Last Stop

6 February
Five months - three continents - seven countries.

Yesterday we arrived in Costa Rica. I said it looked like Kentucky (complete with Kentucky Fried Chicken, Taco Bell, McDonald's, all on the same intersection), its rounded blue mountains in the distance, its moderate development impact on the green but unspectacular landscape. This, of course, but a first impression in the central valley around San Jose, not yet into the eco-tourists' cloud forests and surf-crowd's beach scenes.

It's just how people told us it would be: confusing but the locals would help us finding our way. And not like some other cities where anyone "offering help" is looking for a handout. At the airport a young guy asked if we needed anything and then directed us out to the street and around the corner to where the public buses run into the city. At the bus stop an older man directed us to the right bus to catch. When we approached downtown I told the bus driver the stop we were looking for (called "Coca Cola") and he called out the stop for us. We waited till the bus emptied before struggling with our luggage, but a young man stayed behind and carried the heaviest bag out behind us. It was, as advertised, not the choicest part of town. We asked a cab driver to take us to the next bus station and he directed us instead to walk just the two blocks from where we were. Another man on the street directed us the final half block. We caught the bus to Puriscal, and again a taxi driver asked if we needed anything. We asked for a good restaurant and he showed us the way. We walked there, hesitated because there were two or three choices, and there he was, honking from the street, pointing to the right one. After a great local meal the restaurant owner let us keep our heavy luggage there while we went shopping for groceries. I offered an extra tip and he looked at me like, "You must be kidding." On the way back we saw the same taxi driver and he took us with our groceries to retrieve our bags, then drove us right to the door of our destination, with the help of directions by phone from a neighbor of our landlord. Not easy, but in the end, so smooth, because of the friendly people.

We've rented a large house with a stunning valley view running 3400 feet all the way down to the ocean. Osnat had been searching AirBnB and other rental sites, with nothing attractive showing up. Almost giving up. Finally a new listing appeared, both appealing and affordable. We acted fast. Arriving here, we find the next door neighbors are from Baltimore, my hometown; they lived right next door to my school there (Friends School) - long gone by now for condos (the fate of the world).
Friends hear about the stress and strain of so much travel and opine that it might have been overambitious. Why the rush?

It's kind of a catch-22. Hurrying to find a home so we can stop hurrying to find a home. Then there's the wise crowd that says, Home is where the heart is. What you're searching for, you're missing in what is already there. Don't miss smelling the roses along the way.

What is home, then? Just a concept, an attitude? An old habit? A temporary resting place?

I've felt homesick, in a way, ever since leaving BC a month before necessary, missing the prime month of September before the subletter arrived in October. The aim was to catch the shoulder season of Europe while it was still swimmable: Croatia, Italy, Portugal. Well, it was, but so what? Were we really going to settle there someday? I swam a couple of times in Croatia, once in Italy, once in Portugal. And blew what seemed like half the year's budget in the process. Why, then? Astrocartography.

Yes, another New Age illusion. The subtle effects of planets notwithstanding, what matters is facts on the ground: language, culture, climate, economy, community. None of the European stops were good fits for us, in terms of the long term. You might say that just zipping through, three countries (plus a sidetrip to Seville) in six weeks, was hardly a fair test of what it might be to find a place to settle somewhere, make connections, test roots. But we were following our noses, guidance, intuition and resonance, in fact did land some fortuitous connections and temporary situations of grace and comfort, yet in each case felt - after an hour, a day, a week or a month - that it was time to move on.

Yes, "home is where the heart is." Like the generations of settlers in cold Quebec, it's not necessary to go anywhere. Being at home happens in the moment, wherever one is: a bar, a swimming hole, a hotel room, a bus, a restaurant, a sunny terrace or rainy city street. The choice is always there: acceptance, or change. But the range of possibility is infinite, and choice remains. Stay forever? No home improvements? Change happens. Then at least it is necessary to ride with it. Follow new opportunities, gauging when the time is right. It's an ongoing game, the chessboard of life. The trick is not to take it too seriously... yet to play as if it counts; because on the earth plane it does count.

In the bigger picture, why do we need a home, if "we" or "I" is the universe itself? It's only the need of the small ego, to be surrounded by some comfortable shell a little larger than itself. But if we or I is identified instead as nothing less than the universe, all of what is, we need no such container. We are the container. Within us is all possible selves, all possible homes.

