I've traded lizards in the bathroom for my regular life. But I am not so bummed as usual after a trip to be back in Brooklyn. I was looking forward, despite my amazing time away, to get back to giving out gold stars. I hadn't brought any for the lizards or the monkeys, would that I had. The monkeys would have liked them I bet.
My opportunity to get back to work arose easily this morning, as a woman sat down across from me in Parco with her beautiful baby dressed cozily in lime green wooly pants and a patterned sweater. I coveted the outfit.
"But, really," I said, "I don't think I could pull off those pants even if I had them...I'm gung ho about a lot of things that might not be age appropriate, but some things, I've discovered sadly, are best left to the little girls!"
The mom was herself stylish in a patterned headscarf and cool booties not dissimilar from her daughter's leather slippers, shoewear she chose purposefully to relieve her bunions, for comfort, but, it seemed, their purple hue didn't hurt. They were fun. I liked them. I liked her. I liked her even more when she told me, appreciatively, that her daughter's pants were made from sweater sleeves someone, not her, had sewn together.
For some reason, the ingenuity and craftsmanship of the pants reminded me of Costa Rica, of the people there who used everything around them to create things of great beauty, among them shell necklaces, rings made of coconut casings, even magnets of angels where the glittery wings were drawn on the backs of beer wrappers. I will think of that beautiful magnet I didn't buy forever, more probably than I would have noticed it on my fridge...
We started talking about Costa Rica and my new friend, an Australian it turns out, was anxious to hear about it, anxious to go if she could find the time and money.
"I know," I said, "I am so grateful to have had the opportunity and now I would think harder about making it there on my own because it is really so amazing."
I asked her what she did. She is, it turns out, a freelance violinist sometime music teacher, although the nursing child on her lap and the older one she had dropped at kindergarten nearby made giving lessons harder.
The musician life is a hard one, I know from many musician friends, but less hard here, in New York with its multitude of opportunities than back home in Australia, she said. She talked with appreciation of her native land, of the great candor of the people, the ease of life, but New York is home because of the music scene and, partly she said, because of a societal phenomenon she noted about Australia where "you cannot move beyond a certain level without people criticizing you, trying to bring you down."
She called it the "Tall Poppy Syndrome."
I laughed. "Isn't that true here, too?" I asked. All you have to do is pick up any tabloid or Star magazine to see how we rake successful people over the coals. It seems everyone wants to make sure their people stay humble, to prevent them from feeling too good. Wikipedia offers that the "Tall Poppy Syndrome" is in fact not unique to Australia, but is a pejorative term used in the UK, New Zealand, Ireland and Canada as well.
No matter who people are, where they are from, there are always many things, cultural or personal, syndromes named or not, that can prevent them from reaching the soaring height of their potential.
I invoked "Walk the Line," arguably one of the best movies ever, which I watched on the plane home last night for the third time. In it, Johnny Cash is portrayed as having felt like a murderer for the death of his brother. But, like most great artists, he was able to turn that feeling into art, into beautiful music, into lyrics that outed his innermost secret prisoner. He wrote as if he was in a literal prison, recorded his most popular album amongst the prisoners there. He had escaped, finally, it seemed, through his love for June Carter, through her love for him, and felt maybe his music could help others.
My musician friend got her star for helping me explore the different ways in which I can offer my own kids the chance to express themselves and their feelings through music, through the often unconcious emotional expression of their fingers. It would be nice if they had some way of escaping anybody who tries to pull a "Tall Poppy" on them, wherever they are.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Friday, November 27, 2009
Rafting Through the Past...
Visiting Costa Rica offers a valuable lesson in globalization. The lessons here, unlike in America, are learned very personally. They mean the difference between being able to get a cell phone or not. The centralized government is loathe to give up control of its land, but the decision means that the people here, mostly opportunistic service providers, are often stuck in their rustic open-air homes waiting for phone calls instead of out and about, plying their trade or drumming up business. They are severely limited by their government's decision, by the monopoly it holds over the bulk of major infrastructure. But, our rafting guide pointed out to us in the van across bumpy roads, the electricity might be spotty, but everyone gets it, everyone. With competition would come better service but, as in America, it would come at a price. It would create a set of haves and have-nots. It is what most of the world aspires to, but it is sometimes sad.
We passed a palm tree plantation, which we were told replaced bananas as a cash crop a while back. The palm oil expressed from the little fruits is exported for soaps, makeup and foods, though McDonald's use of it for fries was a debacle, exposed in Supersize Me as not such a healthy thing.
On the way to the rafting, we walked with a friendly Rotweiler through a spice farm, smelling local varieties of cinnamon and mint, vanilla beans, clove. Even our pit stop was exciting, open as the third wall was to the jungle.
