Why I Let My 15-Year Old Out Until 3 A.M.

So Saturday night I woke up at 3 am and realized my girls, aged 15 and 17, were not home.

Carlos - "Are they supposed to be?"

"Carla, yes. Sean is spending the night at Michelle's."

"Think she's at Michelle's yet?"

"Quien sabe."

First, I said a Hail Mary and then a prayer to the angels, to my dude, Michael especially. "Archangel, protector, please make sure my girls and their friends are safe."

Behind my closed eyes, I saw two large white wings folding around the girl group. The picture of the girls was peaceful, tranquil. I knew they were fine.

I got out of bed and made a phone call to Sean, age 15. They were just leaving the Mint, a downtown dance club. Yes, a bar. They were all going, Carla included, to Michelle's to spend the night.

"Stay in a group!" I said.
"Yes," Sean said. "Mom, (exasperated) we're fine!"

I know. If you are a parent in the United State of American reading this you are horrified, scandalized and doubt my parenting skills. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

In San Miguel de Allende, teens go to bars. There is probably some law on the books saying they can't, but that law is waived every weekend if the teen at the door is good-looking and well-dressed enough. My kids, ages 15 and 17 love to go to upscale clubs with major sound systems.  It's about being with their friends and dancing, they insist. Plus, I know they don't drink, and the kids in their crowd who drink do so with restraint. In other words, getting falling down drunk is exceedingly uncool.  "Mom," says Sean. "You can always tell the Americans in the bars. First, the girls wear clothes that show their bras!  Second, by 11 o'clock. they can't even stand up!" She curled her lip in disdain.

In 2012, we gave permission. You might have to be on overtime with us for awhile, I advised my angels. That would cut down on the sneaking out and allow us to set curfews. Which has worked pretty well, except for one staying-out-all-night incident, so far.

The girls came in on Sunday morning around 10 a.m., glowing. They'd had a good night. Now, with permission, they don't hide. They tell us things! Alan! Max! Abbie! Their friends doing the craziest things! Dancing and taking photos! An image came into my head. It was very clear. It was me, standing in front of a host of angels. (no, wait, that sounds biblical). A crowd of foot-tapping angels. They were looking up, as if waiting for Jimi Hendrix to appear on stage. But I appeared in front of them instead. I bowed, arms out. Thank you, homies. Thank you, gracias, thank you.

No Money No Worries

Friday May 18th, we came home to a dark house. The CFE bill was due on the 17th. Almost 900 pesos. Almost 900 pesos that we didn't have because it's May and because weird things are happening in the universe. I don't know if it's a pre-election void or depression but there's no movement in anyone's business - waiters and hotel clerks sit around forlornly - and everyone, all citizens and regular clients, that is - except for the lonely circling cab drivers are gone.

So, a Friday night with no electricity. Carlos and I sat on our porch. He went into meditation and I thought, great. No light, no company. Then he opened his eyes. "Mi maestro told me to take the clamp off the meter," he said. So he did.

We had luz.

The next night, the gas ran out. Still no clients, no work for us - San Miguel remained in a strange vacuum. So we couldn't order up another tank of gas, but no fear...we had electricity! We cooked in the electric frying pan! We heated water for bathing in the coffee maker!  Life was ...tolerable. We got by.

Then the cable company was about to cut off our cable television AND internet. Now things were grave.

By the end of the day, two clients had used Jasmine Spa services. We had cash. We bought tortillas and beer and paid....what do you think?

Television and internet of course!! Forget the homework...imagine telling the kids they couldn't chat with their friends at night. Now you know we have our priorities in order.

What My Fist-Pumping Angel Pals Say Today

So I did this processing thing with my bud Fay again where she gets you to clear out old emotional stuff that might not be useful any more to make yourself nice and open to receive messages from your guides.

Everyone - Carlos, my 17-year old, Carla, Fay - receives spirit guide messages but me. I feel like the girl who didn't get asked to prom, like the last person to be picked for the basketball scrimmage. When's it my turn? So, right, this clearing thing with Fay. That will open me up and let my guides start telling me things like where to find the bundles of gold hidden on our property.

Up in Colonia Independencia, I'm sitting on a chair across from Fay. We are both in meditation positions and she says, "Oh, Michael and Rafael are here."
I thought, "Hey, guys."
Fay said, "Michael is Protection and Rafael is Healing."
Me: in my head, "Cool."
Fay: "Ah, the Divine Mother is here."
Me: "Girl power. Yeah."

The week before I had really felt presence of the Divine Mother, and needed it. Who, after all, nurtures moms? But this week, I was all about the men. Michael and Rafael. I felt a big white Michael wing behind my back. I felt sheets of sparkly emerald green healing from Rafa. Soothing me from distress over conflicts with Carla.

"Wow," Fay said, "It's standing room only here. There are a lot of angels here. Do you feel all the support?"

