A few weeks ago, Liz and I were fortunate enough to experience a real Costa Rican Quinceañera. It was for Amanda (the niece of our neighbors Luz and Guillermo). We agreed to help them prepare (Luz was doing the cooking) so we hiked over to their farm early in the morning. We were prepared to work, and we brought changes of clothes, jewelry, and makeup so we could get ready after the preparations were finished.
We chopped vegetables for hours. Hundreds of onions, carrots, peppers, and garlic cloves passed through my fumbling fingers as I tried to match the delicacy and precision of Luz. These vegetables were thrown into a giant pot of carne en salsa – this metal pot was the size of a kiddie pool, and it was sitting atop a roaring fire for hours. These people know how to cook.
We were able to take coffee in the afternoon before we got ready. Liz and I showered quickly – what was really magical was to see all of the girls in the house getting ready. Even the tiny ones wore a little bit of mascara.
We rode to the Quince in the back of memo’s pickup truck. I felt like a badass – dolled up, wearing a dress – clinging on for dear life as the rickety cab bumped and bounced over every large rock beneath the tires.
this was awesome
little Daniela riding like a pro!
The party was so extravagant. I’ve never been to a birthday celebration like that. The only comparable events in my repertoire of memories were wedding receptions I attended when I was young. Amanda looked like a princess. Everything was pink – ribbons, candles, tablecloths, flowers. They even had a live band and a disco ball above the dance floor. There was a red carpet extending down the center of the large room. Also: because of my awesome camera, Guillermo and Luz made me the official photographer of the evening. I have included my favorites in this post. Enjoy!
Luz made a ridiculous amount of homemade liquor. When I asked her what it was called, she smiled and replied “contrabano”. Contraband. She brews massive tubs of this homemade chocolate and coconut cream alcohol every time she has a party. I’ve grown to love it a little too much. Anyway, servers kept bringing out trays and trays of this stuff, so about an hour in, Liz and I were hammered. We meandered over to the kitchen later (one of my favorite things to do) and found Dago, Guillermo’s brother, pouring himself a shot of some really strong homemade liquor. He insisted on pouring us several shots, and by then, I was over the moon. It was clear that this alcohol was not meant for everyone. I felt like a VIP at a very important party. Later on, we wandered outside to get some fresh air and met some older Costa Rican guys who were sipping on imperials. They asked us if we wanted some beers, Liz and I readily accepted. The older one was donning dark washed denim jeans, an exquisitely pressed button-up shirt, and the largest cowboy hat I have ever seen. He explained to us that he was the owner of the local bar, and that if we would come dance with them, they’d get us whatever we wanted to drink. I was ecstatic. I figured Kelly (who had stayed home) would understand me accepting their offer.
We had an open bar – free drinks, shots, and cigarettes punctuated by bouts of capricious dancing. They taught us how to salsa and meringue. Looking back, the whole night has become a blur.
Later we decided to head back to the party (to the dismay of newly-found friends we had made at the bar) in case things were wrapping up soon. Outside, we ran into Luz’s little sister and her boyfriend. They conveniently had a bottle of rum wrapped elegantly in a brown paper bag. After being invited to drink more, we conceded gracefully and passed around the rum.
We ended up giving each other languages lessons – they taught me that I was “muy barracha” and liz and I explained the concept of being “fucked up”.
I’m kind of bitter that we just started making a lot of really good friends here, and now it’s time to go. Oh well.
As a side note – I always get barrata and barracha mixed up. The former means cheap, the latter means drunk. Situations where this has been a problem:
“I am really cheap right now.”
“I don’t want this one, do you have something a little more drunk?”
Eventually, Memo and Luz had packed up and were ready to go. The ride back in the truck bed did not help my stomach, but I could swear in that mindset that I was Indiana Jones. Somewhere I never thought I’d be: drunk, in the back of a pickup, bouncing through the rainforest in the middle of the night.