We made it to our launch spot and got suited up for our rafting adventure, complete with helmets, clearly to protect us from the large boulders should we fly out of our little rubber raft. The kids started to get slightly nervous as we were instructed on survival tactics including how to grab the rope or how not to panic should we get stuck underneath the boat. Hmmm. Was this too risky an endeavor, we all began to wonder?
The minute we hit the water, though, we knew it was worth it, whatever the risk.
"This is awesome!" Oscar yelled from the back.
"Woo hoo!" Eli yelled as we hit the rapids, got drenched with the whitecaps as he ducked down for safety.
None of us fell out, though we did stop along the way to take a little float down the rapids. It was the only time the rope was necessary. Our navigator, Nacho, was expert at avoiding rocks, guiding us when exactly to paddle out of harm's way. Amazing. A cow watched us from the side of the river and we glided along, flying almost as freely as the baby blue heron we followed.
Eli shook his head at one point, as we compared it to a now-closed water ride at Coney Island. "No," he said. "This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity..."
I smiled. Hopefully we will have more opportunities to do this but maybe not. It is certainly very special.
Finishing up with the rapids portion, we glided down the river toward the sunny skies ahead, the rains having held off for the first afternoon in months, Nacho told us. We were lucky.
The surrounding setting was spectacular.
"It looks like prehistoric times," Oscar said. And, though we laughed, it seemed almost true. We had heard, in fact, that the sound of the Howler Monkeys, in reverse, was the sound used for dinosaurs in Jurassic Park and, looking around, all of a sudden, it seemed we had been placed on the set of Land of the Lost.
I felt sad suddenly, imagining a McDonald's on the corner, a Starbucks where only tin-roofed huts now stand. Globalization, hopefully, will be kept at bay, the economy here kept afloat by catering to those of us enmeshed in the muck of modernity, offering us a bit of the simplicity of the past in the present.
We passed a palm tree plantation, which we were told replaced bananas as a cash crop a while back. The palm oil expressed from the little fruits is exported for soaps, makeup and foods, though McDonald's use of it for fries was a debacle, exposed in Supersize Me as not such a healthy thing.
On the way to the rafting, we walked with a friendly Rotweiler through a spice farm, smelling local varieties of cinnamon and mint, vanilla beans, clove. Even our pit stop was exciting, open as the third wall was to the jungle.
We made it to our launch spot and got suited up for our rafting adventure, complete with helmets, clearly to protect us from the large boulders should we fly out of our little rubber raft. The kids started to get slightly nervous as we were instructed on survival tactics including how to grab the rope or how not to panic should we get stuck underneath the boat. Hmmm. Was this too risky an endeavor, we all began to wonder?
The minute we hit the water, though, we knew it was worth it, whatever the risk.
"This is awesome!" Oscar yelled from the back.
"Woo hoo!" Eli yelled as we hit the rapids, got drenched with the whitecaps as he ducked down for safety.
None of us fell out, though we did stop along the way to take a little float down the rapids. It was the only time the rope was necessary. Our navigator, Nacho, was expert at avoiding rocks, guiding us when exactly to paddle out of harm's way. Amazing. A cow watched us from the side of the river and we glided along, flying almost as freely as the baby blue heron we followed.
Eli shook his head at one point, as we compared it to a now-closed water ride at Coney Island. "No," he said. "This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity..."
I smiled. Hopefully we will have more opportunities to do this but maybe not. It is certainly very special.
Finishing up with the rapids portion, we glided down the river toward the sunny skies ahead, the rains having held off for the first afternoon in months, Nacho told us. We were lucky.
The surrounding setting was spectacular.
"It looks like prehistoric times," Oscar said. And, though we laughed, it seemed almost true. We had heard, in fact, that the sound of the Howler Monkeys, in reverse, was the sound used for dinosaurs in Jurassic Park and, looking around, all of a sudden, it seemed we had been placed on the set of Land of the Lost.
I felt sad suddenly, imagining a McDonald's on the corner, a Starbucks where only tin-roofed huts now stand. Globalization, hopefully, will be kept at bay, the economy here kept afloat by catering to those of us enmeshed in the muck of modernity, offering us a bit of the simplicity of the past in the present.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Monkey On My Head
The boat ride through the mangroves today was awesome. It seemed, potentially, a fated mission, the van that came to pick us up having gotten stuck in the muck well below our house. Finally having arrived at the little covered boat, the guide and his assistant seemed unable to get the motor started. Impatient New Yorkers that we are, we weren't as relaxed as they seemed to be, these mellow Costa Ricans, but we held our tongues and our reward was final movement down the murky estuary, spotting in the reeds a variety of egrets, crabs, kingfishers and, even, a crocodile.