I did. I felt comforted, then energized. "I get it," I said. "To be supported, all I have to do is ask."
"That's it!" Fay said. "That's what they want you to know!"
I could see green and gold around me. I felt it.
"Michael is very pleased that you understand. He is patting himself on the back, winking at Rafael, like, Job well done."
"High-fiving and fist-pumping?"
"You could say that."

Later, I walked into town and ran into a gal I knew named Kerry.
"I need baskets!" Kerry fretted. "I've searched the artisan's market. Cruised the streets looking for those people who walk around selling baskets."
"Did you try the basket shop?" I asked.
"There's a basket shop?"
"Over on that street that runs into the Oratorio. Across from the shop that sells blankets and school uniforms."
"Oh!" Kerry exclaimed, shifting toward town. She hurried off in the direction I'd indicated. Over her shoulder, she called, "You're an angel."

Angels on My Side

..It happened again. Something pressed on my instep at around 4 a.m., waking me up. I laid real still. "Open for messages," I mentally assured the spirit visitor. Wait, I'll cleanse my chakra path, really send a signal I'm ready for what I'm supposed to be learning. With my mind, I sent a bolt of light down my trunk, clearing out shrubbery, trash, things to worry about. "No blockages!" I encouraged. "Ready for guidance!"

I lay still some more. "Antenas are up! Alert and open for wisdom!"

I wonder if the spirits have a sense of humor. Maybe they're having a good chuckle. Hey, let's wake this one up and make her think we have something important to say! That would be just like my friend, Mary, who died in October, if the spirit is indeed her.

...Had a "processing" session with Fay Hart, a Self Awareness Coach who has this heading on her website: Smoke Pot or Not. Fay guides one to feel messages of pain in the body, and then heal them. Fay is also a kickass performance poet. We are trading sessions for massage. During the session, Fay invoked the Divine Mother and the Angels Gabriel and Rafael to join us, and I actually saw them, not with faces but as beings of light. This might be sounding way out there. Bear with me. Fay does guided meditation and she was talking about nurturing and I welled up because who nurtures mothers/heads of households/decision makers/writers? I felt myself enveloped in a big, well, abrazo de luz. A brilliant light hug. Whew!
I used to do some big time eyerolling at people who talked like this, by the way.  So later, Fay says, "Gabriel is always there when I do sessions. He's the messenger. The Patron Saint of Communication Workers. He heralds the revealing of answers."

Answers? Yes, please! Communication Workers - that's me! Sue McKinney, News 3 - I said that on a daily basis for about ten years! I wrote a book already! Gabriel is my dude!  C'mon Gabe.  So where is the pinche message??

...Meantime, on the highway between San Miguel de Allende and beautiful Silao, Guanajuato, April 28, to be precise, the sun was a new red ball at 6:30 a.m. and our car was packed with swimsuits and sunscreen and aimed toward La Manzanilla in Jalisco. Suddenly a huge tractor-trailer bore down on us in the other side of the narrow and curvy two lane highway. It occurred to me it might cross the center line and put us in danger. Without thought, I pushed a wall of energy toward the truck and it stayed in its lane and passed without crushing us. A thought formed clearly in my head - "I have a lot of power."

I DID, two days before we left for the beach, take my first Tae Kwon Do test and not only passed but was bumped from Advanced White right up to Yellow. (yeah!!) But maybe it's not that kind of power. What is my power??

Healing Through Massage? I know sometimes I really help people who can barely move.

Words? I can write about waking up to awareness, and about my expanding ability to give and receive love, and maybe it will resonate with one person. Or more.

Is this the message? Do I REALLY need confirmation? Yes! Are the angels and spirits losing patience with me and my needing to know?

Maybe. Meantime, I'm thick and dense, spirit guides, OK? Open for message. You can say clearly, You are on the right track, or Look over there, mensa. Whatever works. Lines are open.

That's me on the La Manzanilla beach, trying to find my power.

