Truths I Learned at a Retreat

Back in August, I went on a retreat to Idaho. I went with my former mother-in-law, a neat 73-year-old lady who loves to laugh. She continued her walk across the United States, and I worked on my novel Herbal Junction.

There were a few moments of truth that stood out to me while I was there. I thought they might resonate with you, too.

(1) Looking at a body of water is the cure.

(2) Listening to music is more intimate than I remembered.

(3) Acknowledge the beginning and end of a day. 

Witness the turning of the earth by observing the sunrise and sunset, when I can.

(4) Watch and greet the wildlife I see. Even if it's a desiccated carcass of a small animal.

(5) Flesh-eating mosquitoes don't seem to matter anymore when I'm taking pictures of red sunsets.

(6) Journaling OUTSIDE. (That's all I'll say.)

A Moment by the Lake

I have forgotten my camera at the tent, and I don't want to disturb the dogs by retrieving it.

I am sitting in dappled morning sun, over-looking Lake Charlton. There are no ripples on its mirrored surface, only steam rising from it. The sun peeks through pine needles on an adjacent tree, and I can almost look at it with my sunglasses.

The silence presses against my eardrums, and then I hear past the silence. Birds, insects buzzing, a camper's slow rumble of a snore, a camp-mate's propane burner for making that first cup of camp coffee.

Soon kindling is being chopped and I wonder again about retrieving my camera.

I've only come out for one night of camping--and it seems both ridiculous to do so, and absolutely necessary.

A micro-adventure into nature to hear The Piper playing his songs. I hear them in the birdsong across the lake, in the breeze that flutters past my ears and dances in the spider webs.

The kindling catches and the campfire smoke floats out to the lake.

My coffee has grown lukewarm and so a trek to the car to get another bottle of propane is next. I will eat instant oatmeal without guilt and make a cup of chai.

There is a half-hearted talk between the only other two campers awake yet of taking the canoe out, but I don't want to move from my spot. I'm enjoying the quiet like I haven't since I arrived yesterday afternoon. Soon enough the quiet will end.

I was hoping for silent epiphany last night, but I was kept engaged with my friends--enjoying the night--and without sleep late until the wee dark hours of the morning.

But maybe this morning's silence by campfire and following the sun rise higher in the tree's needles is enough.

The Piper card from the Faerie Oracle deck said for me to come camping, so I did.

I'm confident that I have received, or will receive, whatever infusion I needed to clear my head and center into me again.

The more I think about it, the more I believe my healing and personal growth were aided by this view this morning. This still lake, this crackling fire, this quiet morning with the scent of infusing each breath.

This moment is why I came out to Mother Gaia--why I'm here today.

Turns Out I'm Old

It turns out I'm old.

I had a fairly busy week with two children's doctor's appointments, my daughter's talent show, volunteering at her school, my regular work, yoga, and chauffeuring -- plus, I started installing a garden fence. And then, on Saturday, I picked up Ali from the airport, and we drove to Portland to attend a reggae concert.

We checked into our motel first, then walked to the venue. The concert was almost three hours long, and then we walked the mile back. We got turned around a few times, bought food at a walk-up window, (Thank God it was Portland, Oregon and I could get a gluten-free hamburger at two in the morning!) and finally fell into our bed (to the chorus of a party next door that Ali called the manager about, and whom were subsequently kicked out) at 3:30 a.m. (Maybe four a.m. I was asleep by then and didn't hear the rest.)

It was a weekend of records for me.

1. I went 21 hours without sleep.
2. I slept in until noon.
3. I left Powell's bookstore only spending ~$30.

Never before has any of those three things happened to me in my life. Let alone all in one weekend.

Despite 8 1/2 hours of sleep, I still felt groggy all the next day. I snoozed during the car ride home to Eugene, I collapsed dramatically into bed Sunday night, and woke up seven hours later exhausted. With five new zits on my face.

Ali said he'd never seen me so tired before. Which is code for, "Oh, honey. You look old."

I suspect I will be catching up on some sleep in the next couple of days. It makes me wonder though, if I were five years younger, would I have been so tired in the aftermath of the concert?

Probably.

Try fifteen years.

I could have done it fifteen years ago, no problem.

But I still would've had those zits.

On the Way, Part Two

We stayed at Vida Tropical near the San Jose airport on our first night in Costa Rica. We checked in, showered, and swayed in a hammock on the balcony to relax. We went to bed pretty early (travel was tiring), and planned to leisurely eat breakfast at 7-ish and make our way to the bus station to catch a 10 am bus to Palmar Norte. Our new friends, Lisa and Mark, would pick us up there and drive us to Osa Mountain Village.