We had been promised that monkeys would play with us on our boat and the promise was kept. Capuchin monkeys leapt from the trees onto the tin roof of our boat and in at us, searching for the bits of banana the guide carried in his hand, gave to us to feed the hungry happy monkeys. We took turns, those of us that wanted to, starting with Eli, sitting with the monkeys on our head, on our shoulders. I was ready to take one home. They licked their fingers from the banana mush we fed them. They seemed so much like us. I think, though, they are happier here than in Brooklyn, jumping from tree to tree.
The boat went on after the monkeys had receded into the trees, continuing down a narrow path where we followed the ringed kingfisher through the trees, spotted so many red-legged crabs on the mud walls of the narrow channel. The kids were gripped, taking pictures, looking through binoculars, amazed at nature in all its glory. It was quite the show.
We finished up and were treated to another typical Costa Rican lunch of rice and beans and a protein of one's choice. It was only noon but we needed our siesta. Arriving back at home, there were a variety of workers gardening around the pool. We felt bad, the Ugly Americans at play. My sister-in-law spoke to them, offered them drinks and found out they work seven days a week for very little pay. One of them turns 70 tomorrow, works still to keep himself and his family fed. There is no government safety net here, it will be hard for him to get any social
It was a bit of a wake-up call, the harsh reality of what it's really like in a place that, while on vacation, seems blissful and easy. I wished a gold star would help. Maybe the beer did, I don't know.
We went and bought some things at an open-air market, some trinkets, some souvenirs, and we barely haggled. It seemed disgusting somehow to make people offer their hand-made goods for less when so many who have done so little are able to command more. I happily snapped up some local jewelry and t-shirts and such as gifts, buoying the economy as I did. A little green goes a long way toward assuaging guilt.
We had been promised that monkeys would play with us on our boat and the promise was kept. Capuchin monkeys leapt from the trees onto the tin roof of our boat and in at us, searching for the bits of banana the guide carried in his hand, gave to us to feed the hungry happy monkeys. We took turns, those of us that wanted to, starting with Eli, sitting with the monkeys on our head, on our shoulders. I was ready to take one home. They licked their fingers from the banana mush we fed them. They seemed so much like us. I think, though, they are happier here than in Brooklyn, jumping from tree to tree.
The boat went on after the monkeys had receded into the trees, continuing down a narrow path where we followed the ringed kingfisher through the trees, spotted so many red-legged crabs on the mud walls of the narrow channel. The kids were gripped, taking pictures, looking through binoculars, amazed at nature in all its glory. It was quite the show.
We finished up and were treated to another typical Costa Rican lunch of rice and beans and a protein of one's choice. It was only noon but we needed our siesta. Arriving back at home, there were a variety of workers gardening around the pool. We felt bad, the Ugly Americans at play. My sister-in-law spoke to them, offered them drinks and found out they work seven days a week for very little pay. One of them turns 70 tomorrow, works still to keep himself and his family fed. There is no government safety net here, it will be hard for him to get any social
It was a bit of a wake-up call, the harsh reality of what it's really like in a place that, while on vacation, seems blissful and easy. I wished a gold star would help. Maybe the beer did, I don't know.
We went and bought some things at an open-air market, some trinkets, some souvenirs, and we barely haggled. It seemed disgusting somehow to make people offer their hand-made goods for less when so many who have done so little are able to command more. I happily snapped up some local jewelry and t-shirts and such as gifts, buoying the economy as I did. A little green goes a long way toward assuaging guilt.
I Could Just Eat Rice and Beans...
I think, being here in Costa Rica, how easy it would be to slip away from regular life, how easy it would be to just sell everything and come back here to live simply, on rice and beans and plantains and the occasional bit of chicken or beef.
My little one, Oscar, is nervous. I keep mentioning this to him, how we might just stay.
"We are not moving!" he says.
"Why?" I ask.
"Because we like Nick and Tracy so much," he says, imbuing our nice next-door neighbors. Somehow, in our house, they have come to represent all that is good with our neighborhood, with our life. I laughed.
"OK, why else?" I asked.
"Because I'd miss our house, my school, my friends..."
"But we would make new friends," I said. "We could hang out with Elmer, for example," I suggested, referring to the funny young man who had been his "taxi" across the zip line. "We could do the zip line all the time..."
This gave Oscar pause. Maybe the idea of moving here wasn't such a bad one after all.
"OK," he said, "but just for the summer. Or for one month, that's it."
I smiled. "OK," I said, "that's it."
I want my kids to be flexible, more flexible than I was at their age. It's taken me an incredibly long time to feel comfortable outside my comfort zone, to be able to imagine the possibilities outside arm's reach, to be able to get on a plane and get off again somewhere else and not feel completely confused and disoriented.
There are bugs here, ones with strange antennae that are scary for no other reason other than that you don't know what they do, if they're harmful. But we have learned in just a few short days to walk right past them, to ignore them, to ignore the possibility that they could harm us, even if they could. Or, we have even learned to stop and look at them, to appreciate their strange beauty.