After we got back to their house, Memo and Luz thanked us for our help and offered to let us stay the night. For some reason I wanted to do the straight uphill two mile hike home at night while I was drunk. Crossing the river was terrifying. We made it home safely though, and I will remember that night forever.
We decided, sporadically, to venture to the Caribbean side of Costa Rica for a weekend. Despite my lack of money, I was wealthy with adventure. It took several hours of bumpy bus rides before we found ourselves face to face with the Caribbean coast. We arrived in the evening without reservations, a map, or any idea of where we were going to stay. The second we disembarked from our bus, there were several people trying to sell us various accommodations. The one I chose to pay attention to was a kid – probably 19 or 20 – shoeless, pants rolled up, leaning against a rickety beach cruiser that was supporting an empty 40 of pilsen in the front basket. His English was impeccable. He invited us to stay at crocodile surf camp, a hostel of beach bungalows right on the sand, no more than 15 feet from the water. On our walk there, he talked casually as he steered his bike. He walked calmly, without concern but with purpose. It turns out that he was Costa Rican, but he had been raised in New York until he was 14. He moved back to Puerto Viejo for awhile after graduating from photography school. At this point, every bar was boasting loud music and groups of happily intoxicated locals and tourists. The streets were flanked with many open-air thatched roofed bamboo buildings. I was greeted enthusiastically by kebab stands on every corner, live music hanging in the air, and more Rastafarians than I had ever seen in my life.
I couldn’t help but ask him a question – I’ll blame the lure of reggae and the sweet perfumed smell of roasting meat –
I lowered my voice, “Do you know where we can get any weed?”
He laughed. “Claro! I got you covered. We grow our own at the camp.”
I spent the next two days riding a beach cruiser through the narrow streets, picnicking on the shore, and experiencing prolonged enlightenment from the soft cradle of my swinging hammock (all of my arcane discoveries confirmed by the euphonious whisper of the waves lapping against the sand).
The most exquisite image of paradise I would have been able to conjure up a year ago was nothing in comparison to that weekend.
It’s late afternoon. The mechanical whirr of the fan drowns out the operatic traffic horns sounding from the street below. The thin curtains sway as the air breathes through the room. My skin feels numb as it sinks back down out of that elevated angelic electricity. It’s strange – the amalgamation of a foreign flesh with one’s own – it drives me out of that maddening almost-Kantian-hyper-objective-solipsism – the one driving my perception and inadvertently cataloguing everything inhaled by my senses. Walking on Cartesian crutches. It’s the closest comprehension of Zen I have ever achieved – me, ignorantly trapped in my childish glass house built on a foundation naïveté – the edifice left transparent only by my insatiable curiosity. It is here, at the convergence, that I melt away. It is here that my need to escape from my incurable symptoms of a lost diagnosis dissipates – it is here where my curse of a mechanistically metronomic torpor is conquered by the raucous cataclysm of a soul alive – of real breath – of pure joie de vivre. Jouissance.
Being at the farm for so long has removed some element of humanness from me. I constantly feel filthy and congested. The crimson rosette bug bites punctuating my pallid skin could map out hundreds of undiscovered constellations in an uncharted universe [fortunately – I have discovered an exuberantly skilled cartographer]. I feel dirtier post-shower than before it. I have arachnids for bedfellows and slugs dropping out of the muddy tap water as I’m washing dishes. Clothes never cease to smell like mildew – they become stiff and scratchy after they’ve been drying in the heavy tropical heat for days. The chickens are relentless in their cackling and, in any given week, I see far more cow pies than I do people.
