Speed Bumps, Bakeries, and Carnival Lights

Amy and I live a quiet, creative life on the outskirts of one of the world’s most vibrant cities—Oaxaca, Mexico. Our village sits far enough from town to feel rural, but close enough to dip in whenever we choose. The drive takes about forty-five minutes, made longer by the countless speed bumps that punctuate every road here. They are unavoidable, and somehow comforting—part of the rhythm of life in southern Mexico.

Yesterday we left home at 4:15 in the afternoon, leaving our two dogs behind, who would later greet us as if we’d been gone for weeks.

Our first stop was the local seamstress. She had altered two pairs of pants and a skirt for us, all for the handsome price of ten dollars. She is a sweet, older woman, very small, who wears an apron and keeps religious icons watching over her tiny shop. Her work is careful and precise, and she always greets us with genuine warmth. We love these small human connections—they anchor us.

From there we walked around the corner to Boulenc, a bakery that has become indispensable to our lives. Good bread is surprisingly hard to find, but this place gets it right every time. Fresh loaves, muffins, croissants, and pastries fill the air with that unmistakable scent that makes restraint impossible. We stop in at least once a week, and yesterday was no exception.

Next door is the restaurant run by the same establishment, and it happens to be one of the hippest spots in the area—bohemian, lively, and always buzzing. Amy and I shared a late-afternoon salad and the slice of cheesecake we’d just purchased next door. Simple, perfect, unhurried.

From there we drove on to our main destination: a five-day carnival set up in one of the city’s landmark parks. Being Saturday, all of Oaxaca seemed to be out. Families, teenagers, couples, street vendors—everyone moving together in that easy, festive way people do here. There were food stalls and trinket booths, thrill rides and Ferris wheels, and music everywhere.

Amy and I split up for a while—she browsed the booths while I wandered with my camera. As night fell, the carnival transformed. Colored lights flared to life, spinning rides became ribbons of motion, and the air thickened with laughter and sound. I love photographing that swirl of energy—the joy, the movement, the faces lit by anticipation.

When Amy and I reunited, we played a few of the games together. Our favorite is always the horse race. A row of toy horses stands at the ready behind a miniature racetrack. You hurl small pinballs into holes on a slanted board—the harder shots are higher up and earn more points, moving your horse forward faster. A racetrack announcer narrates the action nonstop over a microphone, while a soundtrack blares in the background. It’s ridiculous and wonderful fun.

Carnival video — 4 min.

Eventually we made our way home, tired in the best way. Our dogs greeted us with wagging tails and full-body joy, as if we’d returned from a long journey.

Days like this remind us how rich an ordinary life can be—stitched together from small encounters, good food, bright lights, shared laughter, and the comfort of coming home.

Brisa: The Gentle Wind That Found Us

After the mysterious disappearance of our beloved Avión, the house felt hollow—as if a light had gone out and left a quiet, aching space behind. We were still adjusting to that absence when, almost as if by divine choreography, another presence stepped softly into our lives. Her name is now Brisa, but at first she was just a gentle shadow wandering the village streets who looked uncannily like Avión—as if she might be his surviving sister.

A few nights after Avión’s death, we went to the small pizzeria down the road, run by a friend in our little village. A handful of neighbors had gathered for a birthday, the usual warm mix of laughter, candles, and night air. As we sat talking, Amy suddenly rose and walked to a nearby empty table. A dog had caught her attention.

The dog came straight to her—unafraid, deliberate—and sat at her feet. She looked deeply into Amy’s eyes and gently lifted her paw, as if greeting her with a shy “hello.” The resemblance to Avión was startling. The pizzeria owner mentioned that he fed her every night and believed she was homeless. Hearing that struck something tender in both of us. Here was a dog who looked like Avión, who lived like Avión once did, wandering the same streets he used to wander.

That night at home, we talked quietly, both knowing the same thought had taken root:
If we could find her again, and if the stars aligned, we would bring her home.


Two days later, on our way into town for a dinner engagement, we kept a watchful eye on every dog along the roadside. Once, we even stopped to check on a dog in the shadows—many look similar here—but it wasn’t her. After dinner, we drove home in the dark. Near the pizzeria we searched the corners and doorways, but there was no sign of her.

Then, just beyond the local gas station, Amy suddenly shouted, “There she is!”

