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.

Big Energies

When we first got our Zoey, she was so small she fit inside one of Carlos' socks. As a short-haired dog in winter, that's where she spent a lot of her first few weeks with us.  Then she grew into a sweet bull terrier who leapt over the grass when it was high and ran around like crazy when we took her to the Presa. She was BFF to Max, our German Shepherd who passed a few months ago.  He'd open his mouth and she'd lick his teeth.

Alas, Zoey, as an albino female, had a skin disease that worsened until she was living with large bleeding tumors on her stomach that robbed her energy and then her life. In her last days, a curious thing happened. The washing machine, right next to her box, stopped working. Then the coffee maker. Then the microwave oven. Then my computer. Then Zoey died. Now the clothes washer, coffee machine, microwave and computer work perfectly. My only conclusion would be that we all have powerful energies, I believe.  RIP, sweet Zoey!

What the Angels Want Me to Know

I told Carla about the angels I heard singing. (See previous post.)  

“Mom, they are definitely trying to reach you. What do you think they are trying to tell you?” 

“I don’t know,” I said. 

“Just be aware.  Don’t try too hard.  Let it come.  You’ll find out,” my 17-year old said.

So I have some maestros, or teachers, and they are trying to tell me something with supernantural signs.  Why me, and what could it be?  I am not gifted with extra abilities like my daughter.  What am I supposed to be doing with the regular abilities I have?  Or learning? Or understanding?

Maybe the answer is in my dreams.  They’ve been vivid lately, and full of detail.  Like the lady riding a white horse around and around in a circular arena. She had very long hair and was very competent on the horse.  She was standing on its back with her arms spread as the horse galloped.  She was naked but there was no shame to it.  My girls did this – volting - years ago when they were learning to ride.  The gal in the dream was very confident and I had the feeling of wanting my kids to see her.  Here’s what one dream interpretation site said:

To dream of a white horse signifies purity and good fortune. It indicates the image of a prince charming and his white horse coming to save the princess.

Horses symbolize strength, speed, and endurance. It also indicates having control over things and directing them towards your aim. 

To dream of a woman symbolizes love, nurture, caring, and passivity. It may represent your female side or your own mother.

I told my poet friend Fay about the angelic singing I’d heard the day before. 

“Angels are all around us,” Fay said. “I spoke to angels once through a medium.  They’re very bossy! My angel told me to get a pen and paper and write things down.  She said I would work in a store.  I thought,’ Me in a store?  I don’t think so.’”   We spoke in Garrison and Garrison book store in San Miguel.  She knew I saw the irony.  “And here I am, perfectly at home, surrounded by books.”

“Angels and spirits are trying to reach you because you are open.  And because you put a beautiful and honest work into the world,” Fay said. She gestured to my memoir, displayed on a Garrison and Garrison table.  Tears formed in my eyes.

Earlier that day a friend who’d lived in San Miguel when our kids were little, came into the spa to buy a second copy of my book for a friend.  “Almost finished your book. Wow.” my friend, Carmen, said drolly. “You really put yourself out there.”  Her tone was part respect, part repulsion. 

I focus on a text I picked up on Facebook earlier in the week that I keep going back to.  It was written by a Mayan leader who wants the world to know that 2012 is not the end of the world at all, but a time of great change as our planet moves into the World of the Fifth Sun. 

At sunrise on December 21, 2012 for the first time in 26,000 years the Sun rises to conjunct the intersection of the Milky Way and the plane of the ecliptic. This cosmic cross is considered to be an embodiment of the Sacred Tree, The Tree of Life, a tree remembered in all the world's spiritual traditions. 

I love thinking that a giant cross will be formed across the galaxy on my youngest daughter’s 16^th birthday.  I go back and read a favorite line from the Mayan leader. 

The element of the Fifth Sun is celestial.

Angels Singing

When I first had my ankle pinched, Carlos said maybe it was Mary, since she died of cancer, telling me to get checked for cancer.  Getting a cancer check I could do!  It would be an hour or two, and then done.  OK, I’ll get more than one!  I’ll check my breasts, my uterus.  Or maybe I’m supposed to be getting to those nine Masses.  I’ll pay for 9 Masses!  Any task that has a time limit, that doesn’t mean a lifestyle change.  Meditation, sheesh.  Here I am writing instead. Yes, Resistance is my middle name. 

Meantime, a couple of mornings ago, over coffee, I was telling Carlos about a dream I’d had in which a dog, probably our dog, vomited and in the huge mess, several sizes bigger than the dog itself, that came out I realized there were mesh bags containing animals without hair and two kittens who desperately needed to be released from the bags, or born.

