"Happyfying"

My wonderful friend Dena used the word "happifying" about my paintings, so because this was a particularly happifying day, I shall begin with one of happyfying images.

Today I was up at the crack of dawn to drive almost one hour to Tarcoles to go fishing with Gino who had agreed to take me for 3 hours, but when I arrived, he put me in the hands of Nemias. Maria, Gino's round and happy wife, offered me coffee, and given that I had taken off without any, the morning withdrawal headache was creedping up. When I tasted it, I almost fainted from the amount of sugar. I forgot that Ticos LOVE sweet things, and it was actually quite a blessing because without the sugar it might have been a little icky.

Before I even got onto the boat, Gino pointed out this elegant heron; I just love the way they stalk their prey and then "get down" and go for it.

Nemias turned out to be a competent, thoughtful, dimpled adonis with whom I spoke Italian which he corrected in spanish; it all worked out quite wonderfully, and we trolled around the Tarcoles cove, using a fish called Lisa as bait! That bait pulled in a big mackerel for me and a glittering amber jack. Fish were jumping wildly at one point, and Nemias told me they were "atun" but were very difficult to catch. He also told me that people live for a long, long time in Tarcoles with one woman 115 years old! I am tempted to go back to interview her because he claims she's got all her marbles, but how would I know?

Just being out on that smooth, tranquil water early in the morning was satisfying, and it wasn't one big chilly or cold. We looked across the cove to Tortuga where Gino takes people to for fishing and a day at the beach. Here is the golden jack, but you cannot see the magically golden reflections of his skin, and the vivid orange dots don't really show on the mackerel.

The sadness is that as soon as I got back home, I noticed the temperature gauge on the car was on the red mark for hot - another exciting trip to the mechanic who is turning out to be my very best of friends. Ah me, as my father used to say...

I'm thinking that a sea kayak would be JUST the thing for exploring and fishing in these quiet coves. If only I had more time this visit, but isn't all of life just preparation for WHEN we have time? It has taken me many, many years to understand that time is right now, this very second, and it deserves my full attention and focus.

This is coming back into the Tarcoles artesenal fishing cooperative, and when I went to the store today, there were two of the MOST enormous, fat, red snapper I have ever seen, but I was happy and proud of my two fish and will probably be eating them for the next few days.

When the sun sets and the breeze blows...

These entries are so uninteresting and uneventful that I should be shame for writing and posting them; on the other hand, where there is tranquility, there is generally a modicum of groundedness that I cherish, and so it is with this appreciation for the small, the insignificant that I write in celebration of the breeze and the late afternoon light, both of which are discernable in this mundane photo.

In my quest for the necessary procedures for driving into Panama, I went to Parrita today and stopped into the lawyer's office where I met a wonderful woman who has a B&B in Marlboro, Vermont; we chatted about Curtis, music and Costa Rica, she living here about 4 months out of the year, and she explained the process for going into Panama, what was there when you got "there," and suggested I explore more around here, which is precisely what I decided to do. That, and get the car's window fixed so that I don't sweat to death and can open my door!

I read about a fishing cooperative in Tarcoles, a town I'd heard was a great fishing spot, so I drove the 45 minutes- one hour to get there, found the fish seller, bought a pristinely spotted mackerel and lined up a fishing adventure for Wednesday with Gino who has a small boat and whose mother, age 61, just died of asthma. His son, Gino, Jr., a little thing he was carrying, also was wheezing wildly, so we chatted about asthma, and I am going to bring my inhaler so he can write down the name of the med to see if he can get some. His younger brother also died of asthma - scarey stuff! So, I am to meet him at 7 AM on Wednesday, and we will just troll around the cove for 3-4 hours for snapper, jacks, etc... It's what I love to do, and I don't know why I haven't lined it up before this! And, no, I did not eat this whole fish tonight, but I did eat half, and it was lovely.

On the drive back I took this photo from the road just outside of Jaco. Some days I forget how exquisite this place is, and I begin to take it for granted. Worse, if I haven't run or gotten outside for some exercise, I begin to think the whole place is shabby and tawdry, and it can be, just as any place can be. It so much depends on our eyes and our soul at that particulat moment.

Coming home to my little haven, I realized that even my chair outside with my glass of flowers are lovely, and I stopped to appreciate them as well. I cannot remember whether I have posted the painting I tried to do of my first batch of flowers, but just in case, I am folding it into the mix.