It’s Christmas soon. I wouldn’t know this is it wasn’t for that looming date on the corner of my taskbar, or that faded out Woodstock calendar hanging dangerously from the termite-ridden planks of wood. To ring in December, we spent yesterday rolling joints and listening to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir’s Christmas hymns. And I thought I couldn’t get any more blasphemous. I never imagined that I’d be spending Christmas in the tropics. Then again, it isn’t all that different from California – a little heat punctuated by bouts of rain. Here, however, the extremes are more intense. The heat is sweltering and humid. My pores drip and my shirt becomes soaked through. I am unable to differentiate between sweat and airborne moisture. Additionally, the rain here is never just a sprinkle, never just a light pitter-patter. It’s a tumultuous, thunderous, piety-inducing godlike roar.
I feel like I haven’t actually celebrated Christmas since I was 13. I miss the snow.
A moth just landed on me. I’ve learned not to flinch. It would be a frequent waste of energy to react every time this happened.
It’s 6 am and I’ve already been up for hours.
My grand fairytale is quickly drawing to a close. I’m beginning to panic about the future. What comes next?
I don’t want to answer this. It’s a rhetorical question. Even if I wanted to answer it, I couldn’t. I have my vague plans… taking a little road trip through the Western U.S. after we spend a week in Orange County. Stopping in Salt Lake City to visit my sister. Getting to San Francisco by way of Reno. Visiting Sondra there.
I found a place for us to live in the city. I’m going to try to get rehired at Peet’s up there. There are six locations within a 20 minute walking distance (10 minutes by BART or bus) of the place we’re going to live.
I don’t know why I’m so focused on these things now. I have over a month left here. It’s just weird being unemployed for so long. Volunteer “work” isn’t the same. You do it at your own speed, for the joy of it, to pass the time. Getting a paycheck is something entirely different. I just hope I can get my job back somewhere up north. I’m afraid that if I moved back to Orange County my soul would die forever. Plus, once I’m in Northern California, I won’t have any reason not to transfer to Berkeley. It’s my dream school. I know I can do it, I’m just afraid.
Afraid of what? The question with a more concise answer would be this: What am I not afraid of?
I’m afraid of change. It’s very hard for me to disrupt my life once I’ve established a routine. Once the change has been catalyzed, though, I can cope. It’s just the anticipation that hurts.
I’m afraid of failure. I’m afraid of moving to a new place and getting a fresh start and just fucking everything up.
I’m afraid of inadequacy. I’m afraid of forgetting. I’m afraid of death.
My move here may have seemed fearless, but it wasn’t. There’s a clear distinction in my mind between fearlessness and recklessness.
I will miss the freedom and austerity of existing here. I will miss the miles of trails and earthy smells.
I won’t miss the dozens of bug bites, or the scorpion stings, or the dangers of snake bites. I won’t miss never having clean clothes. I won’t miss my books becoming moisture-warped science projects just from sitting on the shelves here. I won’t miss the hurricanes washing out dirt roads, I won’t miss not having an income.
I am in limbo. Some sort of quarter-life-purgatory. I can’t quite wrap my head around what I want, and I can’t comprehend what is “right”. These moral absolutes seem to be more like looming yet meaningless abstractions. Despite this, I still find myself compelled by the notion of doing what is “right” or “good,” yet, if I was asked to concisely define those words, I would falter.
Despite all of this insecurity and anxiety, I’m still really happy. Kelly makes me happier than I have ever been in my whole life. It’s strange feeling this much for someone. I never thought I’d be in a relationship like this.
Our six month anniversary is the day before Christmas. He’s the best gift I could ever ask for.
I don’t write well when I’m happy. Maybe that’s the real reason for the large gaps in between my entries recently. I make excuses, but really, I can’t form sentences if there isn’t something bothering me. I know that this blog is just regurgitation, cataloguing, remembering -- but it still takes effort.
I didn’t bother to stop to write in Panama. I was too enthralled by the Miami-esque skyscrapers looming over me and the diablos rojos zooming down the city streets. It was too familiar to be completely shocking, but too different to be completely comfortable. I can’t explain it. Everything was inexpensive. Everyone wanted my money. People called after me on the streets selling everything from shoes to oranges to headphones.