We were shown a poison dart frog from Ivan, our Canopy Tour guide for the zip line. He picked up the flourescent-green frog from the forest floor as it attempted to hop away. Eli was amazed, had his hand raised immediately having read of the frog's lethal aspects. But Ivan knew how to hold it, knew that it can only hurt you if you touch it a certain way when you have an open wound. Then, it can put its poison right into your bloodstream, it could possibly kill you.
I feel here that people have so much more to fear than we do back home and yet they are unafraid. The power goes out and they shrug, waiting patiently the minutes or hours it takes for the powers that be to get it back on. They don't know why it goes out, why it goes back on, and, really, it doesn't matter. Maybe they feel, like I used to at the office, that it gives them a necessary break they might not otherwise have taken. Here, though, I'm not sure they need the forced break.
Our contact at the rental office for our house, a former Raiders football player, saw my sister-in-law and I up at the market and offered us a ride home. He stopped, momentarily, at his office.
"I just need to drop off this ice and beer," he said. I love it. Why not drink and work? Why not? It's a nice mellow life here. Tourism abounds, despite the supposedly depressed U.S. economy if not because of it. Latin America is a great place to put it all in perspective, to recognize how little you need, how much you have.
A little cafe up the bumpy unpaved road tells on its menu the "cliche" story of its owners, an American couple who kicked off the shackles of their old life and moved here years ago to roast good coffee and serve it to the mostly American tourists who come to visit Manuel Antonio park. The signs are all in English, offering up crucial information such as how coffee and souvenirs like locally-made soaps can be shipped straight back to the U.S. As I sat at a table speaking rusty Spanish with my El Salvadoran sister-in-law, we were alone among the patrons in our language choice. The staff was local but they do take dollars if one doesn't have local currency, colones.
Six months here, my sister-in-law tells me, and I would be speaking Spanish like a champ. Oscar will not allow me that long, I think. We'll see. He may change his mind after we go rafting or ride horses on the beach...Maybe those things will even edge out the niceness of our Brooklyn neighbors, maybe.
My little one, Oscar, is nervous. I keep mentioning this to him, how we might just stay.
"We are not moving!" he says.
"Why?" I ask.
"Because we like Nick and Tracy so much," he says, imbuing our nice next-door neighbors. Somehow, in our house, they have come to represent all that is good with our neighborhood, with our life. I laughed.
"OK, why else?" I asked.
"Because I'd miss our house, my school, my friends..."
"But we would make new friends," I said. "We could hang out with Elmer, for example," I suggested, referring to the funny young man who had been his "taxi" across the zip line. "We could do the zip line all the time..."
This gave Oscar pause. Maybe the idea of moving here wasn't such a bad one after all.
"OK," he said, "but just for the summer. Or for one month, that's it."
I smiled. "OK," I said, "that's it."
I want my kids to be flexible, more flexible than I was at their age. It's taken me an incredibly long time to feel comfortable outside my comfort zone, to be able to imagine the possibilities outside arm's reach, to be able to get on a plane and get off again somewhere else and not feel completely confused and disoriented.
There are bugs here, ones with strange antennae that are scary for no other reason other than that you don't know what they do, if they're harmful. But we have learned in just a few short days to walk right past them, to ignore them, to ignore the possibility that they could harm us, even if they could. Or, we have even learned to stop and look at them, to appreciate their strange beauty.
We were shown a poison dart frog from Ivan, our Canopy Tour guide for the zip line. He picked up the flourescent-green frog from the forest floor as it attempted to hop away. Eli was amazed, had his hand raised immediately having read of the frog's lethal aspects. But Ivan knew how to hold it, knew that it can only hurt you if you touch it a certain way when you have an open wound. Then, it can put its poison right into your bloodstream, it could possibly kill you.
I feel here that people have so much more to fear than we do back home and yet they are unafraid. The power goes out and they shrug, waiting patiently the minutes or hours it takes for the powers that be to get it back on. They don't know why it goes out, why it goes back on, and, really, it doesn't matter. Maybe they feel, like I used to at the office, that it gives them a necessary break they might not otherwise have taken. Here, though, I'm not sure they need the forced break.
Our contact at the rental office for our house, a former Raiders football player, saw my sister-in-law and I up at the market and offered us a ride home. He stopped, momentarily, at his office.
"I just need to drop off this ice and beer," he said. I love it. Why not drink and work? Why not? It's a nice mellow life here. Tourism abounds, despite the supposedly depressed U.S. economy if not because of it. Latin America is a great place to put it all in perspective, to recognize how little you need, how much you have.
A little cafe up the bumpy unpaved road tells on its menu the "cliche" story of its owners, an American couple who kicked off the shackles of their old life and moved here years ago to roast good coffee and serve it to the mostly American tourists who come to visit Manuel Antonio park. The signs are all in English, offering up crucial information such as how coffee and souvenirs like locally-made soaps can be shipped straight back to the U.S. As I sat at a table speaking rusty Spanish with my El Salvadoran sister-in-law, we were alone among the patrons in our language choice. The staff was local but they do take dollars if one doesn't have local currency, colones.