Slow Sundays

I knew it wasn't going to be much of a day when I took a short walk on the gray beach, among families prepared to picnic on this their last day of holiday, and I noticed this light bulb inside a hollowed out cocoanut when it begn to drizzle. Not much going on in Bejuco of a holiday Sunday, but I did see some of my little friends, doing handstands, drawing a hole and peeing into it and then a very wee one on her first real walk.

Absolutely fascinating stuff! In between such adventure, I painted a sign and reworked some old paintings: big whoop! More clouds and light in the sky, more color on the boat and more white in the sea. Actually, they look much better in photographs than I think they do on the actual canvas! Go figure...

Here's hoping I can get the car window fixed, the necessary emergency kit and the papers so that I can travel to Panama tomorrow...

Lizards and Locals

Feliz Ano Nuevo! I noticed people were drinking in line at the mercato on New Year's Eve day as they waited in the checkout line. I shuffled off to the beach after stocking up on Imperial Silver, what the ex-pats like to call Corona Tico, and margarine (I saw no butter), flour and baking chocolate to make brownies, and I saw these fellows in the road, having a swell time roughhousing, opening their mouths, baring their teeth, putting their faces together as though that were starting position. Then, they twirled and flipped each other like smackdown. I watched and tried to lure them into peaceful negotiations with a banana, but at the end of the tussle, one went off to his drain pipe, and the other stayed at the pipe near my house.

At the beach I watched the macho male ex-pats saw and machete big pieces of wood and then build an enormous log cabin like construct for their bonfire. There was so much strutting and whacking and hauling and chopping that I had to photograph them, but by the time I returned in the evening, the construction had grown to four times this size! A man from Melbourne, Florida, who, I was told, was a Hazmat guy, filled two cups with chlorine crystals, poured brake fluid over each and set them at the base of the cabin and waited for the chemical reaction to start the fire; it was slow, and people were impatient at 9:30 at night; some or most were already very drunk. Someone threw a match in, and the fire swooshed to light, spewing white tails into the air as the chemical reaction resulted in two heaven explosions! It was loud, hot and dramatic. Vanessa, age 4, and her 18 month old brother, Sebastian, were gleeful but so, so tired. We all sat in those chairs we used to cart around for soccer games and watched as the flames lapped up all the innerds of the log cabin and began to leap up and over the top of the building. Before 10, I'd had it, trying to make conversation with people who were more interested in drinking than talking, and I really didn't want to drink more than the one "Corona Tico" I'd had, so I came home where these little friends greeted me, as they have every night this week. They seem to want me as their friend, which I find flattering, so I am trying to respect them to the best of my ability.

The Galloper has betrayed me already. The door on my side doesn't open from the inside, so I rely on powering down the window, opening the door and then rolling the window back up before I turn off the motor. Now the power window on my side doesn't work. AND today I filled up the diesel tank and had the man check the oil; I needed to containers of oil, and all together filling the tank and putting in the oil cost $70!!!

Retire in Costa Rica, you ask? Who the heck could afford it???

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Crocodiles and codgers

There is was again, the orange bulge-bellied boat with the magnificent aqua-green chipped painted insides. I was delighted to see the boat again, and when a small group of men was pulling it off the sand into the water, I told one VERY bucked-toothed fellow how much I loved it. He said with a puffed up but scrawny chest that he had painted it. He grinned his horrible but winning smile and then showed me his eyeball, which was bright red because he gotten a fish hook in it. A bundle of energy, the man had on a bathingsuit that balanced precariously at the bottom of his right hip as though it might slip down any moment. He beckoned me to follow.

Now, it probably isn't every woman who wolud follow a fellow like this, but his energy and his gait were so full of bounce and enthusiasm, I couldn't resist. He wove in and out of the small fishermen's houses, back to a swamp where he pointed, practically jumping up and down. There in the water was a large, complacent crocodile, skimming the water and occasionally pulling up his head to show off his teeth. He hovered along the shore for some time and then moved into the middle of the swamp; my friend, named Miquel - what else? - said there were four of them in there, but the fishermen keep them well fed with fish heads and such so that they didn't fear that they'd come ashore. He did suggest that sometimes they ate little dogs. Gulp. There was a woman standing near me who held a baby, and Miquel was jesting about throwing the baby in the water; the baby didn't think it was too funny.