I did spend $5 on a tarot card reading from some sort of Panamanian gypsy in a shady head shop on a street corner. Six translated for me. My findings were interesting and all too accurate. Tell me something I don’t know already.
Being in Panama was like being in a different universe parallel to something that could have been familiar. Groups of native Kuna women wearing traditional clothes huddled in front of a Burger King. Strip malls and suburbs on one side of the freeway, sprawling rainforest on the other. It was strange shoving my hands into faded jean pockets and having them emerge with fistfuls of dollars. The balboa and the dollar are used interchangeably in Panama. There is a fixed exchange rate. The coins are even minted so similarly that Panamanian change works in American vending machines, and vice-versa.
I didn’t take time to write in San Jose. I didn’t mention our beautiful yellow hostel, Hostel 1110. I didn’t share the pithy fact that it was once the home of a past Costa Rican president, or how the rooms were cramped but comfortable. How the tile covered concrete felt good and cold on my feet at three a.m. when I got up to brush my teeth in the communal bathroom. Every time I go to bed drunk, I wake up in the middle of the night to brush my teeth or read a little or write regrettable emails. I didn’t mention that the bars on the windows made me feel safe, and that the raucous street noise – car horns, sirens, drunken reveling – serenaded me to sleep. I didn’t divulge how immortal I felt lying next to Kelly – tangled in sheets – as the tropic sun crept through the city’s smog and penetrated our barricaded window.
Another day I didn’t share – Kelly’s birthday. We spent it in Cartago – just the two of us – getting lost on unfamiliar streets. Laughing, dreaming, dancing, baking in the sun. There’s no way it was November. It had to have been in the eighties without a cloud in the sky. He even got free ice cream because I told the counter girl that it was his birthday. It could have also been because he is cute. I am okay with either justification. We explored the basilica – I think it was called “our lady of the angels”. I am too preoccupied to verify the accuracy of that at the moment. It was beautiful inside. It made me feel a strange sense of reverence and piety that I haven’t felt for years. It’s amazing how architecture can create such feelings of grandeur and omnipotence. Then again, I shouldn’t justify what I felt purely based on apparent physical actualities. The air felt electric. It could have been the massive line of people waiting to confess. It could also have been the dozens of people kneeling their way up the aisle in between the benches toward the front of the basilica. They were holding rosaries, some eyes closed, some open. Some with their hands clutched around their hearts. They were all praying. At first, I felt confused. Then I felt a little lost. They all had something I didn’t – faith, and the promise of redemption. I know that I will never be religious again; however, I cannot help but silently revere individuals who choose to live faithful lives in the face of a daunting and potentially meaningless universe. I think truth is a lot more complex than saying a certain belief represents an absolute correspondence to correctness while others are deemed erroneous or flawed. I would consider myself somewhere in between atheist and agnostic, erring on the side of the former, but I do not believe that religious people who devote their lives to some perceptively greater cause (Christians, Muslims, Jews, etc…) are inherently wrong. I can’t explain this realization that I came to, feeling so small inside that massively ornate basilica, but all I know is that I can’t know. I will never know the truth within this lifetime, and I will never pretend to believe that how I choose to live my life is better, more truthful, or more correct than the choices of others.
The more I learn, the more I read, the more I experience the world, the more I am humbled in the face of all that I do not understand. That I cannot understand. That I will never understand.
I suppose, my piety, my reverence, my faith – it all materializes shakily in the face of the unknown.
Later that night, back in San Jose, we reunited with the others and grabbed a few drinks at Viper, our favorite dive bar. Johnny (Yohnny!) Walker Rojo, dos tragos for only 1300 colones. That’s less than $2 a shot. It was not a bad night.
Somehow we ended up at an electro club with an OUSTANDING drag show. A most amazing climax to one of the best nights I’ve had here. The rest of the details of that evening become a bit fuzzy at this point, but really that is just an excuse. What happens in Costa Rica stays in Costa Rica.
