At the moment I'm drinking alkaseltzer and listening to the Christian rock play from our next door neighbors - one of the town's larger Evangelical churches. It's nice to hear the band finally playing the songs they have been practicing since I first arrived. Before leaving I'm going to ask what the one they play most is called, since I feel like it's been the background soundtrack to the past three weeks in Costa de Pajaros and that I'll miss it once I go.
And the alkaseltzer is one of the many remedies my host family prescribes for (despite my silent skepticism) migraines. I've had one of the wildest migraines for the past two days, which I think came from the intense sun, though who knows. Could have been from dehydration, doing too much reading and writing in a dark room, or the smokeyness of the neighbors burning their trash.
Getting ill over the weekend leaves me feeling less guilty about not getting out to do interviews, but also leaves me in a home with (at the least) three screaming children, whose mothers spend a fair amount of time screaming back. While it's been so wonderful to be able to live with this family, and especially to get to live with young kids for the first time really ever, I've come to realize in how many ways I've been spoiled by getting to live on my own. The comfort zones I have created for myself (such as a calm, quiet, cool place to be alone) are very out of the question here.
For many years, I used to get raging angry every single morning, often so angry I wouldn't be capable of speaking for an hour or so. The anger came from no where, every morning, and I can't really explain where it came from. Similarly, the overwhelming sadness I feel every year before my birthday that leaves me in tears for hours, without fail. The emotions make sense, but come without warning and without real reason. I think the anger was from my peace being disturbed and others seeming happy about it - starting their days, having conversations, and not giving me the space and quiet I felt I had the right to.
The same rage still wells up occasionally, and within a short while is gone again, and I haven't really figured out a pattern. One of my greatest anxieties when coming to Costa Rica was that I would lose time and energy to that same anger. Luckily, I haven't. And also being in a very different set of situations has helped me realize certain things that do trigger these emotional responses that I can't control. Space and quiet has been one - space actually meaning time to myself, during which I don't feel like anyone is listening to me or watching me. Feeling as though I am autonimous (within reason - there's the catch..) of what I am doing with my own life. Meeting the expectations I set for myself as well as those I set for others, and others set for me.
People who are overly dominant in social situations, physically or verbally, even if it's not towards me leave me feeling threatened and fuming. I am really unsure of where this comes from, though I believe it may be from having grown up in a home without the sort of male dominance I encounter elsewhere in the world, and as a teenager living for the most part with my mother. I'm realizing gradually how huge of an issue this has become, in a way, since I am virtually threatened by every man I meet. That's actually a huge exageration, but though this project it has certainly surfaced in a new light as I am trying to accomplish a project involving men and women, and simultaneously live and fit myself into a large host family full of brothers and husbands and fathers.
Though now that I think about this, it's not entirely true. I am very comfortable approaching men on my own, rather it is when being approached that I quickly become what I can only assume is over sensitive, though at the same time I do not think it is unwarranted..
As much as I love the feeling of growing older, and I welcome the new certainty of likes and dislikes that for so long I felt vague about, some still are unexplicable enough that I feel more frustration than any sort of resolution. Maybe it's part of being older, not being stupid and innocent enough anymore to be bemused by everything and everything, but I find it kind of tragic how things I enjoyed in the past now leave me feeling like a miserable cynic. Though sometimes it makes the beauty of situations that much more beautiful - like Juan playing guitar for me.
Juan (or Juan Diablo "John the Devil" or Juan Picaro "John Mischief-maker" as he told me to note his name) is my host sister's alcoholic grandfather, who dropped his entire life (a degree in law and anthropology, a job in the police force, and a family) for the cheap little plastic bottles of vodka they sell everywhere. Juan sleeps in an alley outside the home of an old friend, drinks off his pension, a catheter and one pair of clothes, and eats three meals a day made by his son's ex wife and children. Juan comes with his long carved cane at 7 am, 12 pm, and 4 or 5 in the afternoon, whittling every day a new tool used by fishermen to repair their nets here.
I've tried conducting an interview with him as he has lived here for over 30 years, but have given up since he is incredibly difficult to understand and always starts trying to woo me. A quote I wrote down quickly while he was describing his love for me was "un amour tant lindo, tant speciale, tant educado, tant divino..." ("a love so beautiful, so special, so educated, so devine"). One day I was sitting outside with a friend who was playing songs on the guitar to see what I knew, when Juan came up. After listening for minute or so, he asking if my friend new a certain song - he didn't and so Juan took the guitar, slung his barefooted leg up onto the tile patio, and with arthritic fingers and dirty nails began to strum and old lovesong, and after a moment began so sing.
The neighbors were burning their garbage, but the sun was setting and the atmosphere was incredibly beautiful. I later asked whether my friend new that song, and he replied no, that it is much to old. To have been present and able to hear Juan play such an old song, for probably the first (and maybe the last) time, I feel incredibly lucky. And because of the circumstances, I recognize how rare that moment was. I wish I had taken a photo of the moment, though there are so many moments I wish I could take pictures of, and somehow a camera would spoil them all.
I think I'm going to go socialize and eat dinner. My host mom has figured out that I like arroz con leche and platanos, and has been making both an incredible amount that's probably terrible for my health.. Anyways, I don't really know what I came here to write, or if I've written it yet. But I've definitely written more than enough for today. Tomorrow I'm going to try and take some photos of my town before I go!
No comments:
Post a Comment