She was lying quietly by the curb, as if waiting for whatever came next.

I pulled over. Amy climbed into the back seat, and I lifted the surprisingly calm, gentle dog and placed her on Amy’s lap. She did not resist. In fact, she seemed relieved.

Getting vaccinated at home

Back at home, Mali—our xolo dog—and Oso, the neighbor dog, rushed to meet her with a burst of excitement. Brisa held her ground with quiet strength. She has street wisdom in her bones, the kind that comes from surviving by instinct and confidence.

Now she has had her vaccinations, is wormed, and will soon be spayed. And she has a name: Brisa, meaning gentle breeze. And that is exactly what she is—a soft, steady, calming presence moving through our lives just when we needed it.

Avión took over a year to be unafraid. Brisa is affectionate and composed from the start. She quickly learned the safety of the indoors, though she also races joyfully around the yard with Mali and Oso. When I enter a room where she is resting, she thumps her tail with a warm, welcoming rhythm. She gives both Amy and me an abundance of love, as if making up for lost time.



She isn’t a replacement for Avión—nothing could be.
But life has a mysterious way of balancing its losses.

Sometimes, when one door closes painfully, another opens with gentle paws and an offered hand—reminding us that love, in all its forms, finds its way back to us.

Ears Spread Like Wings

Last Monday, we woke to a shock that still hasn’t settled in our hearts—we found Avión mysteriously dead. This, the morning after joyfully writing about our dogs in last week’s blog.

As always, Amy prepared breakfast for MaliNalli and Avión—they eat when we do. Mali, who sleeps indoors, was already waiting by her bowl. But Avión, our faithful watchdog who slept on the front porch, didn’t appear. He always came running. This time he didn’t come at all.

After a few uneasy minutes, our neighbor’s dog, Oso, showed up for his usual treat… but still no Avión.

Then I heard Amy cry out from the front, “He is dead! Avión is dead!”
My heart dropped. She had found him lying just outside our front gate.

Moments later, Oso seemed to reveal what might have happened. He trotted to a small opening in the fence on the steep hill beside our driveway and pushed his head under the chain-link. Avión was a master escape artist—our little Houdini—forever squeezing through tiny gaps to patrol the perimeter. It seems he may have tried slipping through that opening, become caught, and strangled.

I lifted him gently and laid him on our front porch table.

Amy sobbed. We ran our hands over his stiff body—no wounds, no bruises, no sign of violence. His tongue protruded slightly. We kept asking ourselves how this could have happened. Maybe someone found him earlier and moved him. Maybe something else occurred. Life in our village holds both kindness and cruelty; we’ve seen both.

Just the day before, I had taken all three dogs for a walk. Everything had been normal. And the night before, I had written about him and Mali—about Mali’s new portrait and Avión’s shy, soulful presence.

Today our hearts are heavy. We called him Avión—“airplane” in Spanish—because of the two big ears he stretched out like wings. He was our adopted “boy,” full of love, vulnerability, and quiet devotion. We rescued him as a terrified street puppy, and over time he became part of our family.

I posted a short tribute on Facebook yesterday. More than two thousand people responded. Their kindness helps, but the silence he has left behind is immense.

Life here in the village is raw and unpredictable. One moment everything is ordinary—the next, the world tilts. Losing Avión has reminded us, painfully, how fragile the beings we love truly are. But it has also reminded us of something deeper: that love, once given, does not end. It remains, like a quiet flame, illuminating even the darkest corners of our days.

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Do animals continue on?

In the hours after burying him, I found myself asking a question I’ve never felt so urgently: Does a creature like Avión continue on in some way, as human souls do?
Across spiritual traditions, there are gentle yet meaningful hints that the answer may be yes.

In the Bahá’í writings, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá describes the animal kingdom as a sign of God’s perfection—beings who feel love, joy, loyalty, and sorrow. Creation, He says, does not simply vanish but transforms, and nothing that reflects divine qualities is lost.

The Hebrew scriptures remind us that humans and animals “share the same breath,” and humbly admit that no one truly knows the path of an animal’s spirit. Christian mystics wrote that animals return to the embrace of the One who fashioned them, because love is never wasted. Islam teaches that all creatures are “communities like you,” and that all will be gathered to God.
Eastern traditions speak openly of the continuity of animal consciousness beyond physical life.