Now, I’m back at the farm, listening to Cat Stevens and the rain, only able to write about the present after it has already become the past.
An overzealous affinity for nostalgia is my curse.
I thought I'd take a moment and express my thanks to all of you for reading my blog regularly. It's been an amazing experience rediscovering myself through a different cultural lens, and to be able to write about it has only made it more incredible. I miss all of you, and I can't wait to share stories when I get back. I still have about six weeks left, but in comparison to how long I've been here, it will be over too quickly.
Kelly, Six, Liz and I are all having thanksgiving dinner in San Jose tonight. El Mirador, the restaurant at the fancy Marriott, is having traditional American thanksgiving fare with lots of pie and free wine. It should be interesting.
I don’t know why I haven’t been writing. I keep giving myself excuses – reasons. Excuses. I can’t reach inside myself like I used to. Something is inhibiting me. I can’t be honest. But, maybe my writing has never been honest. Maybe it’s always just been performative. I’ve been thinking a lot lately. It turns out that many of my demons haven’t left me. They’ve just been lying dormant under the layers of ornate architecture placed in my life by societal expectation – ritual – regulation – anticipation. I never imagined myself as the variable in this vast experiment (existence?). As much as I’ve tried to alter the circumstances, my environment will always be the constant. I can only change myself, my outlook, my perspective. I’ve been thinking a lot about death lately. Time keeps passing more rapidly as I get older. The constant incremental notion of “day” becomes consistently shorter. This is because these 24 hour circular lapses – as they continue to occur – become increasingly smaller percentages of my entire existence. To a newborn, one day is like an eternity of new abrasive sounds and smells and pain and immaculate feeling. To a centenarian invalid, another day is just a breath. I’m not quite sure what this means. I feel guilty about wasting time. But how can one even define what is wasted, what is saved, what is valuable? Are any of my future seconds even salvageable? I think, however, that my anticipation of the future here is false. The future doesn’t exist except as a taunting driving force of what could be, an invisible Big Other that governs my every decision. My fate seems too far away from me to be real. That instant when the future becomes manifest, it is already behind me and I am again left waiting for what comes next. The past is a re-imagining of hundreds of dead moments – irrevocable decisions – bitter sweet nostalgias – endless regrets. I suppose, then, only the present is real. That fraction of a moment that is too brief to hold, too fleeting to feel. Does this mean that humans can only live out their lives through ignoring the immediacy demanded by the present? I know what it means for me – my entire existence is mediated by my imagination. I have never truly experienced the present. I have come close – but I only realize this closeness in the re-examining of past events.
We went to Panama City last week. If Miami and Los Angeles had a love child and birthed it in Central America, this place would be it. The city moved faster than anywhere I’ve been in awhile. The streets screamed with Diablos Rojos -- refurbished American school buses. For only 25 cents, you could go anywhere on the spread-out urban grid. These buses – they were marked up and painted with elaborate designs – a strange amalgam of catholic kitsch, modern pop culture, and Latin American street art. One of the buses was named “Yoda” and had several little green portraits sprayed on all sides (complete with catholic rosettes and floral motifs). Others had pictures of J-Lo, Jesus, Looney tunes characters, scenes from animated Disney films. Loud images tore past me as I sauntered destination-less on the side of the road. These were more than ornamentation – they were immortal portrayals of our modern last supper, the pious icons and pietas of the 21st century. Imagined gods, created saints. I was captivated – forced into reverence – face to face with a culture I couldn’t understand.
The insides of the busses were as haughty and eccentric as the outsides. Brightly colored feather boas, playboy bunnies, holographic portraits of Mary or the sacred heart, extravagant beaded rosaries, bumping reggaeton and the traditional wailing pathos of corridos.
If I lived in Central America, I’d probably convert to Catholicism just simply for the fact that kitsch is not only endorsed, it is encouraged.
