It’s cold in Manizales, a city in the sky set high in the central range of the Colombian Andes, although it dawned hot and sunny.  Well, relatively hot.  It’s about nine o’clock in the morning on the last day of November in a year that has seen the very worst of humanity triumph all over a sad and abused planet.

In Manizales it never really gets too hot or, truth be told, too cold.  Just different ranges of spring although the humidity varies, frequently by the hour.  Still, it’s chilly right now.  Today I’ve layered up: tee shirt under shirt under sweater.  That’s all I need here to escape the chill.  The morning has turned foggy, visibility outside is nil, but it involves low lying clouds more than fog, as occurs when you’re in a city higher than the seven thousand foot mark, an interesting albeit common phenomenon in this city in the sky set amidst mountains usually dressed in myriad shades of green.  The sight is eerily beautiful.  It’s as though the city repented of having woken early and pulled its ethereally fluffy white blankets back up over its head. 

It’s a good day for a fireplace.  For several fireplaces.  We have a small one set high on a wall in the living room but it’s not wood burning, it’s powered by a relatively small propane gas cylinder, not a fireplace Santa would appreciate but very pretty when it’s lit.  Something we seldom do.  If I were to build the perfect house it would be set amidst waterfalls and deep caverns and lakes but near the ocean, and would have fireplaces all over the place, and large rooms with balconies, and the roof would be a park-like terrace full of plants but with a Jacuzzi and would feature wrought iron outdoor living room furniture of sorts, and a wrought iron desk with a glass top so I could work outside, and an outdoor fire pit nearby. 

But, for now, no such luck. 

Still, I can’t complain, I have a large tenth floor apartment that occupies the entire floor giving us a three hundred and sixty degree view of the city and of the surrounding mountains, many clad in snow, and of the neighboring city set below, far below with a tall cathedral set not very far away, and a small park set outside of the front door.  And with a used-book store set aside our lobby.  The city’s cultural center with its large performing arts center is across the street and a block away we have the city’s initial aerial cable transport station, gondolas taking us to the nearby bus terminal and then to the neighboring municipality.  And, two blocks from our front door, a small modern shopping mall.

What I don’t have is my three sons, now all grown; two with children of their own.  They live a continent away in the Global North and I never see them now; well, except every once in a while in a video call.  We’ve lived apart for a very long time now, decades.  I’ve remarried to a wonderful woman, not just attractive but spiritual and intelligent and eclectic, and she fills a lot of the void I’ve created for myself after leaving most of my past behind, as do the wonderfully kind, talented and artistic people of Manizales, and as do my few expatriate friends, traces of my old life, but nothing can replace my sons.  I think of them daily.  And I think of the many, many people I’ve known, some of whom I’ve loved.  Most of them have long vanished from my life but not from my memory.

It’s been a full life, one full of blessing and of challenges, most of which (the challenges) have been overcome.  It frequently feels as though it’s been too full but today, for some reason, it seems hollow.  Perhaps it’s the weather but, although the low lying clouds still have everything covered so that it seems as though the world outside my windows has been erased, a bright spot in the white, a brighter white, seems to be trying to break through.  Of course, eventually it will.  It always does.

So, why does today still feel so gloomy?

It must be missing my sons and the grandchildren I’ve never really gotten to know which sculpts the day in hollow tones.  And the echoes of old relationships turned acrid which, at least from time to time, still cast long and somber shadows.

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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2025; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet and aspiring empirical philosopher) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta, cosmology and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.