Dreaming Awake

On June 24, I went into a hospital in Oaxaca for prostate surgery and the removal of two bladder stones. The surgery appears to have been successful. The prostate problems that had caused so much pain and discomfort have been greatly relieved. The stones (which I had no idea were rattling around inside of me) are gone, though my bladder has been through a lot.
I am grateful for improvements in my quality of life.

But sixty-seven days later, I am still in a strange place. The incision below my navel that was made to remove the stones continues to weep fluid, and there is pain. I need to change bandages three times a day. There have been various explanations, but no clear answer. Next week, in Santa Fe, I will seek a second opinion.

So I find myself in what feels like a kind of no-man’s land: no longer truly ill, but not yet well.

And strangely, this has brought me back to something I experienced while traveling around the world in 2008.

Somewhere along that journey, I came to a perception that felt profoundly true:

I am dreaming awake.

Not that the world isn’t real. It is completely real while we are here. Love is real. Pain is real. Beauty is real. Loss is real.

And yet this life is only a blink of the eye. The soul is eternal.

Everything matters.

And nothing matters.

That realization gave me a remarkable calm. I could let the dream unfold without constantly demanding that it be different. My task was simply to live fully and observe as if I was a witness. When we are dreaming, events have a life of their own. We surf the “big wave,” and it is best to enjoy every moment.

It is easy to observe the dream when it is beautiful.

It is harder when the dream hurts.

My body has become mysterious to me. Something was removed. Something was released. Yet a wound remains open.

I don’t believe my psychological history caused my prostate problems or bladder stones. But I do wonder what meaning I might find in the experience. The prostate, bladder, sexuality, release, the wound that will not close—touch places in the psyche that I have been exploring for years, especially as I write my autobiography.

Perhaps the question isn’t Why did this happen to me?

Perhaps it is:

Can I remain wide awake inside the dream when the dream has become difficult?

We will be in Santa Fe soon, for three weeks. First off, I will be seeing my urologist for a second opinion, and I have an appointment with my longtime psychologist as well. I want to approach this from every level: physical, psychological, spiritual.

Jim Morrison wrote:

“Strange days have found us

And through their strange hours

We linger alone

Bodies confused…”

Yes.

Bodies confused.

And perhaps this is simply another chapter in the dream.

The Wanderer has traveled far.

Now he has been asked to stop.

To wait.

To heal.

To remain awake.

Beyond Words

Improvements come gradually to our casa here in our village outside Oaxaca, Mexico.

Solar panels on the roof have reduced our gas costs by about seventy-five percent. The tires that once formed steps from the driveway to our front door have been replaced with stone and brick steps that I built myself. A patch of dirt outside the back door has become a patio where we hang laundry. On the rooftop veranda, with its spectacular views, we installed a large shade cover. Trees and shrubs have been planted. And, of course, there is always maintenance.

Our most recent project has been the construction of a stone retaining wall along the driveway. At the entrance, where a large dirt embankment rose as high as seven feet beside the gate, there is now a wall of carefully placed stones capped with brick. It looks far better and gives the entrance a sense of permanence.

This is where Diego Vásquez enters the story.

A friend from the States recommended him. He lives in our village and had done work for her before. They had become friends.

Diego and I are about the same age. When we first met, he looked deeply into my eyes with a steady gaze. His eyes seemed to penetrate mine—as if sizing me up, but also revealing something of himself. The moment transcended words.

I speak only a little Spanish, and he speaks no English, yet we have become friends. He is always amiable, always ready with a smile.

Together with his helper, he did excellent work building the muro de piedra—the stone wall.

Years ago, I owned a masonry business in the United States, so I helped design the structure and checked on the progress often. As they worked beneath the blazing Oaxaca sun, Amy and I brought them cold drinks. There were always smiles and words of appreciation, even if we did not fully understand each other’s language.

One day the helper arrived with a gift for us—a stuffed squirrel—"ardilla." It now sits on our front porch.