I’m sitting here in the hotel and no one else is awake.
I’m not sure if being a habitual morning person is a gift or a curse. Despite the bottle of rum we passed back and forth last night, I still couldn’t sleep in past 5:15. Maybe part of it was the sounds of the city – the percussion bump of bass, the bassoon truck engines screaming past my open window, the hum of buzzing motorcycles like the crescendo of a string section, sirens wailing and abrasive like cymbal crashes.
It’s a different piece (peace?) that is played here in the city. I don’t mind it.
We went to Dominical yesterday. It’s a south-sitting beach on the Pacific side of Costa Rica. It’s definitely a tourist town – the gravel main street is flanked by quaint looking bodegas and loud signs in English boasting “Good Prices” and “Hamburgers” and “Surf boards for Rent”. It was a spur of the moment decision. We barely caught the bus in time. It was definitely at least fifteen people over capacity. I had to stand the first twenty minutes. My hands were braced carefully on the overhead bars as we weaved in and out on the mountain roads. My breath mingled with the stale heat and all I could taste was exhaust and the sweat of 60 other passengers. Six balanced one foot on a seat back and did an elaborate yoga pose for a large portion of the way there. It was incredible. I can only imagine what Ticos must think of us sometimes.
We finally arrived after about an hour. I could tell we were getting closer when the roadside billboards switched from Spanish to only English. All advertisements about real estate – “Own Your Own Piece of Paradise”. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a little disgusted. The monopolization of the beachside real estate here is basically 21st century entrepreneurial colonialism. Once I got to the beach though, all of my irritation fell away. I forgot about the loudly talking tourists wandering the streets with their surfboards and beer cans. I had no right to judge; after all, I am one of them. Maybe not as loquacious or conspicuous, but I still am gringa. I don’t belong here anymore than they do. It’s just strange seeing tourists. Where I live, even in the city, we’re always the only Americans.
The sand was dark and soft. The water was unbelievably warm. Kelly dove in head first. I didn’t plan well, but my lack of swimsuit didn’t stop me from going in after him. I stripped down into my underwear (it was obviously NOT swimsuit-like in the least. I mean, I doubt that they sell matching black and pink lace bikinis. It was a finely orchestrated swimulacrum.) Regardless, I tossed away my reservations and ran into the surf. I reached Kelly, and out of nowhere, he pushed me under right as a massive wave came crashing over our heads.
“Swimming means no part of you stays dry” was his aphorism for the moment. He brought it up later on the bus ride home. I think it’s fair to say that it has reflected his mentality of being here. Why do something if you’re not going to put everything into it? I could get pseudo-Nietzschean here and talk about amor fati or some other relevantly vague abstraction that Nietzsche liked to go on about. But, I won’t. Back to Kelly – I’m impressed at how many risks he’s taking – at how fast he is adjusting. He’s picking up Spanish too. It’s especially cute when he drinks. He’ll only speak in Spanish.
“Yo quiero un besito,” he’ll say imploringly.
So I kiss him.
“Uno mas.”
This goes on for awhile. It’s too cute for me to put a stop to it.
It’s funny, we’re here in paradise and all we can think about is where we’re travelling to next. He’s going to accompany me on my quest – 25 countries by the time I’m 25. It could be that I’ve gorged myself on Borges lately, but I really want to go to Argentina. He might look for a teaching job there. We’ll see.
Seeing the ocean was liberating. It almost made me miss California. If I closed my eyes in just the right way – if I imagined that the water was colder – the sand was more coarse – the air tasted more like pollution – it was Huntington beach. Then, I’d open my eyes completely, and any remnants of that other place just vanished. I turned back to the coast. The chocolate-and-caramel brown of the sand disappeared into tangles of dense rainforest foliage. I blinked as I noticed a large iguana shimmy up a palm tree and several exotic birds dance through the sky.
We’re not in Kansas anymore.
