~ Dawna Markova
SYNOPSIS: Preface; Jet-skiing with Kassidy, exploring a cave, seeing a whale; our first dinner party; a love letter.
PREFACE:
I am in the middle of the ocean with Kassidy. We do not have life jackets. I know that it is crucial that we not panic and that she not grab on to me for support. I know that it is crucial that we not panic when something touches our legs. It’s some kind of fish. There are a lot of them. We must not think about what kind. We swim in the direction of the nearest boat, a long way off, and hope it sees us before it pulls away.
When I wake up, I cannot go back to sleep. I lay there thinking about not being able to touch the bottom…. About how big the ocean is… about how long we would be able to tread water…. About how I don’t like to put my face in the water when I swim. I think about the salty water. I lay there thinking about how I will avoid being in the middle of the ocean without a life jacket.
JET SKIING, BEACHES AND CAVES
I taste like salt. It’s in my skin. It sprays up around me and splashes my face and I taste it in my mouth. I also taste fear. It is fear caused my irrational thoughts that race through my mind uncontrolled.
I could tip over.
I could fall off.
I could hit a rock.
I could hit a shark.
It is this fear that has me humming along at a steady 16 miles per hour while my guide gestures for me to keep up.
I could get lost at sea.
But I’m in a bay, not in the open ocean, so the chances of that are minimal.
I finally get up to 44 miles per hour, and my guide says that anything over 30 is respectable. The more gas I give it, the smoother the ride is.
The sea gets choppier and the waves get higher and I am scared again. I am feeling the fear and doing it anyway… but I’m down to 22 miles per hour. I give it gas again and travel in the smoother wake of the guide until the waves calm down and we speed up to 40 again. He is smiling. Kassidy is grinning. I want to take THIS picture: Kassidy travelling behind Nolberto in a life jacket. There’s no way I’m taking even one hand off of the handle bars to grab the camera from it’s water proof compartment, though. When we stop, she dives off the side without waiting for help climbing down so that she can float in her life jacket on the beach instead of swimming.
She is giggling. We call her an octopus as she wraps her arms and legs around me and says, “Mommy, I don’t want to ride with you go too slow.”
Si vas a insultarme, Kassidy, hazlo en español, (If you’re going to insult me, do it in Spanish.) I say.
We swim on an empty beach on the thing that looks like mountains in the middle of the ocean. You can only get here by jet ski or boat or canoe or kayak. Nolberto takes us to his favorite beaches. You’ll remember Nolberto, who we met at the Sports Bar with Jose Cruz, and also as the salsa dancer who I danced with at Los Ranchitos. He is a beautiful man with a body built by activity. He swims gracefully, he runs like a life guard from BayWatch. His shirtless chest is magnificent. His arms are muscular. He makes me want to write him and to create a back story and front story and transform him into the lead character in a romance novel. But… perhaps this is a cultural misunderstanding and I need to be more open-minded… but this man exudes “player.” Kassidy likes him and trusts him and her instincts are impeccable. Mine are as poor as my sense of direction, so I rely on her to have that animal sense of the difference between quality people and the other kind. Seems like a good guy. But there’s really no way I needed THAT much help putting on a life jacket.
The water here is calm. Only small waves. We nearly surrounded by hills. There is… no joke… a golf course in the hills directly in front of us… that makes it difficult to pretend we are on a deserted island.
Kassidy is so very, very happy.
We ride again and go to a second beach with a cave. Kassidy is so hungry she wants to leave. A woman sitting on the beach over-hears our conversation and offers her rice. She heaps a plate of rice and beans on a plate for her and she is restored to her previously happy self and we explore the cave.
I want to know what’s on the other side.
Nolberto takes me to Miravista, the look-out point at the top of a long trail that we climb barefoot while Kassidy sits on a blanket and munches Costa Rican rice.
We get to the top and there is no place to stand. This look-out point is exactly that. After the point, there is a 100 foot drop off onto rocks. This is what’s on the other side of the cave. He steadies me while I breath and pull out the camera.
I could fall.
I could lose my balance and slide down the side.
I ignore the annoying motherly voice in my head that is always ruining my good time and enjoy the feeling in my chest of being totally and completely with laser focus in this moment.
I am scared. All the time. It’s a defect in my brain that causes me to worry about germs and sharks and quick sand and R.O.U.S.s. Quicksand is really very, very scary, by the way.