Yesterday, Saturday, Diego stopped by to pick up a few tools he had left behind. Before leaving, he asked if I would be going to church in the village on Sunday.

In my broken Spanish, I replied, “No. God is in our house.”

He looked at me for a moment, smiled somewhat quizzically, and then departed with a grin.

I smiled too.

Between Two Homes

It is easy for Amy and me to move between Oaxaca, Mexico, and Santa Fe, New Mexico. We love both places deeply. Oaxaca is our home now—it has broadened our perspectives on life in ways we could never have imagined. But Santa Fe—and Taos as well—live somewhere deeper, woven into our bones. They are part of our story.

After so many years of adventure, commitment, and growth, there is a particular pleasure in returning. Not just seeing again, but recognizing—landscapes, faces, rhythms that once shaped us.

For the past few years, we’ve been fortunate to stay in the house I built long ago with my former wife, Jean. She travels now, and we care for the place. I know every inch of it. We lived there for twenty-five years. Walking through its rooms is like moving through layers of time.

Spring has arrived. Flowers are just beginning to show themselves. The air is brisk, clean, and invigorating. I find myself breathing more deeply here.




We’ve seen dear friends, as we always do. Familiar laughter returns easily.

We opened our storage unit, and our belongings seemed almost to greet us—old companions asking, “What next?” Most of it is artwork, with a scattering of personal items. Pieces of a life lived in many chapters.

We are releasing artworks from our Santa Fe years. To view, click HERE.

Another bonus from the storage unit is the discovery and unfolding of exceptional quilts Amy made in the late 1980's. They formed the basis of a traveling museum show and appeared in venues across the midwest, including the Field Museum in Chicago. She won a National Endowment of the Arts award for the work. Many are available for purchase now. click HERE.

We drove up to Taos along that spectacular route tracing the Rio Grande and passing the great Gorge. The land was as powerful as ever. Taos, in its quiet beauty, moved Amy to tears. We saw friends there too, the kind who make time feel less linear and more like a circle.

Saturday, we drove out to the small village of Cerrillos for the annual Turquoise Trail Pack Burro Race. It was joyful, unpretentious, and full of life. Many of the animals are rescues, now cared for by people who clearly love them. There was laughter everywhere—good, simple happiness.

And soon, we will return to Oaxaca. We leave next Sunday, May 10.

There is no sense of leaving one place behind for another. Instead, it feels like stepping between two homes—each offering something essential, each reminding us of who we have been, and who we continue to become. And somehow, in going back and forth, we never really leave home at all.

Rhythm of Two Seasons

After more than five years living in southern Mexico, in the village of San Pedro Ixtlahuaca near Oaxaca, I have grown accustomed to the rhythm of two seasons: dry and wet. Even so, the dry season still weighs on me, much like the bitter cold once did in the northern places I came from.

This year, some welcome rain has arrived earlier than usual, ahead of its typical entrance in June.

With the rain, the long-suffering plant life begins to stir awake. The ground remains mostly brown for now, but soon it will turn green. And with that, my daily yard work will grow from a modest twenty minutes to nearly an hour.

The images are a few photographs of the colorful flowers blooming around our home just now.

"In the garden of Thine heart, plant naught but the rose of love."

—Bahaú´llah

Muro Vivo—Living Walls

Mexico has been at the center of major international headlines recently after the government carried out an operation that resulted in the death of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as “El Mencho,” leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel — one of the most powerful criminal organizations in the country. Assisted by the CIA in the United States, an ambush was accomplished and El Mencho was killed, along with others on both sides. The immediate result was celebration but also a wave of violence that swept across Mexico. The images of burning vehicles were rather gruesome.

Since then, numerous of our friends and loved ones have been calling us, asking, Are you safe? Are you okay?

We are. Thank God we are well — safe and living our ordinary, creative life in our home outside Oaxaca City, in a region still regarded as calm and secure. Life here remains grounded in daily rhythms, the friendliness of neighbors, and the simple joy of sunrise light on the mountains.