November 1st, 2010
Yesterday was Halloween. It was different than any Halloween I’d ever had before. Yesterday would have been Liz’s brother’s 21st birthday. His favorite breakfast was oatmeal. Liz made a giant pot in the morning with cinnamon, ground nutmeg, and freshly picked bananas. She also bought a baby tree to plant on his birthday. It’s going to take about 10 years, but after it matures it will yield delicious mangoes. I felt really honored to be involved. All four of us took turns digging. It’s been raining almost nonstop since we planted it.
It’s strange. It doesn’t even feel like fall. Time is suspended here. It doesn’t even feel like Halloween happened. I can only imagine the raucous parties and scantily-clad women dancing up a storm back home. Halloween is a microcosm of every day social interaction – women put on masks or excessive layers of makeup to hide their true faces. Yet, they simultaneously reveal their bodies. What cultivated this excessive necessity of self-objectification?
I didn’t used to consider myself a feminist. Maybe I was just afraid of the implications. Like all of my other shortcomings, I will unjustly blame it on Mormonism. In the past, whenever I have been objectified – whenever my ideas haven’t been taken seriously, I have almost felt deserving of it. In arguments, I would retreat easily if I participated in them at all. I still feel unconfident and awkward when I’m trying to explicate a complicated idea. That’s why I enjoy hiding behind words. These syllables compose my mask. I’m at a safe distance, no one can directly chide me for my malformed sentences. I remember being young (no greater than six or seven) and reading something. A periodical? Maybe a newspaper or a book that I couldn’t have possibly understood. Upon my juvenile reading of this adult text, I came to a sort of conclusion. I unearthed some ancient truth that was probably trite common knowledge among adults, but one that seemed arcane and apocryphal to my naïve eyes. I’m sure my face glimmered with excitement and my cheeks flushed and I started to talk quickly. (I can imagine this reaction – I still have it when I learn something new.) Whatever this revelation was, I told my father (interrupting his television show, my first mistake). Then, he laughed condescendingly and (incorrectly) corrected me. He called me stupid. Or, maybe he just ignored me all together. I’m not sure which patronizing response occurred in this instance, because all three of them were common. I’d still pick any of the aforementioned three above his usual poison.
I like wearing masks. I like celebrating holidays that completely overturn social order. On the other 364 days each year, It’s taboo to hide one’s face. It’s awkward and frowned upon to appear in public donning an identity-eschewing costume. Yet, in truth, this is what we all do – every day. Our impoverished souls can be measured by the luxury and opulence of our holidays.
Depending on where you met me, my costume looks a little different. If you met me in high school, I wore the mask of an awkward, quiet, confused girl who didn’t have many friends save a handful of other precocious miscreants. My favorite accessories were my violin case – my collected works of William Shakespeare – my unending wardrobe of goth-inspired bondage pants or plaid skirts or band tees. If you met me at Peet’s, I was lively and happy and jovial and I didn’t try so hard to prove myself all the time. Yet, if anyone brought up philosophy or literature, I threw down. I don’t know why my costume has changed so drastically over the years, because I don’t think I’m all that different than I was. I’ll give myself this: I know a little more, I’m slightly more responsible, and I don’t take things so seriously.
My question is this: what comes next? I’m finding out more about myself here than I ever thought I could. What costume do I wear now? I’ve stripped away the layers that I used to have in place. I used to hide beneath them. I used to protect myself.
It doesn’t matter how small I get, I will always feel like that big girl who everyone enjoyed but no one loved. The “token”. I was always the girl that other girls kept around to make them look better. I was always the girl who guys would come to for advice, or companionship, or help with their French homework, or even attention; however, this same girl was the girl whom they would never consider. These strange truths have turned out to be fleeting and inconsequential. None of them matter anymore. I don’t know how to come to terms with the fact that I’m in a loving relationship, that I’m active and I almost feel at home in my body, that I’m actually not as grotesque as I was making myself out to be. I am the person whom I always dreamt of being – I am the person whom I never thought I would be. Maybe only time will tell.