And then there are the countless individuals who, in moments near death or deep vision, have spoken of meeting beloved animals again—whole, luminous, and free of fear.

I do not pretend to know the architecture of the next world. But I know this: Avión lived with love, and love is never extinguished. Whatever spark animated his gentle eyes and anxious heart came from a divine source. And what comes from that source, I believe, returns to it.

If there is a meadow of light in the next world, may he be running there now—ears spread like wings, finally free.

Here is our Xolo dog Mali and Avión (gold color) adopted from the street, during a happy time:  

Painting a Portrait of MaliNalli

 Our Xoloitzcuintle dog, MaliNalli Copali, is about four and a half years old now. Each day she brings us joy—along with her soul-brother, Avión, a mongrel we saved from certain death as an abandoned puppy around the same time Mali came to us. The two could not be more different. Mali is sharp, alert, protective, extremely loyal to Amy, faster than a greyhound, and does not like being left behind—but has adapted to it when we must go into town.

Avión was very afraid for several years. He didn’t like being touched, for fear of being hit. He sleeps outside at night, is protective of the home and property, and is a medium-sized, short-haired dog. The kind that is very commonly seen roaming the streets here in Mexico. Over time he has gradually overcome his shyness and now sometimes comes forward for affection. He has always had the most soulful eyes I have ever seen in an animal—big brown pools of moonlight, oozing love.

Just today I finished a painting of Mali. An oil on canvas, 40 × 40 cm. Since she could not pose for hours on end, I worked from a photo. The first step was to make a drawing. I transferred the photo from my phone  to my computer and created a square format, then in Photoshop, made a grid on top of it. In the studio, on my square canvas I made a matching grid in the same proportions, which helped me to draw with the proportions right.

Once the drawing was finished, I added a circle behind Mali’s head—an idea that came as I worked. Gold metal leaf was fixed inside the circle. An underpainting of brown umber established the values and fine-tuned the drawing. At last the colors were applied.

It came about without too much fussing. The result was satisfying, without second-guessing. Amy saw it and said, “That stays with us!”

Want a pet portrait done? Visit Steven Boone Fine Art and contact me.

Alive Among the Dead

The days approached steadily, as they do each year—filled with anticipation, hope, and a tinge of sadness. After all, Día de Muertos is a time to honor those we have “lost.” Yet nothing is ever truly lost—and that is why this celebration overflows with life in Mexico.

The fields of marigolds—cempasúchil, the flower of the dead—burst into golden bloom. Their color, like small suns, symbolizes the eternal cycle of life and light, guiding returning souls home with their glowing hue and pungent scent. Alongside them, the deep crimson cresta de gallo (cockscomb) blooms in velvety folds, representing the blood of life and the enduring vitality of spirit. Together they speak a language of remembrance—sun and heart, light and love intertwined.



Armfuls of flowers are carried to home altars and gravesites. Marigold petals spill across store entrances, and hotels glow with candles and color. Parades surge through the streets—comparsas of every kind—people of all ages marching, drumming, and laughing. Happiness abounds, as if the dead were truly alive again.

This year’s grand comparsa wound through the streets for over an hour, lined on both sides with cheering crowds. Bands played in wild rhythm, costumed marchers paraded alongside dancers balancing baskets of marigolds on their heads, and bright floats rolled past in a joyful burst of revelry.

3 min. video

From our village of San Pedro Ixtlahuaca, we drove into Oaxaca City to join the festivities and take part in our own small way. My camera, of course, was always in hand—this is a photographer’s dream come to life.

Our ofrenda

Barbara and Russ

By chance we met Barbara and Russ, a lovely couple visiting from Vermont who collect my artwork—a sweet coincidence amid the celebration. The festival draws to a close this evening, with a band playing at the Zócalo, the heart of town. Amy and I will meet our collector friends there, savoring the last notes of music before the candles fade and we begin to wait again—for next year’s return of the spirits.

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 Weight of Air — Complete at Last

For years, friends and readers have encouraged me to bring together my writing, photography, and art into one work. At last it is done.

Back in 2008, I spent nearly a year circling the globe—painting, photographing, and writing weekly dispatches for this blog, My Fairy-Tale Life. Those notes, along with thousands of photographs, became the seed of a long-dreamed project: a travel memoir called, The Weight of Air: A Memoir of Surrender and Becoming.

