Traveling back into my memories of my first trip to Costa Rica in November 2019, I look for something tangible and can’t make out a shape or a form or a thought, or even a chronological order of events that make sense. I only see a shimmering pool of feelings and impressions and senses. I dive in and I’m immersed in another world, lost in vibrant hues of blue and green. I’m enveloped in heat and steam and thick yellow light. I feel cold rain pelting my face and hot water flowing over my skin, silky tendrils of seaweed and kisses from a school of tropical fish. I feel several electrifying seconds of free fall, diving into an emerald pool underneath a waterfall in the jungle. I swim over and beneath it and let the force of the water pummel the top of my head and I can’t open my eyes so I succumb to its power, and for a moment I know what Bill Callahan meant when he sang we stand under it… but we don’t understand it. I melt into the torrent and I become the waterfall, flowing into freshwater and river water out to saltwater and I feel the shock and the tingle and the quiet. My body responds to the temperature, hardening and softening. I wish I could drown here without drowning, and I drift, let the current take me because I would rather go where the water prefers to go.
In this pool of the senses I keep swimming and swimming, looking for a story that I can share with you. But I find no story here.
I’m standing in a Catholic Costa Rican church with tears in my eyes because there is someone kneeling and praying alone in front of a statue of Jesus with his arms held open, while the light falls soft all around through pink stained glass and I’m overcome with this beauty in the asking.
I’m soaring above the jungle treetops on a creaking and twisting rope and the wind is whistling in my ears and I can smell earth and wetness and flowers, and I wish I were not attached by a harness and three safety clips so that I could let go and start flying.
A man brings me a traditional casado in a little soda and I smile and say gracias. He says, as all Costa Ricans do, con mucho gusto. Rather than de nada (no problem), con mucho gusto, meaning with pleasure, and there is a warmth in his eyes that meets mine so it doesn’t matter that we don’t speak the same language.
I’m standing on a beach in Montezuma and a piece of my heart is with a baby sea turtle struggling to make his way home. The waves push him back and he keeps moving forward. So tiny. So tenacious. So utterly impossible, his journey. I feel myself holding my breath until I watch him finally disappear into the sea, tumbling into a wave and my heart leaps with the possibility of beginning and I lose that piece of me with him.
At night, yellow ylang ylang flowers release their fragrance to hang sultry in the tropical air, intoxicating, luring the moths and I. Who knew that there were flowers that also prefer the darkness in which to share their beauty?
I’m opening my eyes in a soft bed in my parents’ guesthouse, naked with a cotton bedspread over me and there are green silk curtains barely moving in early light and everything is warm and heavy and silent except for birds singing. In this moment I feel both the intense ache of loneliness and pure delight in my solitude. I wonder how it is possible to want someone’s arms around me, sharing the peacefulness of this moment, at the same time that I am perfectly content with the empty space in the bed beside me.
My finger brushes a tiny fern in the grass and it retracts, shy. Who are you, I never gave you permission to touch me, are you safe? I feel a sting behind my eyes, oh I understand. And a piece of me is left with her too.
How do you translate an experience of the senses into words made out of 26 letters, strung together into coherent sentences that are somewhat grammatically sensible? How do you string those sentences together to describe an entire ocean you cannot completely understand yourself, as if you’re a reporter detailing the facts of a matter? It’s a bit like trying to explain how you fall in love, I suppose.
In Costa Rica, they often say pura vida. Pure life. It has a multitude of meanings, but mostly it’s a way to express acceptance for the present. All is good. These people live neither in the past nor the future. They have built a culture like a colorful fabric, weaving together their individual lives with their ancestry, their extended families, communities, and with nature. They are happy because they never need to worry that they hang on any one thread alone. They need very little, because they already feel rich in so many things that are free. The mountains. The plants. The music. The gatherings. The gifts of the sea.
I’m at the mouth of an underwater cave near Isla Tortuga on my 10th free dive attempt to see a reef shark. I’ve not been overly careful, and my leg is burning where I scraped it on a coral covered rock two dives ago. But my curiosity brought me back here, and I have kicked harder and gone deeper this time. The pressure is too much to stand but I will myself to stay anyway, awestruck. The guide is taking my hand, pulling me into the opening. The shark is inside and motionless except for his tail moving ever so slightly. Black eyes watching me. The electricity of being so close, wanting to swim closer, to reach out and touch but not having enough oxygen. The guide’s eyes meeting mine through our masks, the exchange of mutual delight and adrenaline. Him putting his hands on my hips and sending me back up quickly for oxygen. Me breaking the surface and gasping the air and laughing and shouting like a crazed woman I saw him! I saw him! In that moment I’m delirious with joy and I’m kneeling in pink light in front of a Costa Rican Jesus with his arms held wide. He’s smiling at me and shaking his head. Pura vida.
The ocean welcomed me, but only so far. Too deep into her secrets, and she pressured me back to the surface. Too reckless, and she clawed me like a tiger. She drew my blood into hers but her sting afterward was a kiss.
I know you love me, but you have so much to learn, she said.
I look at her marks on me and I hope they leave scars.
