By Natalie Taylor

 

Nathan and Karen Moon are in their second year in San Miguel de Allende and seem to have fit in very well. They had spent 10 years in Tallahassee where she was a juvenile officer, and he’s an attorney who worked for the Florida Supreme Court. In 2018 they began thinking about taking time off and trying out something different. They are too young to be retired; instead Nathan likes to say that he’s “pretired.” They had visited San Miguel a few times in the early 2000s because Nathan’s mother is an artist who takes people on visits to artistic communities around the world. They had enjoyed San Miguel during those times and wondered what it would be like to actually live here.

 

In the summer of 2019 they came here to scout out possible places to live and decided on one. By September of the same year they had sold their house in Tallahassee, packed four suitcases, took along their two cats, and moved to San Miguel. Their initial plan was “let’s do it for a year,” and they continue with the same fluid train of thought, allowing life to develop and show them what the next chapter might be.

 

Like most people who move to San Miguel they didn’t know anyone but soon made acquaintances and friends. Fortunately, they arrived prior to the pandemic so there were many venues still open to them. One of these was a newcomer’s group where they soon found like-minded individuals. As often happens during these group events, they came upon people with whom they had unexpected so-called “small-world connections” so common here. In this case, it was a woman who had gone to the same high school as Karen. They were many years apart in age, but they hailed from the same school. A similar thing happened during our interview–it turns out that Nathan went to Wisconsin University in Madison, the same place where one of my daughters got her degree. 

 

What they love about San Miguel is walking everywhere and running into people they know. Another plus is the ease of making friends. Many of us have struck up a conversation here with total strangers sitting at the next table in a restaurant and immediately asked each other, “which colonia do you live in?” This would be anathema in the US where the answer, either stated or thought, would be “why do you want to know where I live?”

 

In spite of their short time here they have both integrated into the community. Karen has worked with the Writers’ Conference and recently joined Mujeres en Cambio where she lends her computer expertise. Nathan is tapping back to his undergraduate degree in journalism by writing his blog and doing interviews for a potential book. And they are allowing the future to shape itself and guide them toward whatever might be next in store. 

 

If you’d like to share your story, please write me at tangonata@gmail.com