The swamp was really quite magical in a spooky but awesome way with reflections and shadows contending for space. I told Miguel that I had to walk back to Bejuco, and he told me that I could come back for fresh fish tomorrow morning at 7:30; I still have fillets from the other night, so I bagged it and went running instead.

I walked the hour and a half back, watching the sun begin to dip down lower and more golden in the sky. Oh, my, what we take for granted! The long shadows and the dusting of gilt make me chuckle to remember a passage in Alan Holinghurst's The Line of Beauty where he writes, "Like his hero Henry James, Nick felt that he could "stand a great deal of gilt" (ever the academic, I shall give you the proper citation page number 5).

People were pouring onto the beach by the time I returned, compelled all by the glories and the gilt of the sunset, but my feet were sore from the sand, I was thirsty, and supper awaited - as did a beer! This is the vista across the little stream toward the beach. It doesn't look half bad either, as they say!-

THE Galloper...

This was the test for the almighty Galloper. A distant cousin and now friend, Laurie Higgins, was down in Jaco with her four BIG, athlete kids. I invited them for dinner and thought I might be able to find the waterfall on my own. I told her I might be 4 minutes late because I wanted to stop and get some glasses and a plate; my supplies are good for one but not so good for 6. The fresh fish man wasn't opened, so I bought 2 kilo of frozen fish, had some salad fixings and thought I'd be set. As Lolo can attest to, I am nothing if not disorganized, and I felt I could remember the name of the hotel and the street Laurie had given me, but instead, I spent one full hour going down every little street in Jaco, finally chugging up into the glamorously gated apartment building. They showed me their enormously spacious 3 bedroom apartment with a huge terrace and dining room overlooking the sea. I realized that not even thick stemmed champagne glasses from the super mercato could compensate for my wee digs...

When Laurie told me her kids were big, she wasn't kidding! All were surely over 6 feet tall; Hunter, the dearest football playing cowboy I'll ever meet, was the kindest helper and was hard pressed to fit comfortably in half the back seat with his brother Tayler, a trim LA film maker. The girls, both volleyball players, threw themselves into the way back seats, and Laurie sat up front with me; we drove like a house afire, all of us having the Spanish fluency that I have, which is to say little. It took loads of stumbling, turning, churning up and down rocky, dirt roads, to get to the trail to the waterfall, but we got there, piled out of the Galloper and began the trek through cow fields deep in dung to the river that leads to the waterfall. It was darkening down to dusk, so we went at a fast clip. I feared I'd done the wrong thing when after several bends in the river, we saw or heard no falls. Suddenly we were there, scrambling up the path, my camera dangling at my side, and at the top, I said, "Hurry, hurry, everybody jump so we can document it and get back before dark!" Hardly making for a leisurely event!

We did get photos - Taylor getting dozens with his Canon that did everything camera and video - drove back to my house where we all seemed to find seating, glasses, plates and plenty of fish, rice and salad. No wine opener? No problem! Just shove that cork back down into that bottle, and voila!

Today they are off on a tour to Arenal where they have a hotel as close to the volcano as you can get, and I'm sure they will have a splendid time in an environment where they can spread out and take their time! What wonderful new friends and relatives and what a lively crowd with whom to have one of my inimitable "adventures"!

Warmth and water

I walked for over three hours on the beach today and fell completely in love with the fishermen's boats as I usually do, but this one with the gently curved belly and the incredible colors made my heart go pit-a-pat. But then, the other boats were compelling as well. This one just had a mastery of shape and color that made me grin. Oh, and photograph.

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When I got back to our Bejuco beach, I saw some old friends, met some new folks, and saw again the Chester Springs family that I'd met this morning. Everyone had come down to see the sunset. Logs had been teepeed, ready for the fires of supper and festivities. I was thirsty and ready for a shower, but I was urged to stay, offered a beer and warned against drinking the tap water; it was just the moment to chug that beer to quench a thirst I'd built up over the past three hours of walking! I was convinced that seeing the sunset was in order, and indeed, it was!

Even if it does look fuzzy in the photo, you can get the idea, feel the sensation.

Now my neighbors have cranked up the volume of their rock n' roll in a very aggressive way; I'm not sorry that they are selling their house.