Six months here, my sister-in-law tells me, and I would be speaking Spanish like a champ. Oscar will not allow me that long, I think. We'll see. He may change his mind after we go rafting or ride horses on the beach...Maybe those things will even edge out the niceness of our Brooklyn neighbors, maybe.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Zipping Around Like Monkeys...
I am so proud of my kids, my nephew, my brother-in-law, my husband and myself. I would give us all gold stars if I had them. Today, we all harnessed up, donned helmets and zipped across the rainforest, hundreds of feet in the air, on metal wires, mostly smiling even if we were scared. Amazing. I would have been petrified at 6 or 8, even at my nephew's age, 10. I might even have been petrified myself a few years back, before I decided I needed to learn to be fearless so that might children might also learn, earlier than I did, to do cool things even if they seemed scary.
I love Costa Rica. I'm definitely ready to move here, at least for a time, though my kids are not. They love our neighbors, our friends, our life in Park Slope. So do I, but the pace here, the people, the fresh fruits...I'm sold.
We were awoken, all of us, around 4 a.m., to a sound that seemed like it could be nothing else but some sort of murderous pack of wolves after having finished eating my children. My hubby hopped up, looked out the window.
"I thought I heard something..." he said, half-asleep.
"I heard it too," I said.
"I'm going to check on the children," he said, heading out the door in his underwear. He was back in a second, the sound having sounded again, seemingly right outside our door.
Next thing, our sons had come to us, run down the stairs, deathly afraid in their tree-house of room, open all around except for some screens and a few sliding doors.
The sounds continued, every few minutes for the next couple of hours. We never really went back to sleep. How could we?? Turns out, they were Howler monkeys, known by locals in Costa Rica as Congos because they look like gorillas rather than monkeys. They made up for waking us up in a panic by the show they put on for hours as they jumped around the trees with their babies along with Capuchins and a few Titis.
None of us in the house will soon forget the sound we heard, as if in a nightmare, a sound that resonated like we had died and gone to Hell. It is no surprise that Eli has asked to sleep with me tonight, despite his knowledge that the evil sound came only from the cute jumping monkeys he joyfully watched through the binoculars over the railing of the fourth floor open-air living room.
Hopefully, he will be too tired from the day's activities to worry. I have promised I will now know better than to be afraid and will come and get him should the monkeys make their scary sounds again in the morning. They are starting now, though, before 8:00 p.m. Uh oh. I cannot complain, though. It is amazing to learn about nature firsthand. Even Eli can appreciate it.
He looked at me this morning, wide-eyed, having pulled the binoculars away from his eyes for a moment, away from the monkeys.
"I am learning so much, not even from reading!" he said. Three-dimensional experiences are truly a gift, one I am so happy my children can appreciate, one I appreciate immensely.
I love Costa Rica. I'm definitely ready to move here, at least for a time, though my kids are not. They love our neighbors, our friends, our life in Park Slope. So do I, but the pace here, the people, the fresh fruits...I'm sold.
We were awoken, all of us, around 4 a.m., to a sound that seemed like it could be nothing else but some sort of murderous pack of wolves after having finished eating my children. My hubby hopped up, looked out the window.
"I thought I heard something..." he said, half-asleep.
"I heard it too," I said.
"I'm going to check on the children," he said, heading out the door in his underwear. He was back in a second, the sound having sounded again, seemingly right outside our door.
Next thing, our sons had come to us, run down the stairs, deathly afraid in their tree-house of room, open all around except for some screens and a few sliding doors.
The sounds continued, every few minutes for the next couple of hours. We never really went back to sleep. How could we?? Turns out, they were Howler monkeys, known by locals in Costa Rica as Congos because they look like gorillas rather than monkeys. They made up for waking us up in a panic by the show they put on for hours as they jumped around the trees with their babies along with Capuchins and a few Titis.
None of us in the house will soon forget the sound we heard, as if in a nightmare, a sound that resonated like we had died and gone to Hell. It is no surprise that Eli has asked to sleep with me tonight, despite his knowledge that the evil sound came only from the cute jumping monkeys he joyfully watched through the binoculars over the railing of the fourth floor open-air living room.
Hopefully, he will be too tired from the day's activities to worry. I have promised I will now know better than to be afraid and will come and get him should the monkeys make their scary sounds again in the morning. They are starting now, though, before 8:00 p.m. Uh oh. I cannot complain, though. It is amazing to learn about nature firsthand. Even Eli can appreciate it.
He looked at me this morning, wide-eyed, having pulled the binoculars away from his eyes for a moment, away from the monkeys.