After many months of focused work—learning new design tools, revisiting old journals, editing, and polishing—the book is finished. It is now available in two digital formats: a beautifully designed PDF and an interactive flipbook. An ePub edition is on the horizon.

I’m grateful to publish it under my own imprint, Twin-Flames Press, which carries a story close to my heart. After my daughter Naomi died in 1999, I would return each year to San Francisco and stay in the same hotel where we had once lived while she underwent healing sessions with a Russian psychic. This, after all mainstream and alternative efforts had failed. The first time I went back alone, the receptionist, Cecelia, recognized me. When I reached my room, I found flowers and a kind note waiting. Many on the staff had known Naomi and me. Cecelia said softly, “You two were like twin flames.” The words struck deep, capturing something essential about our bond—and so Twin-Flames became the name of my publishing company.

It was under that name that I first published A Heart Traced in Sand, Reflections on a Daughter´s Struggle for Life, about the life and passing of my daughter. That book, created in love and grief, went on to win two awards and taught me the discipline and devotion of self-publishing through InDesign—the same tool I used again to craft this new volume.

It has been years since I undertook an effort of such magnitude. Now it stands complete: a journey around the world, woven through words and images, tracing the dissolving boundaries between inner and outer life. The journey continues—through art, through story, through the invisible breath that connects everything.

You can explore or purchase The Weight of Air or A Heart Traced in Sand directly here — available by donation, with a suggested price of $18.

To take a look at the flipbook for free, click here.

Thank you to all who have followed the unfolding of this work through my weekly Substack posts. Your encouragement helped carry it to the finish line.

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) 

Danger, Beauty, and the Human Form

What art awakens in us, and how it matters

Amedeo Modigliani, Nu Couché (Reclining Nude) 1917

When I posted on Facebook an AI-generated image of a young woman, bare to the waist, it was simply a piece of art to me: expressionist in style, mysterious, tender, and beautiful. I hesitated only because the figure was nude. Soon after it appeared online, a dear Bahá’í friend wrote to say she felt uneasy. The figure, she thought, looked too young, and she worried it might play into unhealthy fantasies. She admitted it was first and foremost a visceral reaction — a gut feeling that told her something wasn’t right. Her heart objected. 

Part of her unease, I realized later after speaking with my wife, was not only about nudity but about youth. To her eye, the figure suggested someone underaged — and in our world, with its painful revelations of exploitation and abuse, that association carries enormous weight. I did not see the figure that way. To me, she appeared simply as a young woman with a slight, undeveloped frame — diminutive breasts, yes, but nothing childlike. Casual, unposed, and not voyeuristic. Yet my friend felt something different: a suggestion of underage vulnerability, and in our cultural moment that alone can feel troubling. The same image, then, lived in two realities at once — one of quiet beauty, the other of potential harm.

That set me thinking. As an artist, I know the human body has always been at the center of art. Michelangelo’s David towers over Florence in his colossal nakedness, admired for centuries as the pinnacle of beauty and strength. At the Academia Gallery, when people stand before the 17-foot-high, perfectly proportioned figure, genitals at eye level, many gasp, their eyes widen, and I daresay pulses quicken. Each time I’ve stood there, I’ve seen eyes widen, smiles flicker, and even laughter rise — the shared astonishment of being so publicly, so unabashedly face-to-face with the naked male form. It is a delight to witness, and it always makes me smile.

Amedeo Modigliani, scandalous in his day, painted nudes with such frankness (including pubic hair) that they shocked Parisian audiences — though today they are celebrated as masterpieces. His 1917 Paris exhibition, which included Nu Couché (Reclining Nude) was even shut down by the police for being too provocative. (Nu Couché sold at auction in 2015 for 170,400,000. dollars.) 

And then came Auguste Rodin, pushing the boundaries even further into raw physicality. His Iris, Messagère des Dieux (c. 1895) stunned viewers with its bold fragmentation — a headless, airborne female torso, legs spread in unapologetic display. To some it was obscene, to others a daring hymn to vitality and raw power. I love the piece because it feels like a direct invitation to unite in the matrix, to celebrate the generative force of Mother Earth herself. Today it is recognized as one of Rodin’s most radical and compelling works, proof that provocation and beauty can be inseparable.

It seems every era has its thresholds of comfort, and what unsettles one may inspire awe in another. It is the same old tension: one person sees beauty, another sees danger.