This is supposed to be about Costa Rica. I should stop interjecting with personal diarrhea.
November 3rd, 2010
It’s been raining nonstop for four days. Hurricanes are a dime a dozen here. It’s starting to get to me. I don’t mind when it trickles in the afternoon following a morning of indulgent heat. This, though, is a little excessive. I am not inclined to work out as hard when my running shoes are soaked through and my clothes are dripping wet. Even standing outside for 10 minutes makes me look like I jumped in a swimming pool.
On the bright side, I’ve been able to make a little money. I’ve been playing heads up hold’em with Kelly almost every day. I’m up 2000 colones, but yesterday I was up four. He almost always beats me at chess, I almost always beat him at poker. I’ll take it. Although, yesterday was strange. I got him in checkmate and he won back some of his money. Haha.
It’s simultaneously exhilarating and terrifying that I have no idea where I’m going to go once I arrive in California. All of my possessions can be carried on my back (35 books, a guitar, and several scattered outfits). I have no place to live, no transportation – I sold everything and moved out of my apartment before coming here. Kelly and I have talked about every state, every city, every country imaginable. This is the frightening truth of it: all of these lofty pipe dreams have morphed into astonishingly real possibilities.
When we get back, we’re definitely going to make our rounds in Orange County, but I refuse to settle there again.
We are seriously considering going to Sri Lanka next year. I’d have to work for a couple months to save up, but I’m already thirsting for round two. I figure going to a completely unfamiliar place outside the comfort of Romance and Indo-European languages is leveling up from novice to bat shit crazy.
I want to move to San Francisco for a few months to work. Get a place in the city. Enjoy having a flushing toilet and hot water for awhile. Another thing: I don’t ever want to drive a car again.
Our friend Six is going to camp out on bureau of land management land for a few months. You can camp for free if you move your tent every 14 days. He’s going to build a geodome and have a nomadic library in the desert. He’s even setting up a twitter with his coordinates so people can find the library. He invited us to camp with him. I’d actually love to spend a couple of weeks in the eastern Mojave – living off critical theory and beef jerky . After I gave Liz a decent haircut with a machete, he said that I should join the nomads and sell haircuts out of the back of his pickup truck. We’d be near the old nuclear testing sites – I thought I could advertise with signs like “These Haircuts are the BOMB!” I’d even make a cheesy website with animated GIFs of exploding H-bombs and enough comic sans to kill a kitten.
We also have been talking about driving across the US and spending some time on the east coast. I want to see all contiguous 48 states. I’ve only been to 8 I think. I love the Midwest – tourist trap towns, diners, miles and miles of desert or plains or mountains. And the SOUTH! I’ve never been to the south.
More crazy ideas: There’s a three mast sailing ship built by hand in the style of a seventeenth century HMS from the British Navy – it’s docked in Boston and sailing to Maine next year. I want to convince Kelly to join the crew for a couple weeks. You get free room and board in exchange for working, and you get to learn how to sail. The best part: this was discovered on craigslist rideshare.
And then there’s Argentina. If we went there, it would be for at least a year. Kelly would get a teaching job, I’d become a dishwasher or cab driver or maybe a courtesan, and we could take weekend trips to anywhere in South America.
(I really want to take Kelly to Europe – he’s never been. That will have to happen in a few years, though. I’ve been a twice and we both agreed that the next place we go should be somewhere completely foreign to both of us. Plus, Europe is a little expensive.)
So, friends. I need to start determining my next course. If you were bat shit crazy and irresponsible like me, what would you do? Think of it this way: if you had cut all of your ties at home, and you had the freedom to roam anywhere on the face of the earth and do anything you wanted, what would you do? I am open to any ideas/suggestions/tongue lashings/whatever.