"I am learning so much, not even from reading!" he said. Three-dimensional experiences are truly a gift, one I am so happy my children can appreciate, one I appreciate immensely.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Slow as a Sloth
I am writing from Central America, Costa Rica to be exact, Manuel Antonio Park to be exacter. I forgot my gold stars, too bad because there were so many opportunities to reward airport workers, but I didn't think the concept would translate. I don't know if Costa Ricans get gold stars as kids, in school.
Without the stars, I am still trying to be friendly, even to the car rental guys who, after our long flight and long wait at customs yesterday, had clearly lied about having cars with automatic transmissions, then added insult to injury by offering sweetly to give us a 4-wheel-drive for no extra charge. Turns out those are all they really have to traverse these often unpaved mountain roads. When they charged us extra, then, for necessary insurance, I smiled sweetly.
"Really, is there nothing more you can do to make up for the fact that I now have to drive stick-shift, which I haven't done in years?!"
The man behind the counter smiled just as sweetly back. "You see," he said, "we have a monopoly here...so there is nothing I can do..."
I threw my head back and laughed. Awesome. I do love honesty. It would have been a perfect gold star moment. I continued to banter, then, making fun of everything the man said with the response, "Well, you do have a monopoly..." My joking managed to encourage him to bypass the invisible dictator and offer to waive the $5 extra driver charge, which we weren't sure we needed since my husband has never driven stick and was unlikely to learn in this small, mountainous country, especially with me as the teacher.
Turns out, the nearly four-hour drive to our house was not a nightmare as I began to fear as the rental guy walked me around the car showing existing bumps and scrapes and smilingly telling me, Miss Gringa, about the random police blockades, the flashing lights to warn about dangers such as animals in the middle of the road, and the looooong wait should anything actually happen to our car and we should attempt to get help.
Once out of the rental lot, though, imagined fears put aside out of necessity, it was amazing, even despite my burning rubber as I remembered, with some difficulty, the delicate balance of clutch and brake and gas. We saw along our path a rooster, a rainbow, herds of skinny cows and a man sleeping in the dirt right off the road waiting, interminably I guess, for a bus. There were tons of open-air bars promising yummy fruity drinks and stands selling local fruits and veggies. I was ready after a half an hour to give up Brooklyn life for this, for something simpler.
We finally got to the house, an amazing, open-to-the-ocean five floor extravaganza, and the drive seemed even more worth it, so, too, my mother-in-law's months of nervous e-mails as she prepared us and herself for her 70th birthday extravaganza. The place didn't just meet, it exceeded expectations. My father in law was sad to hear I'd forgotten my stars.
"This house," he said, "deserves a gold star."
Definitely. Especially today, in the morning light. I stared behind my mother-in-law at something in the tree and later recognized it as two sloths, embracing. Monkeys danced over our heads, over the little pool, putting on a show we joked came as part of the deluxe package. Lizards live in our bathrooms and, as we sat by the pool, hummingbirds flew about, along with butterflies of various sizes and colors and a red-tailed dragonfly, who circled over me for hours and then, finally, sat on a large leaf right by my head, so close I could see its tail pulsating. Amazing. I'm sold. I am certainly meant to have come here, to this fabulous place. I may never leave, despite the spotty Internet service. My daily blog is harder, but I will try, I will really try.
Without the stars, I am still trying to be friendly, even to the car rental guys who, after our long flight and long wait at customs yesterday, had clearly lied about having cars with automatic transmissions, then added insult to injury by offering sweetly to give us a 4-wheel-drive for no extra charge. Turns out those are all they really have to traverse these often unpaved mountain roads. When they charged us extra, then, for necessary insurance, I smiled sweetly.
"Really, is there nothing more you can do to make up for the fact that I now have to drive stick-shift, which I haven't done in years?!"
The man behind the counter smiled just as sweetly back. "You see," he said, "we have a monopoly here...so there is nothing I can do..."
I threw my head back and laughed. Awesome. I do love honesty. It would have been a perfect gold star moment. I continued to banter, then, making fun of everything the man said with the response, "Well, you do have a monopoly..." My joking managed to encourage him to bypass the invisible dictator and offer to waive the $5 extra driver charge, which we weren't sure we needed since my husband has never driven stick and was unlikely to learn in this small, mountainous country, especially with me as the teacher.
Turns out, the nearly four-hour drive to our house was not a nightmare as I began to fear as the rental guy walked me around the car showing existing bumps and scrapes and smilingly telling me, Miss Gringa, about the random police blockades, the flashing lights to warn about dangers such as animals in the middle of the road, and the looooong wait should anything actually happen to our car and we should attempt to get help.