We woke with our 7 am alarm and wandered slowly to breakfast. Which wasn't ready. BECAUSE, it was really 6:40 am. They don't acknowledge the time change here. (headsmack) We almost went back to bed, but the breeze was so nice, and the orange juice and coffee ready, that we stayed up.

I journaled, and Ali swung in the hammock, reading a Costa Rican guidebook. The hostel there keep rabbits as pets, and the birds wake you in the wee hours of the morning. (Sunrise here is 5:30 am.)

**

While waiting for breakfast, we were informed that we should really be at the bus station an hour or two before departure because of it being Easter Holiday Week. We hurried through a traditional Tico breakfast of rice, beans, and eggs, and got to the station via taxi. The taxi to the bus station (back in San Jose) was more expensive than the four hour bus ride to Palmar Norte! $30 for the taxi, and $23 for TWO bus tickets.

(Waiting for the bus at the Tracopa station in San Jose.)

Despite my ass hurting from sitting so many hours in two days (three, if you count the drive to Portland), and my feet swelling up, puffy in my flip-flops; on the bus ride to Palmar Norte, both Ali and I felt that even though we had just arrived in this country (and hadn't even reached our destination of Osa Mountain Village), we didn't want to leave. A week would not be enough.

Costa Rica already felt like home.

On the Way -- Part One

It would be easy for me to disregard Days One and Two of the Costa Rica trip since we weren't at Osa Mountain Village yet, but then I'd be leaving out the journey. Of course! I often jump ahead of myself and look forwardforward to what it will be like when, when the right now is pretty damn awesome in and of itself.

For instance, Ali and I left Eugene on Sunday after dropping the kids at their respective plans that day, walking the dogs one last time, and last minute packing. We drove to Portland (I napped on the way -- so relaxing) and met up with Ali's friend, Erika. We went out to dinner at The Observatory and I ate a super yummy lamb burger, and Ali ate the BEST MEATLOAF ever. Or so he said. I couldn't taste it. It had gluten.

Erika had just inherited (sort of ) a new dog named Patrick. I caught him with a wee Irish hat on.

Erika's place was super cool. The light was a fantastic bonus feature for her husband, a glass artist.

We took a taxi to the airport the next morning, and flew to Texas for a short-ish layover, and found this cool glass sculpture that was really an instrument.

And then we flew to San Jose, Costa Rica.

Napping along the way.

We landed in San Jose and went through the immigration line (even though we weren't immigrating), and got our passports stamped. We got our bags and went through customs, and caught a taxi to our hostel. 

Part Two tells of our sweet hostel -- Vida Tropical.

I might not sell my house for "just cool."

I have a shaman-in-training friend.
You've met him before, in this blog. My brotherfriend.
We talked the other night about how to re-access spirit through dream gates. Of how talk to soul again.

Despite this sounding a smidgeon like a fantasy novel,  I don't actually feel like writing fiction right now.

Don't get me wrong, I love fiction. I want to write fiction, and publish fiction. But first, right now, I am immersed in the world of memoir. Living memoir. Non-fiction. Living my life in a creatively non-fiction way.

I'm making roads, honoring my needs, letting go. 

I'm learning ever more about myself. 

I'm.slowing.down. 

I'm looking at my experiences with MORE maturity and LESS obsession.

And.

Also.

I am trying to reconnect with my intuition. 

When Rob died, that catapulted me into talking with him in the pages of my journal, of receiving visits from him in my dreams, of meeting my spirit guides and my soul family. Of trusting myself. Implicitly. 

But not anymore.

To any of that.

My brotherfriend and I talked also about trusting myself again.

Well.

It's not really dis-trust, like I'm afraid I'll steal my laptop from myself, but more like ... when I check in on some uber-important question for soul and self, I want to know that the answer I receive is coming from a place of wholeness. Not from fear or desire.

Or co-dependancy.

Getting back to that place may take some time.
And I'm horribly out of practice.

All I know to do is: dance until the dream gates open, write until I hear the clarity that doesn't come from me, and to dialogue with people that remind me to check inside. ALL THE TIME.

"Is this bringing me closer to my goals?"
"Is making this choice in line with my true calling?"
"Will I be proud of this decision?"
"Am I communicating in the most non-violent way possible here?"
"Will chocolate REALLY help today?"
"Is this me being authentic?"

You might wonder why I'm so interested in this checking in with my soul/true calling stuff right now -- I mean, other than the general reasons of personal growth and living a life authentically, and one you can be proud to say you are living.

