12 hours, 12 friends, 12 grapes – A Brief Explanation/Introduction

I recently spent two weeks in the geographic heart of Mexico in a town called – on Google Maps – San Miguel de Allende.

In my heart and soul it’s called The Mother Ship, or The Place That I Call Home, or Where I Truly Belong.

Yes, I understand fully that two weeks in a location doth not an accurate reading make (says the Inner Critic), and that packing up and moving south of the border is fraught with all manner of perils and whatnot (shut up Inner Critic), and you couldn’t possibly make an uprooting, life-changing decision after fourteen days (12 if you count 2 travel days…and you’re about to get fired, Mr. Inner)…

…and I haven’t applied for a permanent resident visa…yet.

I started out writing a story of just one day and one experience with two people in SMA.

But that turned into five people, and some tortoises, and then twelve people on New Year’s Eve (one of which was a 10 year old who desperately tried to teach me to count in Spanish, and eventually gave up on the ignorant gringa and went back to playing MineCraft, for which I didn’t blame him), and two hundred forty grapes entered the picture, and then David kicked Irma out on New Year’s Day so what were we going to do about that…

You can easily see my dilemma.

San Miguel was not one story, or a few people here and there, or a couple of travel observations about the “little differences,” Tarantino/Pulp Fiction style. It was a whole, far reaching experience. Life changing seems a weighty descriptor, so I’ll leave that for you to decide – or me, if it turns out I’m the only one reading this.

Rather than make one ENORMOUS blog post (to paraphrase/bastardize the Energizer Bunny, it just kept growing, and growing, and growing…) I’m posting this in installments. Theoretically best to read them in order (if I actually manage to sort out any kind of order), but not totally necessary – it’s still al free country up here, at least until the Death Squads come.

This story is half travel blog, half adventure story, and half inner musings, with a dose of whimsy, spirituality, and personal discovery thrown in. If you’re not in to any of that stuff, there’s a DIY blog on how to make the perfect Halloween cupcake just next door, I’m sure. Nothing wrong with that at all, but it ain’t here.

Fair warning – sometimes I say naughty words. Sorry, Mom. But I’m sort of grown up now (at least according to my therapist), and I kinda like to cuss sometimes. If that’s not your jam…again, learn how to set the perfect table with fancy folded napkins right around the corner there.

And I’d tell you to visit San Miguel as soon as you can, but I’d rather you not, frankly. It’s mine, and the fewer of the unwashed masses down there to annoy me, the better.

~HM