The Only Blue House in the Neighborhood

Last month I went off to Mexico for a late winter break from the rain and gloom of Oregon. February had been very busy and I had not even begun to plan how I was going to respond to our "Neighborhood" challenge, but tucked it into the back of my mind and knew I'd be ready to start on something when I returned.

San Miguel de Allende was glorious! We were staying in an Air BnB near the center of the city in a charming colonial neighborhood. The colors of the old stuccoed buildings were earthy--golds, ochres, and every shade of chili red--except for the tiny blue house directly across from where we were staying. It became my landmark. As soon as I spotted the blue house, I knew we were nearly "home." One day we got a little lost on our way home from a restaurant and wondered if we'd missed our street. We stopped at a corner to try to get our bearings and I looked down to my left. There was the little blue house! We knew, then, exactly where we were. "I love that little house!" I told my husband, "it's the only blue house in the neighborhood!" That evening I sat on our rooftop patio and looked down at the blue house and wondered who lived there. I wondered why they had painted it that beautiful blue. I wondered what the neighbors thought. I thought about the neighborhood where I grew up, all white houses, all identical except for one that was painted Pepto pink. The neighborhood was aghast! Who would paint their house PINK? As it turned out, it was an elderly lady who loved pink and not only the outside of her house was pink, everything inside was too. We came to love her pink house, because we came to love her.

We were only visitors in our Mexican neighborhood, but in only a week we felt at home. We found the great bakery on the corner and greeted the woman who owned the shop below us, on our way in and out every day. We watched the teenagers who hung out on the roof across the way and we woke to the sound of the church bells from the square two blocks away. And, at the end of the day, when we turned the corner and spotted the only blue house in our neighborhood we knew we were almost home.

Terry Grant

20" x 40"

Cotton and non-woven fabrics, painted, machine stitched