The reason I need to know if I'm lying to myself, or more accurately, that the answers to my questions are VALID ones -- the real reasons, the right reasons -- is because

I want to know if I'm supposed to move to Costa Rica.

I co-own a piece of land there already. I wanted to do it before, that's why it was purchased to begin with. But the plot changed in my memoir. The cast of characters is different. And I don't know if it is in my character's emotional arc to transcend the challenges to make it work with the differences from the original version of the story.

My ex wants to sell the land. So if I want to keep that Costa Rica dream alive (albeit in ICU), I need to come up with some serious cash to buy his half out. And I need to do it quickly. So, the question now becomes, not just do I want to live in Costa Rica someday? or even, do I want a vacation oasis in Costa Rica? but now it's do I want all that bad enough to put in an immense amount of time, effort and honest sweat for the next six months plus to make that happen? (Clarification: it'll take me six months to buy out my ex's half of the property. I could still take years to move down there, and I've made peace with that.)

Here's where the talking to yourself becomes mandatory.

I need to know if it is my true calling to go there. Is this me being authentic? Or is it just cool?
Because if it is, that's totally fine.

But I might not sell my house for "just cool."

You Don't Spit Out Sweet Paan

"You want to try some paan?"

"No!" I am sure I looked horrified, but smiled nonetheless.

"Why not?" he laughed.

I wrinkled up my nose and grimaced.

"Isn't that the stuff that's red and you spit it on the sidewalks all over India?"

He laughed.

"Yes. But no. I don't want you to eat that kind. I'm talking about sweet paan."

We were walking down a sunny street in a small town in New Jersey. One, of course, heavily populated by the large Indian community that lived nearby. That's why we'd come here. I had come in search of a diya (oil lamp for altars and prayers), more clothes for work (salwar kameez), and to fix one of my silver-belled anklets. I also wanted burfi, and bad.

And so we were walking.

"You want to try new experiences, right?"

And with that logic, we stepped into a sweet shop and made our purchases. Two boxes of burfi, a sweet lassi (a yummy yogurt drink), and -- with trepidation -- sweet paan.


The sweet (Meetha) paan I ate was: a betel leaf wrapped around coconut, rose paste, candy-coated fennel seeds, and ... other stuff. The idea is to stick the whole thing in your mouth at one time, bite into it, and hold it there while you suck out the juice. Bite and suck. Repeat.

 It's really sticky.

 The paan we were served were too large to fit in all at once, so I bit it in half. 

(This is what it looks like inside.) 

Once it was munched down enough, I put the other half in.

This is what you look like with your cheeks full of meetha paan.

Final result: I'm sold. I like it. At first explosive taste, it was ... like ... eating incense. We bought several wedges (I'm sure that's not what they call them anywhere but on my blog) in town, and ate them up within a couple of days. They are traditionally eaten after a big fancy meal, like at a wedding. But I'd eat them after any meal. Probably a good thing I don't live in New Jersey then. I'm sure they are loaded with calories.

Another humorous account of a first time paan-eater.

"Nook"y on the Plane

I have a Nook.
I got it in the divorce.

I've only used it once though, and I didn't buy it for myself. (I didn't inhale disclaimer.)
My ex bought it for himself, and then bought the iPad he really wanted but couldn't rationalize the cost. (snort)

So I snagged the Nook. You know, just in case.

I've never wanted an ebook reader. I don't need one. To mirror Emma Thompson in "Stranger Than Fiction," "I don't need [an ebook reader], Penny. I [read books.]" (Only she was talking about the nicotine patch and smoking cigarettes.)

Costa Rica -- Day Seven and Eight

(Paul at breakfast this morning)

We've been working the last couple of days, mostly. Though there always seems to be time to read our books or sit by the pool, too. :) Just the thing for tired out folks.

On Friday we had a leisurely breakfast at the hotel (free) and then we drove into Dominical, which we hadn't yet explored, and finally made it to a beach!

We walked along it a ways, picked up a couple of rocks to bring back home and got our feet wet. The water was warm! Not the Pacific Ocean I know. :)

We've started noticing itchy bug bites on ourselves. Strangely, we notice the read mark with no symptoms, and then a day or two later it starts itching. Weird. And some of the bites visually present differently then mosquito bites, too. So we are thinking it's coming from some other biting bug. And my guess is they are biting (me, at least) at night, because I never see bugs around me during the day; I never feel bugs biting me. I haven't worn bug spray since I got here. And I had maybe three bites. I don't need bug spray for three bites. However, these delayed itchy bites have a cumulative effect, as Paul says, so that all of a sudden (it seems) on our last day here we have all this itchy bites. :)

After checking out the beach and walking through the town in Dominical, we had lunch there at a Thai restaurant called Coconut Spice. Yummy.