Once out of the rental lot, though, imagined fears put aside out of necessity, it was amazing, even despite my burning rubber as I remembered, with some difficulty, the delicate balance of clutch and brake and gas. We saw along our path a rooster, a rainbow, herds of skinny cows and a man sleeping in the dirt right off the road waiting, interminably I guess, for a bus. There were tons of open-air bars promising yummy fruity drinks and stands selling local fruits and veggies. I was ready after a half an hour to give up Brooklyn life for this, for something simpler.
We finally got to the house, an amazing, open-to-the-ocean five floor extravaganza, and the drive seemed even more worth it, so, too, my mother-in-law's months of nervous e-mails as she prepared us and herself for her 70th birthday extravaganza. The place didn't just meet, it exceeded expectations. My father in law was sad to hear I'd forgotten my stars.
"This house," he said, "deserves a gold star."
Definitely. Especially today, in the morning light. I stared behind my mother-in-law at something in the tree and later recognized it as two sloths, embracing. Monkeys danced over our heads, over the little pool, putting on a show we joked came as part of the deluxe package. Lizards live in our bathrooms and, as we sat by the pool, hummingbirds flew about, along with butterflies of various sizes and colors and a red-tailed dragonfly, who circled over me for hours and then, finally, sat on a large leaf right by my head, so close I could see its tail pulsating. Amazing. I'm sold. I am certainly meant to have come here, to this fabulous place. I may never leave, despite the spotty Internet service. My daily blog is harder, but I will try, I will really try.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
What You Get When You're Expecting...
Expectations are a dangerous thing in that they mostly require action not from oneself but from an uncontrollable Other. Or, worse, a group of Others. Good luck, I say. I say it many times a day to many people, often in the form of a gold star and, most of all, to myself. It is hard work to give up expecting that someone other than yourself might be able to fill whatever hole you have and, at the same time, hold on to the hope that must accompany forging any relationship, lasting or brief.
The other day, a friend of mine working at a local cafe was in a funk, ready to go home just an hour or two in to a five-hour shift. Bummer. Her spirits were deeply dampened. She had shown me, days earlier, an amazing hand-drawn book she had created to give to a new friend with whom she had shared a special time. The book depicted the two of them connecting. It was beautiful.
"How did your friend like the book?" I asked.
She scoffed. "Fine, I guess. I made another one, for another friend. I don't know why I'm so nice to people...they don't deserve it," she said.
I laughed. "Obviously, you didn't get the reaction you wanted or expected," I said.
"Never," she said.
I couldn't help myself. The therapist just under the surface surfaced.
"Ok," I said. "Now, wait. What's your sign?" I don't know why I asked, I know little about all but a few signs, my own and a few of the people I find myself drawn to. She was a Sagittarius. I had nothing for that, but no matter. I knew from her disappointment some of her defining characteristics.
"Look, you obviously give because you like to. My guess is that you find people again and again who take from you and disappoint you..."
She stared up, thinking, then looked right at me. "You're right," she said. "I always find myself around selfish bastards."
"Exactly," I said, "that's what works for you, for some reason. So get over it...you love making the books, you love giving them. My guess is you wouldn't know what to do with someone who responded the way you say you want someone to anyway."
She laughed. "You're right."
Aah, my favorite words. I gave her a gold star for pondering deeper, looking a little at what her role in a disappointing situation might be. It is, after all, the only role she can control.
Yesterday, I had a similar conversation with a friend whose family is coming apart at the seams. She sighed deeply as she went to sign off on a long conversation about what people were and were not capable of giving.
"It's fine," she said, "I'm done expecting things from people..."
I laughed. The tone in her voice, the deep disappointment, gave her away. She was lying.
"That was half-hearted at best," I said. "But, you know what? You do have to make your peace with the fact that people only can do what they can do..."
"I'm trying," she said, pausing a moment before adding, "I need a gold star!"
I need to put a star on my cell phone, to text them to people in those moments. I did it once for my husband and it was surprisingly effective. I needed one then. I gave her one, verbally. Would that it helped...
It is amazing how many times a day, how many times a week, people shake their head and say, "I'm trying," or even, "It hardly seems worth it to try..."
So often it is in conjunction with what they are doing not being appreciated by others, what others are not doing.
This morning, for example, at Parco, I ran into a great lady, a professor of psychology, headed to work. She has three classes to teach today.
"Yikes," I said, "so are your students enraptured by your lectures?"
She rolled her eyes. "Right. It's a horrible year."
"Oh no!" I said, looking at her with sympathy, "I'm so sorry!"
She met my eyes with her own, filled with gratitude. "Thank you," she said. She needed a little sympathy. Her students are more on the remedial end and, she said, "With the economy being what it is, a lot of people just decide to go to school 'cause..."
Here she trailed off but I nodded in understanding. I've thought a lot lately about the gamble of higher education, the question of whether the investment is sound. The jury is still out. Like with so many things.
"College is like marriage," I said, "very hopeful..."
She laughed and thought about it. "I guess it is..." she said.
