What I´ve Learned In Costa Rica

Mestizo - (adj.) of mixed race.

Fede, my soon to be housemate from Argentina, describes it as a blending of cultures.

Enter our cat: the blonde-haired blue-eyed Tico.

He's been testing my limits for sure. He's got as much energy as Cain ever had in a little body not much bigger than my foot. He's wilder than any pet I've ever known. Everything is play. I'm constantly trying to save the lives of all the pretty moths and beetles that tragically happen into his range (and rarely last more than one round.), saving Karen's shoes. Reminding that there's an oversized tupperware container in the bathroom he should go in instead of my shower. Juanca suggested that all Tico cats pee outside. There's no mama cat to show 'em how it's done. So I started taking the little guy into the bathroom with me whenever I had to go. I'd plop him in his box, do my thing, say 'good boy' when he'd do anything a cat should do in a litter box, even if it was just throw litter around. Finally he got it. Sometimes.

I went back to leaving the front door open a few days ago. I need the breeze and he's not a prisoner. He knows where the door is, where the food is, by now knows where the love is if he wants it. (And honestly, sometimes he gets on my nerves.)

Today, I picked up shit for what felt like it had to be the final time or else. There was no electricity and no water to wash my hands with. Needless to say, the start of a frustrating day. I decided to go to Quepos instead of the beach, which seemed the most logical solution to lack of light and water. (duh.) My gut said if the growing cat had more room to move around, like in a life-sized litter box, he might be more prone to stretch out and do his thing there than in my shower stall.

I'd also spent my morning writing (gotta love battery power) and was hoping for electricity to use the internet.

As I was leaving, Mestizo ran into the little space alongside the house and the neighbors´ wall, where those crazy, bright red, tropical flowers that look like they're sticking their tongues out at you grow wild. I called him over and over again. Said to come in Spanish and English and, after awhile, an admitted assortment of curses. He sort of looked like he thought about it a few times, even ventured toward me once or twice, but openly decided he preferred to stay where he was. It took a little while, worrying about losing him, but I figured I'd probably rather be hanging out with the flowers on a beautiful day than trapped inside a tile house too, if I was him. I told him one more chance. Mentioned he might get wet if it started to rain. He didn't come. Fair enough. I went on with my day.

There was internet in Quepos, but I´d forgotten half the technology I needed to post the blog. The camera was in the lockbox back at home. It was safe and sound, but I had to do without it anyway. I went to the vet's office and bought Mestizo a bright green litter box. I don't know if cats can see color or not, but you can't miss this thing!

As I climbed the final step to the landing he stepped out of this little lair, shook off an obvious nap hangover and looked at me like, hey what's up. I opened up the door and showed him what I brought for him. He hopped into all his newfound space like it was the coolest thing ever. (I swear he even shook a deadfinger at me.)

We haven't had a single problem since.

The morals of this story:

Stop trying to control everything.
Love, no matter what.
Give everyone their proper space. The right ones aren't going anywhere.
Don't hoard things so much that you keep them from being used to their fullest purpose.
Fuck technology. Choose life, go to the beach.

Did I mention love? The little guy's snuggled up beside me like perfection.

Holiday Presence

Introducing Mestizo

I'm going to miss this place, is what I think as I sit at the kitchen counter bar in front of the open front door deciding what to write about in my latest blog over my morning coffee, and spy Victor walking by in the road below just in time to whistle: woo wooooo!

Buenos dias! his smile is ever-ready. Mestizo's out playing on the front balcony.

Este is su gato?
Siii!!!
Que bonito gatito, he says, snapping the deadfinger (Tico for waaay coool!!!).
Y vas a la playa?
Si, mas tarde. (It's only 7am!)
Nos vemos entonces!
Hasta luego, I say as he turns to go.

This phase has just about reached it's 3 month max. I can't believe it's December already. November went by in a blur of preparation. Yoga flyering, apartment hunting, travel planning. All missions accomplished. And now December, the month for celebrating the fruits reaped from last year's seeds.

Yesterday, December 1st, I celebrated this giant hunk of fruit on my plate called life in Costa Rica by hiking down to Playitas and finding a private little nook in a cove of rocks. I took off my bikini top, sprawled out like a starfish in the sand and got drunk on sunshine. I celebrated my freedom with a swim in the blue sea. I celebrated my strength with a sweaty hike back up the mountain a few hours later. I celebrated my success by bending and extending on my yoga mat for an hour before class. I twisted and wrung myself, out with the old and in with the new, absorbing deeply.

