I am unable to capture the overwhelming volume of the flowers.

There are stacks and stacks of bunched gladiolas, marigolds, and a zillion other types of flowers that I have no names for. Stacked around Patzcuaro‘s square, behind those truck loads of flowers, are the women selling intricately decorated sugar skulls, baby coffins, chocolate skull lollipops, and other sugary offerings for the Dia de Los Muertos altars.

The dance with death is everywhere.

I am sitting outside our amazing room at Meson de San Antonio where four women are busy building a Day of the Dead altar. They have tied marigolds to a huge framework, and are now draping tables with intricately embroidered tablecloths. I’m sure that soon there will be more flowers and offerings piled upon it. There is an animated discussion as to where to place the female skeletal figure in her chair, and now, it is how and where to line up the marigolds…

I am so impressed with the respect, homage, and humour that deals with the subject that my Canadian culture loves to hide in a hospital. We stuff Death safely out of sight until it is forced upon us.  And then we are always shocked and surprised that  it would dare to visit us.

We scream, Why me? But perhaps the better question is, Why not me?

Here, like in Oaxaca City, there are black ribbon bows above each door where a recent death has occurred. That seems so healthy to me, openly announcing that here, in this house, we are grieving. No one is pretending that something horrible hasn’t happened, but instead, the ribbon suggests we need to talk…

We arrived here at midnight last night and the town was shuttered. At an elevation of 7,020 feet, the air had a deep mountain chill and we were both happy to dive under deep blankets. But now, the air is warm and the soft breeze is scented with burning copal, a resinous pine incense that mixes with the scent of lilacs and greenery.

This city, founded some time around 1320, is busy, actively getting ready to celebrate the myriad of cemetery conversations that will take place with the dearly departed.

I’ve fallen hard for this place. I have never seen any thing quite like this.

It feels pastoral and rural in the high mountain air, but also, so active and alive in the midst of all this death.