We are even planning a short trip to the coast for a special celebration. Before making any definite plans, we asked a neighbor who runs a coffee cooperative near the Pacific and travels often along the new highway whether it feels peaceful. He checked with his daughter, who lives close to our favorite beach town — and the word was reassuring: the road is calm, the coast is peaceful.

In other news, this past week my neighbor Mayolo came over for a painting session with me. We set up a still life of sunflowers in a vase, with an alebrije set next to it. Over the course of two session we painted side by side. Very enjoyable and Mayolo, a creative person who makes the frames for many of our paintings, was very appreciative of the opportunity to paint together. 

And yes, my creative currents continue to pull me in new directions. I completed a short video titled Muro Vivo, or “Living Wall.” For years, I’ve photographed street art all over Oaxaca. In this new piece, an AI animation platform was used to bring those images to subtle movement, like walls awakening with breath — a little magic and a little experiment.

Meanwhile, Amy paints steadily, losing and finding herself in color and shape every day.

So — despite unsettling news and distant violence, life goes on here. We are safe. We are creative. We are grateful for friends near and far who care. And through it all, the sunflowers still turn toward the light.

Uncharted, Once More — Into the Digital Unknown

 

Another Sunday, another reckoning with whatever imaginative wind has blown this week.

Creative currents have swept me into unfamiliar territory. For better or worse, this has always been my temperament. Experiment and learn. Take risks. Wander into unmapped terrain. Refuse to stay fixed on the same route simply because it is known, profitable, and comfortable.

This time it is video that calls—street photography woven into motion, and AI animation that produces short clips which can be spliced together into something resembling a film. A moving collage. A dream stitched frame by frame.

I have rudimentary skills—enough to splice images together, add sound, create transitions. Over the years I’ve made more than one hundred short videos that live on YouTube, quietly gathering viewers and subscribers. That alone once felt daring. 

Short clip of an outing in Oaxaca. About 2.5 minutes.

But recently there has been a dive into deeper water.

Using a sophisticated creation and editing software called Runway, with a prompt and a photograph, it can generate short animated clips—moments that breathe, faces that turn, streets that flicker into motion. It feels a bit like alchemy.

Half the time, the first attempt misses the mark, the second veers into absurdity and the third surprises me. I fumble with settings. watch tutorials, mutter. Then, generate, discard, regenerate. Gradually, fragments accumulate. And eventually, there is enough material to assemble an intriguing short film.

Short clip of Vincent Van Gogh. About 2 minutes.

It is both thrilling and humbling.

Why do this?

Because it is deeply satisfying to sit in the director’s seat from start to finish—and also be the author. To imagine something that did not exist, and then coax it into being. To orchestrate image, motion, rhythm, and sound. There is a childlike delight in it. A sense of play mixed with stubborn determination.

Yet, a feeling of quiet guilt.

My other loves—painting, photography, writing, have been faithful companions spanning decades. Am I abandoning them for a shiny new fascination? They are never far away. In truth, they flow into this new work. The eye trained as a photographer guides the frame and uses an image to begin. The painter thinks in light, color and shadow. The writer shapes the prompt, searches for tone, listens for story.

Still, there are moments when I feel in water over my head. The technology is already dense and advances faster than I can absorb it. Menus, tools, timelines—so many levers and switches. At seventy-three, one could reasonably decide to simplify. To consolidate. To refine what is already mastered and stay in a niche.

But that has not been my way.

I am still willing to be a beginner. Still willing to look foolish. Still willing to wrestle with something difficult simply because it calls to me.

There is joy in grappling. Joy in not knowing and in watching a small competence slowly grow. The process is awkward, sometimes maddening—but alive.

Perhaps that is the real current I am following.

Not video. Not AI. Not even art in a particular form.

But the current of becoming.