I began to hear a sound, and I interrupted the part of my story where I do manage to free the kitties and hairless animals. It was singing.  The voices were high and clear and pure like voices from a boys’ choir.  All I could think was celestial song.  I stood by my kitchen counter, thinking, I am listening to angels.  I held my hand in the air for minutes, listening.  

“Hear that?” I asked my husband.

“Yeah,” he said, with furrowed brow. 

And then the sound changed.  Its high pitch lowered, and I realized I was listening to a pack of dogs barking. 

Perhaps weirder things have happened in my life but I sure don’t know when.  Was I suggestible because I had just read the article about the lady who speaks to angels, and written about her?  Do I need my ears cleaned, my head screwed on straight?  Or was I hearing a message of love? 

Reasons to Feel Optimistic

Was visited yesterday by two friends who live in a town near Monterrey.  Juan is researching why Mexican teens don't continue their schooling for his PhD.  During their travels this past August, they returned to their hometown the day a fire was started in a Monterrey casino that killed 53 people.  The fire was atrributed to clashing cartel members.  In communication in the days following, my friends were frightened, laying low, hearing of people disappearing and worse.  How are things now, I asked them yesterday.

I ask because fortunately, in San Miguel, we have not experienced drug violence.

Both friends brightened at the question.  Things are better, they said. Those responsible for the casino fire have been arrested, they reported.  Lots of the cartel commanders have been jailed too. What's left are ragtag street criminals without organization.  The military is keeping up a presence, and establishing little posts in neighborhoods to keep the streets safe.  Visitors are returning to tourist sites in the area.  Residents are returning to towns that had been evacuated when cartel members threatened to move in.  Order and peace are returning.

I've been praying for some Mexican healing, and my heart sings to hear it.

How El Negrito is not a matter of Political Correctness in Mexico

Bimbo in Mexico is like Wonder.  Bimbo produces white sandwich bread, promoted by a little white osito (bear cub) in a chef´s hat, and now, 2011, it also offers scores of whole wheat and multigrain options.
Bimbo sells packaged sweet cakes, too, kind of like Hostess selections in the US. One of its most popular is the Negrito. The Little Black One.
The Negrito is a white cake (it was once compared to a hot dog roll) both filled and topped with chocolate.  On its package is a black boy with a huge Afro and big stepping Keep on Truckin' feet.  He has a Negrito in his hand and a smile on his face, happy presumably to have his yummy snack.

If you are chubby in Mexico, you are probably nicknamed Gorda.  If you are skinny, you are Flaca, unless someone in your life has a wry sense of humor, and you are called Gorda.  Sean as a toddler was called Tortuga because, naked, we imagined her a turtle without its shell.  If you are light, you are called Guera.  If you are dark, you are Negro, or Negra, like my sister-in-law.  So a black boy or a chocolate snack is El Negrito.  Here in Mexico, it´s all good.

Flor de calabaza and a roof

It´s almost September, the time when rancho folks come into town with buckets of flor de calabaza for sale.  That´s the yellow zuchini flower that many Mexicans sautee and tuck into quesadillas.  The taco lady with hands of steel declined to buy the offered flor de calabaza this morning, but gave the boy selling them a couple of tacos.  After, he insisted she accept a bunch of the edible flowers anyway.

End of the summer also, in our case, means that my brother-in-law, a labor lawyer in León, just won a big case he´d been working on. What that means is that he came to visit his mom in San Miguel yesterday with an overloaded wallet. 

There is a chapter in my memoir, Flirting in Spanish, entitled The Lamina Roofed House.  It told how Carlos took me to his parents´ house for the first time.  Approaching his house, I could see that part of the roof was lamina - corrugated plastic.  There was another chapter that I decided not to include.  It detailed how some drunk soccer boys, sitting on a hill above my mother-in-law´s house began to throw bottles at the house while I sat outside nursing infant Carla one Sunday.  When they ran out of beer bottles, they threw rocks.  My five foot tall mother-in-law ran outside with a machete raised over her head.  The nonsensical attack was over as soon as it started, and the boys came to the house the next day to apologize, and promise to buy another piece of lamina, as they´d torn a hole in the roof.  That was nineteen years ago.  For 19 years - more actually - the family sweated under that roof during hot months and shivered in the cold.  Now, with big brother´s success, the family will get a proper poured-cement roof.  And the lamina roof that my chapter details will be a thing of the past.