Widening the Focus

This blog since 2010 has continued my practice of sharing personal adventures (often misadventures) and reflections, covering issues, events and readings not only personal but global in scope. My intent is not self-centeredness per se, but stems from a reluctance to preach or teach, or to consider myself an authority. I am simply inspired periodically to share my own journey and reflections in hope that these will further inspire and resonate, please and entertain. 

More recently I have shared some of the product and process of my writing life, notably the release of the novella Rendezvous in September 2013. Again the focus is personal but intended to share something of value to those who like to read, in this case fans of fiction with a twist, and and those intrigued with wilderness.

How does the content and focus so far sit with you? Would you prefer to see a shift of focus to certain areas of your concern? Topical news, information, links, photos, guest posts, how-to's, reviews? Send me an email, or post a comment here, and I can endeavor to make this blog yours as well as mine!

Thanks!

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Technical note: As part of the ongoing outreach for this blog, I am registering with Technocrati and including the following code: ZK9CN63YAW94

On Life and Art

In the culture of celebrity, the artist is royalty. In an era of technological ubiquity, everyone and his sister aspires to this nobility. But does the concept of iconic culture-bearer hold any meaning when democratized to 99 percent? And why limit our accolades anyway to the traditional domains of "the arts"? Why not celebrate the art of life, and find a way to recognize and appreciate and make viral the simple yet remarkable achievements of everyman, everywoman? Let Facebook, that sprawling domain showcasing the daily exploits of everycat, lead the way...

As a self-complaint and disclosure, I might say that I exercise poor discipline in furthering "my art" - whether that includes writing, drumming, playing flute, photography. Those at least are the categories most recognizable as arts, even if my own production in any of them has been rather modest: slightly above "amateur" and somewhat below "professional." The excuse I use provides the ballast for this essay's argument: that I am largely engaged instead in a creative quest that might be termed "lifestyle architecture," seeking optimum design that work for me - and, to the extent possible in collaboration with my life-partner, friends, housemates and bandmates - if not in any prepackaged form for wider consumption.

Beyond the arbitrary and conventional categories of art as practiced above, comes the more rarified and subjective realm of spiritual practice, not designed as a communication medium but certainly one intended, in most religions, to refine the self for the benefit of others. Thus the self is the medium of creation; self-creation becomes the ever unfinished work which however is always on display, in performance ready or not. Does the spiritual medium translate into objective criteria of evaluation? Such as... percentage of time smiling? Days per year not needing mood-enhancing substances? Number of life-partners less than or greater than 1? Number of followers of one's spirituality blog? The proof is in the pudding; but where does the pudding reside? More to the point, Who is the pudding? Who, indeed, is asking the question?

Finally we can all, aspiring artists and those knowing better than to bother, fall back upon the more mundane levels of living - those denoted by the "lower chakras" of root existence, survival and procreation, individual will and social and heart connection. We engage, after all, in a daily creation of our own lives, personalities, lifestyles, networks of sustenance and sociability. Is this realm of "life itself" not also a valid arena revealing our creativity, the manifestation of our living spirits, our abilities to achieve harmony, resonance and enduring value? There is no level playing field here, no system of final ranking for success or failure, happiness or popularity. No, not even money will serve, with its well-known contraindications and tendency to squelch as well as to liberate human potential.

So, as with the spiritual realm of self-expression, the worldly pursuits of "lifestyle architecture" (that is, just plain life, in the making) are largely subjective in value. Do you have 1000 Facebook friends or 3 true friends, and which is more indicative of your success? Is that success to be determined by yourself, your own standard of fulfillment, or a panel of self-appointed experts, or a panel of experts appointed by other self-appointed experts? What is success anyway? And who is asking that question?

Maybe those moments of life stolen from art go on to enrich and inspire the art. Maybe those moments of art stolen from life go on to enrich and inspire the life. Maybe it's all about the life, and art is just indulgence. Maybe it's all about the art, and life is just indulgence. Maybe there's no art without a life that works, and maybe no life without art that works. Maybe it's all an individual matter and to pronounce such maxims for everyone is pointless. Maybe art and life are just shades of the same phenomenon - conscious, creative human being - like light and dark, good and evil, love and fear, spirit and form, energy and matter. Maybe the quantum duality is nothing more than a plaything of the verbal mind, juggling yin and yang to eternity, for its own amusement and edification.

In the meantime, life goes on; and art can proceed of its own will. Art goes on, and life proceeds of its own volition. Each surfaces according to the need of the moment, or season, in the form each being requires for our final definition... before such definition is erased, like sand in a monk's mandala. So in the meantime, celebrate: each with one's own brush of the moment, or season.