The Thrill of Reinvention

Once again, the work has taken a turn—into a new series of colorful expressionist pieces. Throughout more than forty years of creating, I have rarely stayed in one lane. Galleries often encourage artists to find a niche and repeat what sells. I have never been comfortable with that. Landscape painting brought my greatest commercial success, yet I have continually wandered into new territories: abstraction, mixed-media, and even my HangUps series with faces suspended on clotheslines. With our move in 2019 to Oaxaca, Mexico, a group of paintings emerged from our Dos Venados studio: Memento Mori paintings of symbolic skeletons, honoring the Dia de Muertos motif.

Reinvention keeps the work alive.

This new chapter begins with pure abstraction:

Antes del Nombre, Oil on canvas, 70 x 80 cm

Fauve Mujer, Oil on canvas, 100 x 80 cm

I lay down color and motion without a plan, letting the paint lead. After that foundation is alive on the canvas, I look for what wants to emerge. In the first two paintings, that became luminous female portraits. I created them first using AI as a reference, then translated and transformed them in paint over the loose, expressive ground. They are larger than life, born from imagination and guided by technology, yet made human by the hand.

Sandia, Oil on canvas, 25 x 25 cm

Today, I shifted scale. Once the abstract background had dried, I set up a simple still life of a slice of watermelon on a plate. Working from a familiar, realistic subject sparked a different energy. A dialogue unfolded between the bold underpainting and the object before me. In the end, both voices found harmony: the grounded and the mysterious, the seen and the unforeseen.

The pleasure lies in not knowing exactly where the next brushstroke will lead. That is the freedom I have always trusted.

More: Steven Boone Fine Art

Also: https://stevenboone.myportfolio.com

The Gap in My Smile

They say bridges connect what’s been separated, but sometimes they just break and leave you gaping—literally. My bridge, the dental kind, did just that a few months ago.

But let’s back up…

Years ago in Santa Fe, my perfectionist dentist retired, and I ended up in the care of a good but less inspired family dentist. During a routine exam, he spotted a small crack in an upper molar and said, “You can live with it.”

Soon after, I left on a year-long journey around the world. Halfway through, my tooth turned traitor. In Madrid, it began to ache fiercely. I didn’t know any dentists, my Spanish faltered, and I was a stranger in pain. Salvation came in the south of Spain, where a friend introduced me to a compassionate female dentist. She took one look and said the tooth had rotted. Out it came.

In Italy, I got a false tooth. It never felt right. For years, I simply lived with the gap, smiling carefully.

Seven years ago, trouble returned. Eating popcorn, a hard kernel broke a tooth next to the gap. I ended up with a bridge—two crowns and a false tooth spanning the gap. It served well until six months ago, when it broke.

Here in Oaxaca, my dentist recommended two new crowns and an implant—a permanent solution, he said, one that would last the rest of my life. Since I was leaving for the U.S., he made a temporary bridge. It fell out a month later. Because it didn’t hurt, I decided to live again with the gap—until the area grew sensitive and I began to worry about infection.

So, the dental odyssey resumed.

The new clinic is immaculate and professional. Amy had two implants done there and was very pleased. The cost, compared to U.S. prices, made me smile wider than usual:

• Implant: 25,000 pesos

• Three crowns: 30,000 pesos

• Two root canals (surprise!): 7,000 pesos

Total: 62,000 pesos, about $3,300 USD.

In the U.S., the same work would have been $12,000–$15,000.

As I lay in the chair, my jaw numbed and the instruments humming, I drifted into my memory vault—visiting the bright rooms of my past: childhood laughter, faraway travels, the faces of those I’ve loved. I realized I’ve had a very good life—even measured from a dentist’s chair.

I marveled at the teeth themselves—how remarkable they are, enduring year after year, quietly doing their work. I felt a wave of gratitude for the Creator’s design, for such intricate workmanship that has served me so well through the decades. Teeth, like life itself, endure countless pressures and changes. What matters is how gracefully we accept their aging, and how gratefully we honor the design that made them so strong.

(See my recently completed travel memoir, called The Weight of Air)