Hello

I am feeling more present lately and like I have found some sort of steady ground. Something has happened in the past several months. People have come and gone in my life, some have stayed some have packed up in the middle of the night and never called again. Major shifts of continents and a sea change. I could go on saying that I never thought I would be here, not like this. But I am, so what is the point in drawing that out. Funny how the universe provides if we're open and honest with ourselves. I'm so grateful for my friends both new and old. I'm still dumbstruck and surprised by the fact that I matter to anyone. I realize how that sounds... like my self worth must be quite low. I don't think that is it so much but rather the fact that I think I have lived most of my life taking the easy way, just getting by and not feeling like I was accountable to anyone else. Suddenly I see I matter. People meet me and remember my name. They may say "hello" or ask me how I have been. Every gesture, every spoken word, every acknowledgement both received and given is a reminder that we are all here in this together and I am so thankful to be here now with you all, including those who have let me down and those who have helped me pick myself up when I needed someone. I've realized that it isn't only our friends or positive influences in our lives who teach us about life and about ourselves... it's also the people who come into our lives and maybe break our hearts a little (or a lot) that provide a wealth of insight. I think I've finally figured out what my dad meant all those times he told me that "life isn't fair" in response to my righteous declaration that (something) wasn't fair (whatever it was). Mistreated or misunderstood, left alone without any explanation, being mislead, breaking vows, using harsh words... All the ways that we can be hurt or hurt others, there's a mountain of resentment and disappointment if you let it build up. So when my dad told me that life isn't fair, he really meant... Sometimes things happen without explanation or reason. Sometimes things happen whether we want them or expect them to or not. Sometimes people hurt us or we hurt them and there are no answers no matter how strongly we feel that not having answers "isn't good enough" or that we are "owed an explanation or something for our hurt." We are owed more... we owe it to ourselves to accept that sometimes life isn't fair and there aren't any answers or explanations one could offer in order to make things right - to heal... and that is where acceptance comes in. Living in the present, is accepting the good and bad. That is a vow I make to myself. For better or worse, I am here now.

Taproot

Where does all the forgetting go? Is it buried here beneath our skin? Does it seep beneath the surface? Do roots extend, do they twine and surge, tendrils weaving through the heart, the lungs? Those tender breaths and fingertips. The slender limbs. Taproot, my root, deep anchoring roots, they grew straight through to the center of me. All the forgetting things that fill me from the outside in. Sight. Smell. Taste. Touch. Sound. Am I a bud blooming for you now?

It's oh so quiet (shhh shhh)

There's a heavy fog hanging in the air today, like rain suspended midair making everything wet. I woke up at 4:30am but didn't give into wakefulness until 5am. It was so quiet that I heard St. Bernard's church bells ringing first at 6am then at 7. In the midst of all this quiet there's a soft buzzing growing louder in my head and I'm a little dizzy from smiling and a little out of breath.

Saudade

He called me selfish and asked me why I wasn't talking. I said "I hate that word, selfish." I asked if he knew the word "saudade." He asked me what I was missing. Without looking at him, I said "everything I've never known." I don't think he understood.

El tiempo se detuvo

There is a man with a white beard standing in the ocean at sunset in his underwear bathing two white horses in the salty water of the Caribbean. Running barefoot on the jungle path to the beach, I give myself over to the soft black mud and slowly ease with arched feet over the sharp roots of trees. Big blue and red crabs duck and draw their claws into their burrows as I pass. Walking barefoot in the garden overgrown with vines, edible food and spices tangled together like weeds. Everything is damp with or without the rain. I don't care about clothes, about smell, about any sort of image I might otherwise care about outside of this place. There is no point in caring, the humidity of the jungle washes away all vanity and necessity to be vain. Baptized in sweat, saltwater and sand I am reborn into the tranquil days at 5 am when the rooster crows. The bat, the cricket, the frog, the neon colored viper, the hummingbird and butterfly. The well fed buzzard picking through the trash bins. The deceptively slow sloth with its alien mask. The dogs all of which I affectionately call "pups" and the cats that have managed to outlive the owl's claws, I will carry you with me. I will cradle you in the skirt of my dress with the ginger root, Cinnamon branch and fern leaves. We will drink coconut water, suck on raw cocoa beans and stand on the shore at dusk, where we will listen to the water rush and sigh at the end of every day for the rest of our lives.

The rush and decline

There you are in black ink. I see you, one eye blinking behind the shade of your sandy hair. I ran back to the road to meet you at the gate, barefoot on black mud and moss. When I arrived you weren't there. It rains here and the water drops swell on the roof and pour in a stream making little rivers in the garden. I planted three seeds. None of them have grown but one almost started to sprout roots... Almost. I remember the white Styrofoam cup sitting on the dashboard of your red truck. I remember when I was 8 and covered myself in mud, red earth like rust. Rocks sliding off hills. Bouncing in and out of potholes, the white cup sits balanced and still as I slip back in the seat unaware of the timing.

Today

Everyone asked me how I was feeling about today, or they wanted to know how I thought I would feel. I said I didn't know. I've never done this before. We met a few minutes before and went in together. We had the option of sitting at separate tables or at the same table. We sat at the same table, with a microphone between us. I lost my voice a few times and the judge asked me to repeat my answer. Like before, we answered "yes" to everything. The court recorder stared at me or rather through me as she typed. The officer sitting near the judge kept nodding at me in encouragement or reassurance I'm not sure. I didn't know how I would feel. When we walked out I started to cry. I mean tears streaming down my face, hands shaking. I walked to a quiet spot and stayed there for a few minutes looking out towards the lake and then towards the capitol. How do I feel? I feel disappointed. I feel loss and like I have lost. like I have failed somehow and come in last. I feel like I've taken a hard hit and had the wind knocked out of me or losing pressure, like how the air slowly seeps out of some tiny crease, unseen but felt. I feel like this is life, sometimes.

Pura vida!

It was probably hour 20 of nonstop travel when the realization came to me. After spending the night on a bench in the Chicago airport, catching two flights on maybe two hours of sleep and then being spit out in San Jose with only a vague idea of how to get down to the Caribbean coast from the middle of Costa Rica, taking a taxi to a nondescript bus station, asking for help, grabbing another taxi to another bus station, asking for help, 4 hour bus ride, then another taxi... it occurred to me that I am a very calm, patient and optimistic person... at least when it comes to traveling. I have this irrepressible attitude that everything will work out and be okay... To be honest, I wasn´t really sure that I would make it here at least in one try. I was exhausted, dirty and smelly. But I was alive. I made it and everything worked out! Now I think I want to try to have this approach in other areas of my life.

Riding bicycles on dirt roads with giant potholes. Early morning ocean swims. Petting lots of sweet dogs and watching hummingbirds and giant butterflies. I have come to the land of giant ferns. I love it here.