of her Salon Group, she and her new friends meet at a sidewalk café housed in a 17th-century colonial building. While still concerned with politics and world conditions, the group also talks of more practical matters: Who’s leaving for the States and will they take mail back with them? Is the desfile (procession) on the Feast Day of the Virgin of Guadalupe happening at 2 p.m. or 6 p.m.? Can a tip to the driver get a dog on the first-class bus?
"Ours are the daily preoccupations of ordinary people living all over the world: food, family, community, health, household economies, pets," she says.
In an about face from the beige tones of her former life in Berkeley, she decorated her new home in loud, bright colors. Watermelon pinks in the living room, lime green bookcases, turquoise-ocean walls, and an iris-purple fireplace in the dining room. "I dare you to be sad in my home," she says. "It exudes joy."
This love for color (and her penchant for helping others through social change) soon extended to another new dimension in Patrice’s life. It started when she offered scholarship assistance to a young local woman. Pretty soon, Patrice had adopted the whole family, and together they created San Miguel Designs ( www.sanmigueldesigns.com), a line of products for house and garden: aprons, curtains, kimonos, smocks, handbags, backpacks, and more.
"I purchase the fabric, but Dolores Hernandez and her five daughters come up with designs, combined in their own artful way, with my collaboration," explains Patrice.
The products created by San Miguel Designs are based on Mexican folk icons and motifs: Day of the Dead, the Virgin of Guadalupe, Corazones, Frida Kahlo, Carmen Miranda, Flamenco, and more. The whimsical collection has been featured in magazines, books, museum exhibitions, and in boutique stores around the world.
The endeavor has brought her renewed happiness, Patrice says, and in the course of just a few years, her life has gone from breakdown to break out.
She now divides her time between San Miguel and Berkeley, where she promotes San Miguel Designs. She is becoming well known as a photographer of colorful slices of Mexican life. She leads cultural tours to Mexico City and credits Mexico as being the place that helped her find her center.
"I am quite wealthy, when wealth is defined by rich friendships and the time to nourish them. Viva Mexico!"
Editor’s note: See Patrice Wynne’s photographs and San Miguel Designs at: www.sanmigueldesigns.com or meet her in person in Mexico. Patrice is a featured speaker at the upcoming International LivingLive and Prosper in Mexico Seminar in San Miguel de Allende, June 3 to 5. To find out more, see www.InternationalLiving.com/Events or e-mail Events@InternationalLiving.com. IL
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