"The problem is, though, with both, you only get out what you put in. You can't expect that it's just going to work out because you're in it, you can't expect anybody else to do all the work."
"Exactly," she said. She gratefully accepted her gold star and asked, hopefully, if she was going to be featured on the blog. As this was her expectation, clearly stated, and as her issue was part of a universal one I had been contemplating, I didn't want to disappoint. I didn't want to add to her burden of unfulfilled expectations. That is never my plan.
As I sat in yoga a little while later, though, a message the instructor gave us from a poem by Naomi Shihab Nye called "Kindness" rang true in my ears, explained a lot about the signifigance and necessity of disappointment. It explained how the emotion it brings is a driving force behind our own positive efforts.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and
purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you every where
like a shadow or a friend.
Finding our way to our own kindness, regardless of how it is received, is what, in the end, will save the day, for us. I'm nearly sure of it.
The other day, a friend of mine working at a local cafe was in a funk, ready to go home just an hour or two in to a five-hour shift. Bummer. Her spirits were deeply dampened. She had shown me, days earlier, an amazing hand-drawn book she had created to give to a new friend with whom she had shared a special time. The book depicted the two of them connecting. It was beautiful.
"How did your friend like the book?" I asked.
She scoffed. "Fine, I guess. I made another one, for another friend. I don't know why I'm so nice to people...they don't deserve it," she said.
I laughed. "Obviously, you didn't get the reaction you wanted or expected," I said.
"Never," she said.
I couldn't help myself. The therapist just under the surface surfaced.
"Ok," I said. "Now, wait. What's your sign?" I don't know why I asked, I know little about all but a few signs, my own and a few of the people I find myself drawn to. She was a Sagittarius. I had nothing for that, but no matter. I knew from her disappointment some of her defining characteristics.
"Look, you obviously give because you like to. My guess is that you find people again and again who take from you and disappoint you..."
She stared up, thinking, then looked right at me. "You're right," she said. "I always find myself around selfish bastards."
"Exactly," I said, "that's what works for you, for some reason. So get over it...you love making the books, you love giving them. My guess is you wouldn't know what to do with someone who responded the way you say you want someone to anyway."
She laughed. "You're right."
Aah, my favorite words. I gave her a gold star for pondering deeper, looking a little at what her role in a disappointing situation might be. It is, after all, the only role she can control.
Yesterday, I had a similar conversation with a friend whose family is coming apart at the seams. She sighed deeply as she went to sign off on a long conversation about what people were and were not capable of giving.
"It's fine," she said, "I'm done expecting things from people..."
I laughed. The tone in her voice, the deep disappointment, gave her away. She was lying.
"That was half-hearted at best," I said. "But, you know what? You do have to make your peace with the fact that people only can do what they can do..."
"I'm trying," she said, pausing a moment before adding, "I need a gold star!"
I need to put a star on my cell phone, to text them to people in those moments. I did it once for my husband and it was surprisingly effective. I needed one then. I gave her one, verbally. Would that it helped...
It is amazing how many times a day, how many times a week, people shake their head and say, "I'm trying," or even, "It hardly seems worth it to try..."
So often it is in conjunction with what they are doing not being appreciated by others, what others are not doing.
This morning, for example, at Parco, I ran into a great lady, a professor of psychology, headed to work. She has three classes to teach today.
"Yikes," I said, "so are your students enraptured by your lectures?"
She rolled her eyes. "Right. It's a horrible year."
"Oh no!" I said, looking at her with sympathy, "I'm so sorry!"
She met my eyes with her own, filled with gratitude. "Thank you," she said. She needed a little sympathy. Her students are more on the remedial end and, she said, "With the economy being what it is, a lot of people just decide to go to school 'cause..."
Here she trailed off but I nodded in understanding. I've thought a lot lately about the gamble of higher education, the question of whether the investment is sound. The jury is still out. Like with so many things.
"College is like marriage," I said, "very hopeful..."
She laughed and thought about it. "I guess it is..." she said.
"The problem is, though, with both, you only get out what you put in. You can't expect that it's just going to work out because you're in it, you can't expect anybody else to do all the work."
"Exactly," she said. She gratefully accepted her gold star and asked, hopefully, if she was going to be featured on the blog. As this was her expectation, clearly stated, and as her issue was part of a universal one I had been contemplating, I didn't want to disappoint. I didn't want to add to her burden of unfulfilled expectations. That is never my plan.
As I sat in yoga a little while later, though, a message the instructor gave us from a poem by Naomi Shihab Nye called "Kindness" rang true in my ears, explained a lot about the signifigance and necessity of disappointment. It explained how the emotion it brings is a driving force behind our own positive efforts.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and
purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you every where
like a shadow or a friend.
Finding our way to our own kindness, regardless of how it is received, is what, in the end, will save the day, for us. I'm nearly sure of it.
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