The best definition I've ever heard for yoga is that it is a state in which nothing is missing. If I may, I'd like to revise. For me, yoga is the state in which nothing is missed.

Whether you have ever made it to a yoga mat or not, under my instruction or another's is not important either, my wish for you is that you conjur that state inside yourself and celebrate your way through the end of this year with joy.

Gratitude

Good friends, a pool, a mountain, and a mouthful of sangria! Happy Thanksgiving!

Despues de pavo numero uno!

Even for all the distance I've come, all the acceptance of differences I've needed to muster this past year, there are some things that just don't change. Traditions, or at least the inner resonance of them, have a way of sticking with you like mashed potatoes to your ribs. As I approach my second Thanksgiving away from home, I find myself counting my blessings. Merely listing them off wouldn't nearly do them all justice.

Today, I was talking with a Tico friend who told me he gave his children their Christmas presents already. His kids are 3 and 1 1/2 (Each got a toy truck).
"No Santa Claus?", I asked, certain he 'exists' here for all the plastic replications already adorning the houses in Quepos.
"No,"he replied, "I don't think we should lie to our kids."
"That's very cool of you," I told him, "but what do you do on Christmas then, if you've already given them their Christmas gifts?"
"Celebrate," he said so matter of factly I couldn't help but feel the stupid American.

How do you celebrate Christmas? he asked me. Como es Christ-mas (pronounced with a long i) por la profesora de yoga?

"Well... For one thing, it's not 'Christ' that I celebrate," I told him, "and it's not Buddha or Santa Claus either. I celebrate a higher power for sure, but don't subscribe to any religion or worship any name. To me, it's celebrating the beginning of the end of another year of life. The time for reflecting on all that's happened, what is important, what I've learned, what needs to shift in the coming year ahead."

"But do you give presents?" he asked.
"My family is big into gift giving. My mom always goes overboard with so many presents that they don't fit under the tree, but instead go under and all around it." (His eyes got big and wide.) "Usually, it embarrasses me, because the gifts I have for them aren't the kind you can buy. During my end of the year reflecting, I consider the impression left by each person in my life that year. I find some way to represent that feeling and I try to give them that. Sometimes it's a framed picture I've taken, or a tiny tree decorated by hand and ready to be planted in the garden or yard, a handmade birdhouse with a little bird perched by the front door ready to take off." (He laughed, nodding his head). "Sometimes people get my meaning, sometimes they don't. Maybe they do at some point later, who knows. I think, at least, those who know me get that I'm giving them my time and energy, love and creative inspiration, even if they don't totally get my point. That's enough. Still, it's not the easiest thing to give a mere intention in exchange for big, shiny presents that cost someone hundreds of dollars."

This year is going to be different for me for sure. My first Christmas away from home. Everyone I know is going somewhere. I have no idea how it's going to be and am trying to be open to whatever it may be, but it seems I'm going to have LOTS of time and space for end of the year reflecting. Probably best because I have so much to digest this year. It's funny, in all the space available to create my own traditions, in the gap I've found between my own culture and this new one I'm immersed in, I find myself wanting to slip into old familiars that I moved away to distance myself from! Thinking, I should go to the beach and buy Linda some earrings, and my mom a pareo, my dad a new pipe, and what in the world to get Eric, and I'd better do it really fast so there's enough time to send them home so that they'll get them in time for the holiday...all this so they'll know I'm missing them and thinking of them and celebrating them...as if buying them presents to mark a date on the calendar would help them to know any better. All the way down here in Costa Rica, still feeling the American way.

Thanksgiving, the real commencement of the winding down of 2008, where we consider our lists of things we're grateful for and spend the next 6 weeks celebrating them, enjoying them, and setting good intentions for how we might better nurture them in the new year ahead. My Thanksgiving was 3 days long this year. On Thursday, a pool party and turkey dinner at Blue Banyan Farm with Karen, Cata, Katie and Reilly, and an assortment of other new friends. A Friday evening dinner party with Juanca and his ever-eclectic group of amigos. Saturday, a TEFL celebration at Jenny's place (Boy, this turkey sure does taste like chicken!) with the whole crew. After 3 days of turkey, I have to say it's been a very full year (corn-y pun intended, har har).

For every thing I've had to let go of, there has come twofold for me to embrace in its place and I am full to the brim with gratitude.

"Take just one step in the direction of the Divine, and it takes 10 steps in toward you."
~Manorama

P.S. One more thing to be grateful for: Brand new news that I'm going home for Christmas!