Costa Rica letter 1: waking up and finding words
March 24, 2019
Dear Grandma,
Kara and I slept overnight in a miniature house we rented through Airbnb. The birds sang all night but I barely noticed. We woke up to balmy sunlight, softened by mist.
I'm used to getting up with what feels like an IV injection of Cortisol, a sudden burst of energy and impetus to get started on the ever growing list of things I didn't get done yesterday or last week. I left my computer behind in Florida on purpose... I wanted to leave a little of the stress, the constant to do, behind. I'm so thankful I did, despite a nagging worry that somehow I'm not learning enough and will fall behind my peers. I already feel like they're ahead of me.
But enough of that. This morning, waking up slowly, having the freedom to let my eyes focus at first vaguely and then fully on the plaster walls, on the green striped blanket, on the crepe drapes... this morning felt like some kind of therapy. I feel so embodied, for lack of a better word... Waking up stretching my limbs and feeling the stretch down them. Pulling clothing over my skin under the kiss of the air conditioner. Washing my face and feeling the limey cling of the softwater on my skin. Looking into the mirror at my face, not at the wrinkles and shadows that say I didn't sleep as much as I wanted or that I've got to throw some makeup on quickly. Enjoying pulling my mascara brush along the curve of my eyelashes. Sitting out in the little shelter behind the house, sinking my teeth through ripe orange papaya, my senses so full of the taste that it feels like some kind of conversation between me and this fruit.
Now, saturated with bug repellent and sunscreen, Kara and I are driving to the national preserve of the Arenal volcano to hike. Kara remarks that she wishes she was more comfortable using the metric system, talking Celsius and Kilometers, and I agree, searching for words.
I feel the same fluency in metric that I feel in Spanish - a kinship of familiarity, the way speaking French makes Spanish familiar, the way growing up in Niger makes cutting mangoes in our tiled Airbnb kitchen feel familiar, is how working in the hospital makes metric familiar. But metric and Spanish are not natural yet, and I want both to be.
There is this longing in me - maybe in everyone - to live fully saturated in the familiar beautiful, I think. To speak fluently in Spanish and metric. To live in a house with a tiled kitchen where the birds sing like a long ago vacation home where I felt safe and also free - two feelings that have rarely seemed to align or concur for me. To belong fully to my body and find that - despite the angst, the times of rejecting it, the fatigue and stress it carries and I place on it - I have always been one with it. And in that, share the blood and bone of the people to whom I belong: you and Mom and my other grandma and the women who woke up in bodies like the one I woke up into today, who hunted down words in different languages and homes in shifting worlds, and somewhere in the conglomerate of all these experiences found familiarity and a sense of home.
I wrote all the above in the morning, and now it's evening. Kara and I hiked through a rainforest jungle at the base of Mount Arenal. We listened to strange birds and passed huge trees with oddly-shaped, snaking, sometimes massive roots and vine streamers. We greeted travelers with our US-accented "Hola" and heard a range of global accents on the same greeting. Traveling makes me feel so much more like I belong... like I am surrounded by people with whom I have the deep companionship of wandering and of wanting to discover the world. I'm adding some pictures from our day throughout this post.
Love you, Tabitha
(All photocreds Kara and I)
Dear Grandma,
Kara and I slept overnight in a miniature house we rented through Airbnb. The birds sang all night but I barely noticed. We woke up to balmy sunlight, softened by mist.
 |
| Relaxing in the hammock behind our first Airbnb |
I'm used to getting up with what feels like an IV injection of Cortisol, a sudden burst of energy and impetus to get started on the ever growing list of things I didn't get done yesterday or last week. I left my computer behind in Florida on purpose... I wanted to leave a little of the stress, the constant to do, behind. I'm so thankful I did, despite a nagging worry that somehow I'm not learning enough and will fall behind my peers. I already feel like they're ahead of me.
 |
| Exploring at Mount Arenal National Park |
But enough of that. This morning, waking up slowly, having the freedom to let my eyes focus at first vaguely and then fully on the plaster walls, on the green striped blanket, on the crepe drapes... this morning felt like some kind of therapy. I feel so embodied, for lack of a better word... Waking up stretching my limbs and feeling the stretch down them. Pulling clothing over my skin under the kiss of the air conditioner. Washing my face and feeling the limey cling of the softwater on my skin. Looking into the mirror at my face, not at the wrinkles and shadows that say I didn't sleep as much as I wanted or that I've got to throw some makeup on quickly. Enjoying pulling my mascara brush along the curve of my eyelashes. Sitting out in the little shelter behind the house, sinking my teeth through ripe orange papaya, my senses so full of the taste that it feels like some kind of conversation between me and this fruit.
 |
| Roots of a parasitic plant |
Now, saturated with bug repellent and sunscreen, Kara and I are driving to the national preserve of the Arenal volcano to hike. Kara remarks that she wishes she was more comfortable using the metric system, talking Celsius and Kilometers, and I agree, searching for words.
 |
| Look at this huge treeroot |
I feel the same fluency in metric that I feel in Spanish - a kinship of familiarity, the way speaking French makes Spanish familiar, the way growing up in Niger makes cutting mangoes in our tiled Airbnb kitchen feel familiar, is how working in the hospital makes metric familiar. But metric and Spanish are not natural yet, and I want both to be.
 |
| Look at this tree root window |
There is this longing in me - maybe in everyone - to live fully saturated in the familiar beautiful, I think. To speak fluently in Spanish and metric. To live in a house with a tiled kitchen where the birds sing like a long ago vacation home where I felt safe and also free - two feelings that have rarely seemed to align or concur for me. To belong fully to my body and find that - despite the angst, the times of rejecting it, the fatigue and stress it carries and I place on it - I have always been one with it. And in that, share the blood and bone of the people to whom I belong: you and Mom and my other grandma and the women who woke up in bodies like the one I woke up into today, who hunted down words in different languages and homes in shifting worlds, and somewhere in the conglomerate of all these experiences found familiarity and a sense of home.
 |
| With Kara and Monkey |
I wrote all the above in the morning, and now it's evening. Kara and I hiked through a rainforest jungle at the base of Mount Arenal. We listened to strange birds and passed huge trees with oddly-shaped, snaking, sometimes massive roots and vine streamers. We greeted travelers with our US-accented "Hola" and heard a range of global accents on the same greeting. Traveling makes me feel so much more like I belong... like I am surrounded by people with whom I have the deep companionship of wandering and of wanting to discover the world. I'm adding some pictures from our day throughout this post.
Love you, Tabitha
(All photocreds Kara and I)
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