Then we went to a bank to see about a construction loan for the house. Big Fat Zero.

Due to the economic crisis, they aren't loaning money to non-residents. 

We let Ricardo and Jim know and they said over here it's really important if you know someone who knows someone. So, Ricardo called his friend Alex and the two of them met us at a bank and then a credit union on Saturday morning to have Alex introduce us at the banks. Strike Two. Strike Three.

Across the board -- they won't loan money to foreigners. You need to be a resident for eight years before you could qualify for a loan. Or. Marry a Tico.

Ricardo says to not give up hope. Jim knows some private mortgage companies that lend money.

We go back to Dominical and talk to a guy from the States (but was actually born and raised in Panama with American parents) that worked in a real estate office and was affiliated with Alliance Mortgage Company. They have a pool of fifteen lenders that they can access so he was real hopeful we could get a construction loan. Especially when we told him we'd own the land.

We came back to the hotel fairly confident and then also received pone calls and emails from Ricardo and Jim about three other banks to try -- one a for sure deal (Scotia Bank) they say, because it's an international bank. 

So we have four or five leads in our pocket now to take home with us. We're feeling much better and we'll know -- most likely -- within the week if we qualify for a loan with any of these lenders. If so, we close on the land, we close on the construction loan, we start building in january and we have a house built by July or August.

The plan is to take a family vacation there then, to see the house all done and pretty and then to start renting it out to tourists. And then when Aniela's out of college and Paul's not helping to pay her rent while she's in Portland, and Aubrey's out of private middle school and Paul's not paying the tuition for that, and he's done paying off the 401K loan he borrowed against himself to buy the land, we can move to Costa Rica and our Spanish Colonial house with a courtyard. (We've been talking house plans with builder today.)

It'll be tight, but doable. When Paul quits his job in three-ish years after all that stuff I just listed happens, we'll have my social security and VA income for a couple more years and hopefully by then (when my survivor benefits stop) our businesses over in Costa Rica will be creating enough income for us to live comfortably. Our living expenses will be lower with most all our food being provided for.

Check back in the coming weeks to read more about our businesses for Costa Rica and how we get those started remotely. Jim would like the ice cream shop to be operational by December. !!!! Recipes, C.R. corporation, equipment and hiring someone to make it, hand out ice cream and collect the money. All in a month's time? I don't see how, but we'll get it going asap anyway.

Tomorrow we pack up here, settle our bill, drive to San Isidro in the mountains to visit Jim and meet his family and see his house, drive to San Jose by 4pm to return the rental car, and get checked into our hotel. The next morning (Monday) we fly out for the States. With all the changing of flights and layovers, we won't land in Eugene until just before midnight. We'll taxi home and sleep in our. own. bed. <3

(relaxed at lunch this afternoon)

(Ooh! Ooh! And we finally had banana flambee for dessert tonight!

They've been out of bananas every time we order it and get the pina one

instead -- which in some ways is better -- but finally Paul said he was walking 

through the bar today and Olmar "waved his banana" at Paul (we laughed at Paul's 

choice of words there) and so we finally got to experience Olmar's own recipe. Delish.)

Random observation: Apparently my Costa Rican name is Ballerie. Even when I correct them with an accentuated "V" they just smile and nod and say, "Ballerie." So, Ballerie it is.

Costa Rica -- Day Six

After breakfast, our day began with the zip line/canopy tour.

11 different zip lines, 2 rappelling stations, and one Tarzan swing -- which I did not partake of.

 (Paul says this is my you-fucker-I'm-gonna-get-you-while-you-sleep look.

I didn't know I had that look.

Did you?)

 (he had so much fun!)

 After the almost-two-hour adrenaline rush, we went to check out our land again and found our first squatter. :)

 (more views from our lot)

Then we had lunch in town and came back to our hotel, which I haven't shown you yet, so here you are:

 (view coming downstairs from the recepcion)

(the building on the other side of the delicious pool is the restaurant/bar)

We hung around and rested from the excitement of the morning. I read on the patio off our room and Paul wrote a skit for No Shame. Then we had dinner and treated ourselves to Pina Flambee. OMG.

 (This is our favorite waiter, Olman.)

 (here he has set the liquor on fire, turned the lights out and pours the liquor back and forth to mix the two -- brandy and triple sec -- in two different pitchers.)

(it's super rich and to die for)

Yum.