Loose Ends: II

I was right in expecting it: this week I have been lambasted with unresolved issues. Half-finished relationships and all sorts of repressed emotions re-emerging. Even with mental preparation I'm sort of reeling--there is way more stuff here than I anticipated (though in many ways, it's been much easier than I thought and I think I did ok--what do you think, loose ends?). The news, though: I feel totally humbled and happy and hopeful. (Weird.)

The thing I learned: nothing is ever finished. The problems I pretend to bury inevitably resurface. My world is a very small one, granted, but I feel like the longer I live, the more I see that the world is small. We run in crowds, everyone knows everyone, how did I think I was going to outrun this?

My sister pointed out that our life-as-progression is less about defeating an endless series of character flaws (compulsive lying--check, serial murder--check, chewing fingernails--check) than about doing battle again and again with the handful of flaws we've been fighting all our lives.

And so I find myself pulling open festering stitches and pawing through boxes to find rubbing alcohol and neosporin. Letting myself feel and acknowledge the sting.

I'm excited, I feel blessed, because maybe this time I can dig the pebbles out for good.

Errata

1. Frank McCourt of course is who I mean.
2. I don't hate men. Or anyone (you know, within reason). What I mean to say: I'm done obsessing over what people think about me. I'm done being hurt by thoughtless words or actions. I've spent a long time concerned about these things and I'm tired and I'm done.
3. That bit on love sounded really arrogant and terrible. Of course I want to be completely swept off my feet. But I am starting to wonder if I am even capabale of feeling that ever. I'm certain that you fell in love and it was wonderful. Yeah. Poorly put.

In a minute I'll start posting again for real. Thanks for indulging me. :)

The long and short of...

Costa Rica: I came home early. One day I will go back and explore Granada and the San Blas Islands. I promise.
My brother-in-law asked me for my three best-and-worst moments of the trip and I answered terribly. So my revised list:

• Best #1--swimming (as clothed as you'd like to imagine) on our first day. Quepos. Substantial wave action. The sun going down. Me+the ocean and the thrill of swimming fast and far underwater, sort of disappearing there. This. This is why I spent weeks planning and packing and a night on the plane.
• Best #2--Gabriel Garcia Marquez's yellow butterflies. Were everywhere. Everytime I saw one I thrilled a little. I think there's something here I'm saying about finally experiencing Latin America, just a taste of it, and hopefully not in an objectifying way. I guess something about wanting to experience more.
• Best#3--Becoming a man-hater. This isn't what it sounds like, but has more to do with getting in touch with me and God and our relationship. And with knowing how I feel and with expressing how I feel precisely. And getting comfortable with me. And telling off a bully which was delicious. Teasy teasy teaser.
• Worst #1--La Fortuna. Ripped off, bad hostel, no lava. Fail.
• Worst #2--The moment when, after driving with aplomb the entire 2 weeks and me admiring in the "there's no way in hell I could pull this off" sort of way, Jennie told me I needed to take back the rental car. We'd driven all night to the airport (getting lost sort of and taking a wild detour) and I'd waited for an hour while she checked in and I was sleep deprived and panicked and I nearly cried. (Great turn-around, btw--fantastically nice people, not a bad drive, a long morning nap in my gorgeous Quaker-run hostel.)
• Worst #3--I went to this bonfire at a bar in San Elena. I was talking to these Irish school teachers Donald and someone and we were getting along really well (a balm to a sort of 'you don't fit in at the beach'-roughened heart) and the party was good and mellow. I walked Jennie back to our hostel, then went back to the bonfire and it had nightmared out. The adorable Irishmen were so occupied with their discussion of Costa Rican weed that they didn't notice I'd come back, our California friends had left, and the Costa Rican kid who was chatting with me was accosted by local girls who started calling me puta to my face. Grody.

Seattle. Is a run-down sort of place. Great company, bad city. We did cool stuff--running and a great bike ride and delicious food. A day in Portland which was fantastic. A very mellow vacation.

Frank O'Hara: I love you for many things. Teacher Man was lovely and may have changed my life a little. Your reading at AWP was phenomenal. You seem like a great kid. But Angela's Ashes just wasn't that good. A tragedy I know, and I mean that in all respect for the dead. But really?

Love. I may not believe in it. Or maybe my definition is shifting? I read The English Patient and there's all this inexorable passion. I was listening to something, too, a song or This American Life or something about how it feels to fall in love and I kind of think it's bullshit. Love is hard work and calm joy I think. And there's thrill, but is the thrill so different from, like, getting a raise or having a really good party? Extended? And the thrill isn't really love anyway, right? It's just someone like stroking your ego: You think I'm cool and I think you are too? There's more here, but I've been surprising myself with my own pragmatism lately. I don't think this has too much to do with man-hating, btw.

Maybe I'll post sooner than later. :)

Travelogue: get over it.

So. Costa Rica. It's been sort of intensely flying by, sorry, those of you who've been wondering, that I've not been super detailed in my report. But it's only been a week. And I've blogged twice. Whatever. (Long too, sorry.)

Sort of play-by-play:
We got into San Jose at like 6 in the morning and rented a car. I am not driving (thankfully/necessarily/duh). We drove down crazy winding jungly hills and learned how to disregard roadmarking/kph signs entirely and Jennie took to it like a fish to water. "There are fewer rules, so everyone does what needs to be done." I know I couldn't do it (not aggressive enough, obv.) but she's a natural. Renting a car was a genius idea: more on this later.

Tuesday we spent with the Bakers in Quepos (three-four hours SW of San Jose, near the coast). We swam in their complex's private pool in the afternoon and ate and went to the beach in the evening.