Fear creates presence. Over-coming it creates peace. It is not peaceful. But I am present. The contrast with my normal life is sharp.
On the way back, Kassidy and Nolberto stop and point in the direction of the back of a whale that rises from the water and we sit quietly, gently rocking, with engines off watching for it to rise again.
DINNER PARTY
At home that afternoon, after Kassidy has swum in the resort pool and I have re- translated the legal waiver I was asked to sign that made me laugh out loud (I was asked to manifest danger and accident and not to ride if I had an earring infection), we prepare for our first party.
People arrive in time to watch the sun set over the ocean (el atardecer). We leave the partially prepared food in the kitchen and sit outside with sangria and marvel at the pinks on the horizon while these experts from Playa Hermosa tells us stories of the history of land development. As I go back in to finish dinner, I am happy in a way that only people at our community dinners understand. My home is full of people again. I have finally figured out how to make the Big Salad here. I am so aware of wanting my people from to be here for dinner, too, but the feeling in my chest is the same. My home is loud. Music is playing. Kids are playing pool upstairs. More kids are in the swimming pool downstairs. The cleaning lady comes tomorrow, so I do not worry about the wet footprints by the door.
Over dinner we naturally separate into two groups because there isn’t a table big enough for all of us. Kassidy opts to sit with the Spanish speakers and I float back and forth. When an English speaker wanders into the Spanish group, the conversation gently shifts back into English.
When everyone leaves, Jose Cruz stays. He is the co-owner of Tours Papagayo (with Nolberto) who we met in the Sports Bar two weeks ago who so generously sent us on today’s adventure and secured permission from the manager for Kassidy to come and swim whenever she likes. He arranged with the guests at the party to go white water rafting next Sunday. We spend two and a half more hours talking in Spanish. He corrects what he calls minor errors. Kassidy lies down on the couch and immediately slams into a twitchy sleep that is fun for us to watch while we talk. The sound of Spanish is delicious. There is no other way to describe it. It’s like melted chocolate… only without the calories. In my mouth and in my ears it transports me to this happy, floating place. English bursts the bubble. He uses the occasional Spanglish term and I chide him. Suena fea. It sounds ugly. He is conducting an interview to find out if we are compatible. He is looking for a girlfriend he can see every night after work --- 7 days a week. I am incredulous. Every day? EVERY every day? He decides we are incompatible and should not marry.
A TRIBUTE TO THE PEOPLE I LOVE
(Read it… you’re definitely one of them)
I woke up this morning feeling loved after a conversation last night with a friend that filled me up. I looked in the mirror (it’s a special kind of mirror with built in self-criticism. Perhaps you have one?) and didn’t see what I usually see. I saw what my friend sees and I carried that with me all day. This is a character flaw of mine. If I were to express how much I love and appreciate the people in my life as often as I think about how much I love and appreciate them, it would be a constant stream and love would seep from my pores and pour from my mouth, but I don’t. And I am oblivious to the fact that I’m not using my words until someone uses theirs, and then I realize how lacking my expressions really are. My gratitude for you is boundless. I am aware of the part you played in my edification whether you birthed me, grew up with me, are my friend, are my acquaintance, are my sangha-friend, are my community dinner friend, are my CSYP friend, are my childbirth class friend, are my colleague, came to my workshop, took my class, came to my house in the middle of the night because I was crying and sad and pathetic, helped me move, care about my daughter, made peanut butter bars, made chocolate-covered strawberries, let me stay at your house, cleaned out my car, mowed my lawn, sat on my couch and drank wine with me into the wee hours, sat on my couch and drank tea with me into the wee hours, sat in my driveway and talked until we steamed up the windows, ate strawberries and whipped cream on my front porch and sprayed it into your mouth, cooked with me, ate with me, wrote to me, danced with me, asked me for help, called me to talk, ran away from your family with me to see a stupid movie so that you wouldn’t tie your children up with duct tape, taught salsa lessons in my living room, went to a concert with me, went camping with me, taught me something, learned something from me, went to high school with me or didn’t like me --- I am aware that it is the strength that comes from those memories, from those experiences, from that history that forms the steady base line of my life, and that causes the voice in my head that says, “give it more gas” to be louder than the one that says, “but I could fall off.”
This is pretty amazing, Karen. In so many ways.
ReplyDeleteI also like the shout-out to Jack Canfield (is that right?). Feel the fear and DO IT ANYWAY!