Pura Vida

We came home bleary-eyed last night around 2:00. The last train out of Boston was an Ashmont, so we had to ride to Fields Corner and pick up the 210 bus, which let us off at the base of Beal Street. We walked the deserted streets of Wollaston, hunched under our backpacks, wondering just how we got there, and where the monkeys were.

Coming back from a trip is never easy. Most times maybe I'm not happy, but at least resigned to coming back. This time, though there are a lot of good reason to be here, I could have spent an indefinite amount of time wandering Central America. Two days ago I would watch troops of monkeys cross the road on telephone wires. They tried to break into our hut. I'd pass a couple of easy minutes talking to Rastafarians, some of the nicest people I've ever met. The cranky Australian who ran the grocery store simply elicited my curiosity. What could possibly make you so cross? There's nothing in the world that important.

And the heat.

I understood why writers seclude themselves in the jungle, or on a beach, or in the case of Costa Rica, by both, to write in the early morning hours. You don't think in that heat. That particular intellectual pursuit transforms into a dream state. It just bubbles up. Oozes in your skull and runs out your ears. It makes perfect sense, until you try to explain it to someone or put it on paper, and you can't figure out how you made that leap.

So, four hours after coming home Sue was primed with coffee and off to court. A hot shower was a delight, as sweet as a Popcicle is in July. And I was back to my house husband routine, which I actually like. Washing three weeks of stink out of my clothes, picking up the mail, making bread, picking up our little boy who we both missed so much and still made the jokes with which we always tease him. Fart Blossom was the least of the name-calling.

Pura Vida is the life in Costa Rica. But it is here, too. You just have to look a little deeper.