I love the beach. LOVE. I know I live in the desert and am not one of those water people who shrivels and dies without a Powell/Cali trip every couple of months, but everytime I get back in the ocean a little part of me feels like home. So we swam and got eaten by mosquitoes alternately while the sun set. I made the resolution to skinny dip my way through the country (like 5 and counting? more?) which has changed my life a little. :)

Wednesday was the sloth day. We hiked through Manuel Antonio, a nature preserve (the sloths!) which was incredible. On a turbulent white sand beach we saw a white-faced monkey steal and then return some guy's sunglasses.

Then dinner and on Thursday we took to the road.

Renting a car was awesome--I feel like we've seen so much of the country and been able to go and go and go. A (small) downside: we only have CDs bummed off of 16-year-old Celie Baker, which while fun is also pretty heavily weighted toward Avril and Brittney and screaming screaming boys. Adds a certain something. :) Our car is little, though, and a manual and has been totally thrashed by bumping through stretches of pot-holed, rocky, and otherwise unpaved roads. I'll post pics when I get 'em.

We headed north, up the Nicoya peninsula (beachtowns). We took a ferry across from the mainland (I also love boats. Incredible again.) then down to the tip of the peninsula: Montezuma. Tiny, cozy beach town. We spent the first day relaxing in hammocks out back and swimming. With and without suits. The courtyard behind the hostel smelled vaguely of lotus: 3-12 people sitting quiet staring at the ocean. All day and into the night. Kevin who owned the hostel was all sorts of helpful and adorable. The food was waaaay expensive (which doesn't matter when you're on the beach all day, right? You have like a yogurt for breakfast and a gatorade for lunch and the rest of the time you're too hot to care) and there were tourists, but it was little and fun.

Day 2 in Montezuma was a highlight: Jennie loves waterfalls, so we went waterfall hunting. An easy hike (up the river) in found us in this crazy jungle waterfall. We swam around and under and followed locals in jumping into deep bits, then followed locals up this crazy jungle trail (we were climbing up roots and stuff) to 2 more waterfalls. One was like 40 feet high. We swam and lounged and eventually I jumped off the sucker. Why I do these things I'm not sure, but it was awesome and there are pictures.

Jungle waterfall: vines, moss, everything is green...the water is this deep tealy blue over the dark volcanic rock. Delicous.

Buzz buzz fastfoward to Tamarindo, another, much more touristy beach town. Really cool people, a hostel with a great patio area and totally awful mattresses. I hardly slept here at all. And crazy mosquitoes. We met some really cool Dutch kids (I have such good luck with Nederlanders always) who told me about the San Blas islands in Panama and Chris the Australian who recommended Nicaragua. More on this later.

Then inland to La Fortuna. I will write something about a town named Fate at the base of a volcano (Arenal) whose main income is obviously tourism. I don't really want to talk about La Fortuna. I saw no lava. We were screwed twice (fool me once...). We just left this morning and I'm still pretty bugged. Grr. (Oh, we found this hot spring--it's a warm river right off a bridge and we swam in the jungle in the dark. It was relaxing and delicous.)

But now we're in Santa Elena. I'm on my way to do a canopy tour--ziplines, a 1 km Superman flight. I'm splurging.

Because.

Nicaragua is cheap. And I hear Granada is fantastic. And I'm here anyway, no? Jennie and I will part ways tomorrow and then I'm off--

I'll be careful. I love you. Toodles. :)

Dear Mom

Do you remember that rrreeealllly bad sunburn I got when I was 15? We went with Scott and jetskis to Utah Lake and wanted a tan so didn't wear any sunblock? And you spent most of the night draping wet towels on me and I didn't go to church because I was shivering uncontrollably? And it blistered and peeled and was a giant gross mess?

I may or may not have that one beat. (We're still in the red-getting-redder phase, I haven't yet been able to assess damages.)

The ocean here (Playa Tamarindo) is beautiful. Entirely touristy, but beatiful.

Loves, ke.

Costa Rica: I'm for it

(So you know that Office when Michael comes back from Sandals Jamaica all converted by the culture? At this point I still feel a little like that. I'll write more after i get some rice and beans in me.)

a) Miniature things so far: mini tortillas! mini (baby) lizard! in the Bakers' condo!

b) beaches so far: awesome. Salt and sand and sun and I always feel like I'm going home even though I live in the desert. More on this later? We swam in a cove where the water waved up right to the jungle's edge. Mountainy jungle. Fantastic.

c) Sloths! We saw 2 today and they were adorable. We're trying to maybe decide if a trip over to the Caribbean side is worth it--the sloth treatment center that you can see if you YouTube "costa rica baby sloth" is over there. Probably worth it right?

Tomorrow we take up wandering in our rental car. Maybe back here next week for the Surfing World Championship. Awesome. :) ke

vroom.

So I'm addicted to crisis. This is nothing new to any of you who know me. But this last couple of days I've been in a wild mad dash (I decided to extend my Central American adventure 3 weeks) to get everything done and I've LOVED it. LOVE. Short nights, leaving meetings early, drinking lots of diet coke, making big decisions in intense bouts of critical thinking, packing, moving, shopping, planning. I feel so alive.

I know I know, this is pretty unhealthy behavior and isn't sustainable and isn't even really possible (thanks to: Dennis, Connie and Dave, Anne, Liann, Amanda, Heather, Mary and like a thousand others who have helped by lending or lifting or letting me flake), but after a year of trying really hard to be smart and thorough and stolid, it has felt soo good to let loose and rush.

I'll post maybe. Or see you at the end of August.

Loves, ke.