Today I received some well-wanted advice telling me that I should write less but more frequently so as to not get too overwhelmed. Like a new diet-plan. I don't know whether that will go hand-in-hand with my program here though - seems like I'm only going to be getting on the world wide web only occasionally over the next three weeks - but it seems a lot more sensible.
I'm packing right now actually, but haven't made progress for hours and would rather procrastinate here than move forward with my baggage. I can't figure out how I'm going to fit everything with this winter coat I have to bring, and need some time to puzzle that together in my head.
So I've been a little traumatized over the past 24 hours by this cold. I decided to stay in last night, thankfully; I've since been plagued by hours of racking coughs and endless bloody noses. But now I'm on the other side of the cold, I just needed to whine since I've been downplaying it to my poor host family who has to deal with me.
I did go to the pharmacy and buy some medicine this morning. After a rough sleep last night and waking up to yet another bloody nose, my host mother counseled me on what medicines to ask for over a breakfast of fried torillas and fresh cheese, giant pinapple slices, bananas, fruit juice, and coffee. She's been incredibly sweet during this whole ordeal. Despite my host aunt Ana recovering from a serious surgery right now, Rosy has been devoting time to feed me strange fish soups and hot ginger and lemon juice teas, and to make sure I don't get my hands wet, all in order to help me get better. My Spanish teacher also had some folk wisdom - make sure my back doesn't get cold or wet.
Either way, what I ended up buying at the pharmacy I dropped on the sidewalk during the 20 meter walk back home, while I was feverishly juggling my umbrella, purse, and bag full of tissue boxes (stocking up for this week's trip). With a sinking heart, I shook the little bag of medicine and heard the liquid sound of a smashed bottle becoming swirling shards of glass. I was already at the red front gates of my home, so I dropped the rest of my things in my room, shook the plastic bag (the corners of which were now leaking clear, smelly Tutti Frutti flavored medicine) for my host mother Rosy, and she lamented and cried "Ohhhh, Cady! No..!" On my next visit, the people at the pharmacy ended up giving me an extra mini-bottle of the foul cough syrup for free, since it's expensive, and I think they felt terrible - I was such a mess and clearly can't be trusted to carry a plastic bag.
Rosy at some point around this time sent my host dad down and across the street to the pharmacy to help me and make sure I didn't drop the second bottle. He asked me a lot of quick questions and started harassing the doctors who work there a little for me, which just made me drop more things in the store. I think that most of the time people tend to assume that since I can't speak Spanish, I don't try to get messages across. Or they guess that people won't understand. The very frank truth is, yes, I don't speak this language. But on the other hand, I'm constantly telling people all the shit they need to know and they're all totally getting it. So the doctors at the pharmacy knew what was up, and despite having dropped the medicine, I was able to fend for myself and get my ailments taken care of. My host mom did spoon feed me the cough syrup though. That one took me by surprise. I thought she was handing me a spoon to do it myself but by then the medicine was poured and on its way to my mouth, "Like a baby!" she said. At that point I was glad to give up my facade of being in control and to let her go wash the spoon and let me curl up in bed and finally sleep without coughs.
I slept most of the day. It took 9 hours to upload one 45 minute episode of Mad Men, and I can't figure out what it was about beyond Bob Dylan and homosexuality in the 1950's. But it's a pretty show, and it cheered me up a little, even though I've decided it was a silly idea to try to watch any tv. I sent a few half-assed emails, and read the Russian novel I picked up on a bookshelf at ICADS called "The White Guard". It's about fear and frustration waiting for the effects of World War II in a city in wintertime. Every chapter begins talking about the hoar-frost, and there's a lot of drinking, lamps, and warm weather clothing.
Which brings me to my second (umpteenth) thought. Yesterday I went with friends to the Museum of Contemporary Art in San José. We all met in the central "Cultural Plaza", where giant flocks of hundreds of pigeons circled just feet above our heads, and ended at this museum, located in a shockingly clean and open area full of museums and other serious institutions. But this museum was great! Small, though clearly a well funded and well connected institution. There was a wonderful Japanese collection there with a lot of nice pieces, such as a number of aesthetically crispy photos and sculptures, some modern societal-caricature-through-calligraphy, and a couple electric fish harps. But what struck me most about this museum was its small corner in it's top floor, where there was a a collection of photos of colorful Japanese festivals, and of the survivors of the recent earthquake and tsunami. One wall had a tv playing on loop the testimony of the miraculous survival of several people who were nearly swept out to see in the backwash of the tidal wave in their cars or homes, and who somehow managed to escape being carried out and lost to the ocean.
As I watched these testimonies alone in sadness, snuffling through my stuffed nose, I realized that there was a Japanese woman snuffling behind me, in tears as she walked through these ten to twelve photographs. In that moment, in this strange attic exhibit in this empty museum in Costa Rica with this crying woman who I also know did not belong there - but at the same time belonged there more than I, I felt incredibly lost and out of place. There was something so deeply sad about these two people who have uprooted themselves (who still have strong roots to what we were looking at, roots through our families and friends) looking at photos of people who have lost their homes and their families and their friends.
I don't in any way mean to trivialize the experiences of those we were observing by focusing on the two of us instead, rather just wanted to try and convey my personal reaction.
What was so clear was the connectedness of it all - of the earthquake, of this woman, of why we were both there. There was so much more as well, a connectedness to the people who miraculously survived and who lived to show the bridges and cars that saved them on tv so it could be played in loops in a museum in San Jose, as well as a connectedness to those who were swept into the sea, to the people I meet on the street, to the people back in every home I call home, to me. And I was more aware of this connectedness than I have in a long time.
It's so easy to allow oneself to get boxed up into one's own small, conditioned life that you become blind to how relevant every single thing is to who you are. You can never keep up with it all, no, but you also never have to limit yourself, or blind yourself into thinking in terms of what interests you've decided upon at that time, or what priorities seem the most important in that moment, or what future goals seem the prettiest. I think that traveling - never mind it's other nice qualities - quickly is able to snap the boundaries we've created (or accepted) for where our life ends and other's begins, and at least for me, I suddenly remember my own values beyond final papers and rent checks, in terms of what really means something deeply to me. I kick myself every time I feel this happening, too, because I should be able to this to myself. I should be in control of my own vision. As we all should. I'd say that maybe that's something that comes with age, but on second thought, there are many older people who've let themselves be blinded by accepting different rules and concepts of what is right and how we have to be, and what we need to want in life in order to ever go anywhere. It's probably good for the economy, or something.
I have no idea how this turned from me whining to such a long post. Hopefully it makes up somewhat for how short the rest of my posts will be over the next couple weeks as I travel..
My host sister sounds like she's crying in the next room with her boyfriend, the bus that got wedged in the intersection in front of my house finally got unstuck after several hours, and the karaoke bar across the street has finally turned down it's disco music. I think I need to sleep. So much for writing something short.
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