Memoir Writing - The Weight Of Air

Painting on the island of Kauaʻi, Hawaii, 2001

For four decades, my workdays were mostly spent with paint and brush, shaping canvases into worlds of light and form. Lately, that has shifted. My hours are given to words, to chiseling memory into narrative. A little guilt has crept in—I haven’t been producing much artwork. But writing, I’ve discovered, is equally creative. It is painting with sentences instead of brushstrokes, summoning images from the palette of experience.

The project at hand is my travel memoir, The Weight of Air. Its backbone is the year 2008, when for twelve months I circled the globe, living in 25 countries. Every moment seemed to demand documentation. I carried cameras, sketchbooks, and at first, even an easel and art supplies. I painted, photographed, and wrote—laying down a trail of evidence that life had shifted irrevocably. Those blog posts from the road became seeds, waiting until now to be pressed into the soil of a fuller story.

Route across the globe, Jan. 2008 -  Jan. 2009

The journey was transformative. Early along the way I stumbled into a mental and spiritual state I came to call The Dream. It was more than just heightened awareness; it was a trust, a surrender, an embrace of mystery. In that current, I felt carried, as though the world itself were the author and I merely a willing participant.

This perception—more than perception really, more like a state of being—opened me to deeper engagement with the world around me. Barriers fell, just as in real life dreaming. It is said that to understand mysterious, indecipherable happenings in dreams, one must become what it is that must be understood. For instance if being trampled by an elephant, to become the elephant as well as the one trampled. So I was unafraid, because I was everything happening all at once.

Section from the current chapter, called Northward to Hanoi. Part 1

"Within a day, a cabin had been booked on a Chinese junk, a flat-bottomed sailing vessel now outfitted as a floating hotel, yet still bearing the elegant lines and fan-shaped sails of another age.

What happens to time and space in dreams? It seems youthfulness exists in dreaming because events occur that are not bound by physical law. All sorts of fantastic actions and experiences occur in dreams, and the occurrences are effortlessly woven together into a symphony of events. 

So it was in Hanoi: guided by THE DREAM itself, within two days of arrival I was carried out upon a Chinese junk with eight fellow travelers and five crew, moving almost without sound across the mirrored waters of Halong Bay—a UNESCO World Heritage Site."

Old ladies, near Hoi An, Vietnam

Now, nearing the end of the memoir, I find myself in Vietnam once again—at least in memory, shaping it into words. Soon the path bends toward Malaysia, then Australia and New Zealand. Within three weeks, the odyssey will be complete on the page, though its reverberations still echo daily. At last I will hold the memoir as a complete volume.

I have been an artist all my life, but this work reminds me that creativity wears many guises. Whether on canvas or in prose, it is the same impulse: to bear witness, to shape experience into something that can be shared, something that endures.

The Long Thirst, the Sudden Song

Having lived most of my life in North America where four distinct seasons mark the year, I am still adjusting to the rhythm of only two in Mexico. Amy and I have been here over six years now, and while I’ve grown accustomed to the shift, it never quite feels natural. We are nearing September, which means the rainy season is winding down. Soon, the long dry months—about eight of them—will return.

The change is stark. The fields that now glow with vibrant green will fade to brown. Some trees shed their leaves, and the ground turns brittle, reduced to dust in the wind.

I have always been a “plant person,” like my mother before me. Trees, flowers, green things in general speak to my soul. By the end of the dry season, many of the plants around our home—each one I know personally—seem on the verge of death. Though I water what I can, most rely on the drip system. Still, by late May, just when I find myself whispering prayers to stave off their passing, a few stubborn buds appear—miraculously. I scratch my head and wonder, where did they find the strength?

Then the rains come. At first scattered storms, and then, finally, a rhythm. Plants rejoice, bursting forth with such abandon that I spend my days cutting grass and brush, trying to keep up. Sometimes I imagine those first fragile buds are the plants calling out for the rains—and nature, listening, answers.

Now, the cornfields surrounding our village stand tall and healthy. If the skies grant just a few more generous rains, they’ll yield a good crop. But if the drought lingers year after year, the harvest suffers, and families sell their land for home lots. Already, the edges of our village are filling with new houses.

Landscape. 4 min. video

We prefer, for as long as possible, to be surrounded by nature.