Two Steps from Nada: A Complex Transition

BIDDEFORD, Maine - Oct. 19, 2021 - PRLog -- A Complex Transition
By Roland Salazar Rose

Jesus was in the driver's seat. (No, not that Jesus!)

Jesús Zajarias, a neighbor and handyman in my barrio in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. I'd asked him to drive my 1992 Ford Taurus and me to Nuevo Laredo and the Laredo, Texas border crossing. The old station wagon was packed with clothes, paperwork, some small paintings and just stuff. The divorce with my wife, Helen, was finalized in 2007, but I was only now leaving my Mexican home and studio---a seminal day for me---March 3^rd, 2012.

Helen had Stage 3 breast cancer, and unable to come back to San Miguel, she rented me our Mexican condo property, now Helen's under our 2007 divorce settlement. It was my real home, art making-1989-2012- kingdom; and what I thought might be my final resting place; as so it was my father's when he was living here, needing care because of his age and cost of custodial care in America. Reggie, died (1994) in Mexico, and our lives as father and son and the lack of communication we had about the family history was turned into a memoir My Father's Room; it was to publish in  2011, when I returned to Maine.

I knew the journey from San Miguel to my new live-work studio in Biddeford, Maine was going to be a real test for me. I saw a journey to hell in the making. I was approaching my nonagenarian years, in okay health, with a token cash settlement payment that the divorce court awarded for my signing off on my rights to the SMA property to Helen. She did get a substantial number of my paintings, prior to her filing for divorce. This was by means of a 'gift' that I made. She ranted at me that she was entitled to get art that I created in Mexico, because she had provided financial assistance to me; although she did contribute finances, I provided her with the way she and her brother could get several large cash awards for the sale/lease of land to the USA Fish & Wildlife Authority; they wanted to pay, as on the land there were endangered birds: lease terns and piping plovers.

To read the entire essay, including view the images: see my website: http://www.salazargallery.com/complex-transition/
To contact Salazar: http:https://www.dropbox.com/l/AABBU51eyODSw7DkgFoGCLSRs-PuWT9IkwM