12 Reasons the 9-Hour Trip to the Beach Is Worth It

In random order:
1.  Roads lined with mango trees
2.  Waking to the sound of waves
3.  Main means of transportation is the bicycle
4.  Your waitress is barefoot
5.  Snorkling the unspoiled coral reef
6.  My anxiety burning off like the morning mist
7.  Our girls getting along
8.  The absence of Sean´s "you´re so annoying" face
9.  The girls still body-surfing at 9 pm
10. Shrimp botana in Cuastecomate
11. Sea Kayaking with the chance some dolphins will join you
12. Going down to sea level means your blood fills with oxygen which   
       means the Pacifico beer you drink has little effect.

Life in La Manz

The first day we saw a giant orange coin of a sunset.  Monday we saw about two dozen iguanas, from baby green ones scurrying around in the grass to giant grey/green daddies blocking our path over at Warren and Tuli´s place at, where else, Boca de Iguana, an understated resort-and-condo development with one of the most fabulous infinity pools we've ever seen and also one of the coolest bathroom sinks...it's like flora and fauna and water, but it's a sink.  Also Carlos and Sean took off for the little palapa-roofed store and had to skirt a crocodile.  Oh yes, every day we see crocodiles.  The crocodiles live in the manglar (mangrove) at the end of our street.  There are dozens of them dozing in the mixture of fresh and salt water, where the river dumps into the sea.  When we first came to La Manzanilla, about six years ago, there was a little rail separating the street from the crocs, only centimeters away.  Now there is a real chain-link fence.

La Manzanilla is truly is one of the earth's most beautiful spots.  Now, of course as soon as I say that, I have to modify it to tell you that yesterday and today again we went down to the road to an even more glorious beach....la de Tenacatita.  When I came back yesterday and told the folks in Santana Real Estate office that we had gained accerss to Tenacatita, they were left speechless.   Nine months ago, government soldiers forcibly tossed out of the town the fishermen, restaurant owners and vendors who had made their home there for years.  They bulldozed businesses and palapa shacks, having been petitioned by the real owner of the beachfront land to do so, I'm told.  The folks making their living there were in effect squatters.  Apparently they had been asked to leave several times over the past 20 years, and didn-t.  I have to say all my reporting comes from hearsay. I haven't journalistically backed any of it up on my own.  I do know, because we were there over the last two days, that the entrance to town is now guarded by 6 to 8 armed state guards and two barking German Shepherds in cages.  Once we showed some ID though, we were told we could enjoy the beaches but not take photos of anything BUT beach and sea, and we were waved through. 

I know people lost their locations and their means to make a living (but not really, most of the vendors have relocated to La Manzanilla), and I feel for the upheaval in their lives, but as a tourist, I have to say the beach, without gals in folkloric dresses hawking necklaces, is breathtaking.  We visited Tenacatita two days in a row for its major attraction - an unspoiled coral reef, through which we delightedly snorkled, spotting several species of colorful little fish.  

This morning, I was about two minutes into meditation up on our palapa porch when Carlos said, "Dolphins!"  He ran in and woke the girls and we watched half a dozen dolphins romp through our bay, often doing full-body leaps from the water. 

Dolphin watching and coral reef snorkling before the day's first meal.  Can you beat it?  I need a nap.

Vote Now!

Hey all!

First I don´t know why this is centered and not left flush and I can´t correct it.  Next, two possible designs are in for the cover of my memoir, Flirting in Spanish to be released July 1, 2011, and I like them both!  I need help!

If you would kindly comment me your favorite, I´d have an easier time deciding.  Thank you, genuis readers!

Slurp...Ahhhh!

I´m thinking micheladas.  You can have your margaritas, I´ll take a michelada any day of the week.  There are michelada places popping up all over in San Miguel, mirroring how popular the beer drink has become with me!  The Sinola pescado place that just opened up this week by the family of one of my students shouts from its window Micheladas Frias!  Other friends opened up Wakaglu Micheladas and Guacamayas over on the Calzada de Aurora. A guacamaya is a torta, or sandwich on a roll featuring chicharón, or fried, puffed-up pig skin that is so crunchy is crackles, plus some vinegary coleslaw and aguacate (avocado) and salsa - nutty, huh?  My girls love them.  I go for the MICHELADA! 
Anyway I promised myself a michelada today after writing at least one page and I wrote THREE so I guess I have the right to drink 3 micheladas. 
I think I´ll make a couple at home (one for Husband too).  A large jar, preferably big as a kitchen sink.  A caguama (liter) of beer.  (Caguama is not the Spanish word for liter. It means giant turtle actually.)  Worchestershire sauce, tabasco, lime, salted rim, ice.  Michelada!