Fusion

This is MY taxi

It´s coffee to go, I swear!

Karen maxin´urban style
(in Juanca´s hat!)
The view from Juanca´s place

Doorway Buddha


fusion: (n.) A merging of diverse, distinct, or separate elements into a unified whole.

Home. I´ve been using the word frequently as of late. I just got home from San Jose to apply for a new passport so that I can go home to celebrate my birthday. As we rattled across the bridge into Quepos, sun just setting and leaving the sky molten gold across shades of blue, the tide was high and as I looked out across the endless stretch of ocean, I sighed and thought, home!, grateful for the end of the long bus ride, hectic day, long weekend. I felt an emptiness even for the glad relief because home used to be Cain wagging his tail and jumping up to kiss my face.

What is home anyway?

As we stepped off the bus into San Jose on Sunday, Karen joked about us being fish out of water, she in her clamdiggers and tank, me in a long flowing skirt and tube top, both in flip flops and sunglasses. Ah, but it´s just the clothes, I thought, as I looked around at all the jeans and shoes surrounding us. We slipped back into our urban selves to pound the pavement with everyone else despite our almost barefeet.

Karen had never been to San Jose before, so before heading to Juanca´s home away from home where we´d be staying overnight, we wandered awhile attuning to the bustle. We´d agreed even before leaving Manuel Antonio that we would go to the movies while in the city. I haven´t seen a theater in a year! So we stopped at a newsstand to check out the listings and asked the vendor for the closest cinema. He suggested the one in San Pedro was best and I felt a pang of nostalgia. Home.

My experience here began almost exactly a year ago, staying with a host family in Barrio Roosevelt near the heart of little San Pedro. My Spanish was nil and my travel experience slight. Then, then I was a fish out of water.

At the end of every yoga class, as we all rise back up from the hard work and much-deserved rest, I always ask the students, eyes closed and focused inward, to pause and make note of what has changed since they stepped onto their mat. My own practice has become my life, the earth my mat, and I felt myself on the brink of a similar reevaluation...

As the taxi headed to the Mall of San Pedro, I chuckled and told Karen we couldn´t go home that night without a visit to the old neighborhood hangout, Fuzion. Pulling up, I told the story of being stuck on the wrong side of the eight lane highway in front of the mall. It was my birthday and I was late to meet my new friends. I had to scurry across all eight lanes, four in each direction with a median I had to climb in the middle, in a pair of strappy gold heels, saying ´gracias!´ to those nice enough to let me pass and ´no gracias!´ to the out-the-window propositions from would-be novios. That was the last time these feet have seen high heels!

We saw a movie called ¨Mirrors¨ (terrible), interestingly enough, and then headed to Fuzion for a bite to eat and a beer.

As we sat at a table, the exact table where new friend (and soon to be roommate) Mike and I had sat planning our first Costa Rican roadtrip, in fact, the same table where we celebrated Tom and Kyle´s promotion to sergeants, the same table where we all pulled together our newfound, though very basic, Spanish to call our Mamas Ticas to say we wouldn´t be home for dinner (No voy a regrasar por la cena esta noche.), life threw up a mirror of its own.

My how I have grown.

Gone is the girl who struggled with words, in both English and Espanol. Gone the girl who matched her high heels to her outfit (ah, but kept flip flops for later in her matching handbag). Gone the confusion of way back then. Gone the fears. Gone the girl who was always seeking, searching answers. Gone.

I have become.

So, what has changed? I asked myself.

I am a woman now. Grown strong. Fluent. Certain. Most of all, I am aware. Completely at home in myself.

I sat at that same old table and shared a burrito with another new friend, and over a Pilsen shared stories of places we´ve been and people we´ve known, all of which, for better or worse, have surely contributed to the making of the two women sitting there sharing.

As we left the embassy on Monday, half-successful and slightly frustrated, I realized that regardless of any definiton of home, I am neither here nor there. I encompass both and everything in between. Urban enough to navigate a foreign city with ease. Beachy enough to embrace both sand and surf with grace (usually!). Capable of communicating across two continents and then some. My home is as vast as the sky.

As we left Juanca´s apartment for the last time that weekend, I bowed to his doorway Buddha and said, ¨Namaste y gracias por compartir.¨ Karen laughed and said, ¨Look at you blending Sanskrit and Spanish!¨ I looked over my shoulder as I unlocked the gate and said, ¨Yup. I am fusion. It´s the way, verdad?¨