Connecting to home

As I crossed the border from South Dakota to Minnesota, the place I had spent my youth, at first, the landscape appeared to me only as familiar as a song once heard in infancy. Although only two summers had passed without a visit (but with a visit each winter), the land resonated with me as something new. In that time away, home had become an interesting concept. With a long moment in the finger lakes region of NY, a short stint in the berkshires, three months in the tropical rain forests of Costa Rica, my logical "home base" remained the temperate rain forests of the Pacific Northwest, and my heart was at home with my partner out east. After all the adventure, upon returning to Minnesota, the flat terrain and short, rounded, deciduous trees had become new again.

Life promises to ebb and flow with its experiences. Events and patterns appear in a cyclical fashion; when one extreme of any duality is reached, its opposite will soon follow. In this moment in my life, there is an explosion of movement. So far in 2010, I have set up camp in three cities in three different states (all which just so happen to border Canada). I appreciate this time in the cycle, mostly, as it quenches a craving for travel I have yearned for. Perhaps it was made easy by Olympia's transient-friendly nature. Living in Olympia, it's almost expected that you will leave and come back. All the details, like finding short-term subleasers, seem to work themselves out without much effort. Other times, the excitement is a bit exhausting. In the past year, planning for the next journey began shortly after arriving at a new destination, as I was traveling via. independent projects, and deadlines for paperwork would not wait! Overall, though, it has led me to find within myself a sense of stillness within the movement. Wherever I go, I am home, as my body houses my spirit.

In my wanderings I have noticed the tendency for the mind to grasp on to landscape, call it home, and identify with it. This observation first came to me five years ago as I memorized the latin names and medicinal uses of native Northwest plants. Hiking the trails became akin to visiting old friends (the plants). Every time, like a woman throwing her bags down on the kitchen table after a long day of work, something inside would surrender to the peace of it all. Those forests became home. A visit to Minnesota a year after moving away gave me the first taste of having found a new home out west; the trees looked so small and the forest floor so dry! What was "home" for most my life was now being compared to some other point of reference.

With every new place, until there is some sense of familiarity with the natural world, I am still just a visitor. Once plant books have been studied, and the nearby paths have been explored, however, the land moves into that space inside reserved for "home." No matter how comfortable I get in my own skin, there is always a hunger to include the natural world in my definition of "home."

First post...

I have just returned from the city of Nicoya, which is on the Nicoya peninsula in the north-west part of Costa Rica. I traveled there by bus (about 4 hours each way) for about $12 there and back. We went as a group of 6, which later became 7. The people I went with- classmates from the Costa Rican Language Academy from different parts of the US and the UK (England, Holland, and Germany). I held the special talent in the group of only speaking one language fluently (English), and I became even more interested in working harder at my Spanish studies. So far, I can name a lot of things (mostly in the kitchen, of course), pick out words in conversations, but I can't communicate very well at all with people who speak Spanish exclusively.

The ride there and back was amazing. Beautiful countryside, mountains, hills, rainbows tucked away in valleys. The area looked dry, in fact, I saw some cacti (cac-tusses?).

We spent Friday at the beach and the remainder of the weekend in Nicoya, where the small-town festival was going on. The highlight of the weekend: Chirriche vs. Malacrianza. Chirriche and Malacrianza are names of the toughest bulls. In Costa Rica, the practice of bull fighting is somewhat different than in Spain and other parts of latin america. It is illegal to harm the bull (although, defining "harm" could be quite tricky if you ask the opinions of those who advocate for the animals).

The show consisted of a crowd of about 100 people inside of a ring. A bull would be released into the ring with a person seated atop. The person would stay on for 1-10 seconds (sometimes with no hands!). After the person fell off (or some stayed on until the bull had stopped bucking), the bull would chase after the people, sometimes charging, other times, running around confused.

The crowd of 1-2,000 (so hard to guess these things) witnessed people getting thrust into the air with the bulls horns (some didn't have horns), people getting trampled on, and people climbing the fence's pants getting ripped up. After awhile of this, three men (actually, the entire ring was full of men, except Inga said she did see some women in there) would come out on horses with lassos. The person that roped the bull would get an applause, and the bull would, seemingly willingly, go out of the ring.

This went on for hours. Our tickets were supposed to cost 4,000 colones, or $8. We ended up buying them from a street vendor after finding out from the "box office" that they were sold out, for 15,000 colones. I was certain it was worth it (this was the reason we came to Nicoya in the first place), until we returned to the fiesta later that night to find out the event was still going on, but it was free, and there was more action than before (less wait time between bulls). Okay, still worth it. I really wanted a glimpse into the culture in Costa Rica, outside of the city. It was good to observe, although, I didn't understand any of the announcers Spanish.

Back in San Jose I will be here at the language school for one more week before I go to the Limon Province where I will work at Avarios del Caribe on the Caribbean Coast in hot, humid, mosquitoey weather. Time has flown by so fast....