What the Iguana Wants Me To Know

          Every year we go to the beach and everybody sees iguanas but me. Our beach is the most beautiful place on earth, La Manzanilla, Jalisco. Iguanas used to be plentiful in this region, known to tourists as Costalegre (The Happy Coast), but locals have had a taste for iguana meat and the reptile is now more scarce than it used to be. Still, a two foot long iguana sat in the middle of the entrance road last year, staring down our car. Carla, who loves reptiles so much she was sure she had a relationship with a small green snake won at a fair when she was about ten, jumped out of the car and approached it. It jumped into combat stance and hissed at Carla until she stopped. Then it ran off. Of course I was not in the car.
          This year, however, I am an iguana magnet. Covering our last 10 kilometers to reach La Manz, a taxi driver stood on the side of the road next to his ride, holding an iguana upside down by the tail. I stared at its white belly and realized it was probably dead and the driver was doubtless thinking soup. Did you see that? I said to the car. I got blank stares.
          Sunday, we walked to the end of our street to visit the dozens of crocodriles who inhabit the mangrove there. Something flashed in the tree ahead. A fat green iguana. "Look!" I said, but nobody in my family saw anything.
          Monday, Carlos and I strolled down main street, Maria Asuncion, back from buying fish and mangoes. I glanced into a real estate office and on the entrance rug sat a blue iguana.  "Como se llama?" I asked the young gal in the office. She looked around from her computer. "Aaayyyyy!"
          "It´s not your pet?" I asked.
          "Estas cosas me dan miedo!" she shrieked.
          I ran to our rental, found Carla sunning and panted, "Need Reptile Rescue."
          Within minutes, she had Iguana Blue trapped, calmed (with her t-shirt over his head) and released into vegetation.
           Seeing iguanas 3 days in a row? It had to be a sign.
           On Tuesday, we went to Melaque and ate breakfast facing the sea. After I snuck into an internet cafe. "Iguanas come into our awareness when we need a reminder to just BE," informed the first site I looked at. "Iguanas bring the message that we have impressive gifts we can use for our well-being," said the next.
          Yesterday I was on the lookout for iguanas, aware at the same time, that if I was looking, they probably wouldn´t appear.
          Sure enough, nada. 
          During dinner, though, the gecko who has lived in the apartment ever since we began renting it for a week in May eight years ago, ran across the south wall. It ran into the house and reappeared on the porch. It scurried back and forth. "What an attention seeker," I muttered. Normally, the gecko just sat up near the roof and watched us.
          This morning, I snuck back to the internet (this is our unplugged week) while Carlos made chilaquiles.
          - Gecko females can reproduce without males.
          - Geckos don´t have eyelids. all-seeing?
          Geckos don´t show up much in discussions of spirit animals, so I looked at lizards.
          - Lizard teaches us the importance of respecting and remembering our dreams.
            In my dreams recently, there has been a man in a hat who could have entered our house but didn´t. There was a tower that I climbed.
             As I looked further, there was this: Those who feel the spirit of the lizard can learn ways to use their enhanced sensory perceptions to connect with their deeper psychic and spiritual awareness. 
           

          Which is the path I´m on presently. More tomorrow about what I´m learning about my power.

Spirit Visits

Um. I blog. I remember that. I used to with frequency. O well. Here I am again, sifting through my memory. Things are quiet on the spirit visitation front. Or are they? Now my memory is coming up with a pressure on my calf while I slept a couple of weeks ago. It lasted a full 30 seconds or so. A slight shove during a different night. I look over and Carlos is dead asleep facing away from me. A cell phone ring the night after the shove. Just once. The tone was not that of my cell phone nor of Carlos'.

Remembering eating breakfast at Cafe de La Parroquia one morning with Carlos and Carla.
Carla says, I feel thoughtful today.
Me - How?
Carla - I feel like I'm in another dimension, like I'm over there watching all of us, but I'm not here. Know what I mean?
Me - No. I experience you right there across from me, eating enchiladas.
Carla - Really?

I have a friend in Wisconsin who believes in science and not in God. I tell him about my experiences, about Carla. He is skeptical but open. He owns two campus bars. He told two of his bartenders one night about the things I tell him - Carla's clairvoyance, spirits nudging me. The bartenders are gals in their twenties. They tell him I need to have my head examined.

I'm sure my stories sound nutty to a good number of people. I challenge anyone to live a week with Carla and see if they reconsider their outlook.

Carla says her maestros wake her up and remind her of her tarea – to be a living example of not wearing a thought.  "Like, Mom," she says. "Yesterday when you were fretting about getting to the dermatologist on time and I was still laying on the massage table.  I knew it would be OK to get there late."  Sure enough, we got to the dermatoligist's office after 2 pm, but the previous client didn’t come out until about 2:20.  “So I look like I’m a slug and I don’t care, but really I know it’s going to be alright.”

It's going to be alright. 

Will She Stay or Will She Go?

Judy and Dan from Vermont came to the opening of Carlos' abstract art show at Galeria One on Saturday.
"I'm almost to the end of your book!" Judy said.  She turned and punched Carlos on the arm.  "You didn't go to your rehearsal dinner!"

The pair had visited San Miguel some eight years before, and during their stay, Judy booked several massages with Carlos in our spa, Jasmine. They swapped stories.  Judy - world traveler with her husband.  Carlos - married to an American gal who was writing the story of meeting him.

Last week, Judy had a massage with Carlos and was delighted to find I had completed my book.  She bought Flirting in Spanish.  Early Saturday, I taught creative writing to 25 kids in Palo Colorado, then spent the rest of the day hanging paintings with Carlos.  Judy and Dan happened by.  "I can't put your book down!" she said.  "You just went to that dance and you're deciding whether to stay in Mexico!"  A few hours later, they came to the gallery opening.  "Nice paintings, Carlos. But I can't stay.  I have to go home and read to the end and see if you guys stay together!"

Above is one of the paintings from the show.  MOMA - leave a comment here and we can talk!