Paradise Lost and Found

view from the laundry room window

How many prodigal-blogger posts does this make?  Whatever. 

I found an assload of drafts in here. Apparently, I wrote a bunch of shit while strapped to the roller coaster that is culture shock, after blithely setting off for paradise with nine suitcases and a dog. 

I almost deleted them. But this is how I felt at the time, and this was my path from there to here.

I wrote this three years ago.  I'd forgotten the post, but I remember that night so clearly.
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Paradise Lost and Found

It's March. 2012.  Seven months since the exalted move to Paradise and entering into wedded bliss with the proverbial Latin lover.  Who needs Calgon?  This chick probably spends her perfect days on the beach, being served cocktails in a coconut by her surf-instructor husband, listening to toucan calls and the spicy strains of salsa music while all her troubles are borne away on a sultry, floral-scented, tropical breeze.

Bitch probably has a pet monkey, too. 

Well, sort of. I don't live anywhere near the beach.  Or even a pool.  The esposo is a librarian whose swimming skills are about in line with my salsa skills. We are, however, surrounded by coffee fields and volcanos, and we do enjoy the occasional coconut with a straw.  Or box of cheap wine. The breeze, while often floral-scented, has not borne away life's troubles, but it does occasionally deliver volcanic ash or monstrous insects through the screenless windows. There are banana trees (which are not actually trees), palm trees, mango trees, papaya trees, avocado trees, and fifty-eleven-jillion types of flowers, birds, and butterflies. Sunshine. Always.

No pet monkey, though.  Sorry.

I live in paradise.  I wake up to sunshine, birdsong, and warm tile floors every single day.  Except sometimes I feel like I'm supposed to feel like I live in paradise, and I am secretly guilty if I'm not 100% ecstatically happy all the time.  Like I have to live up to living the dream, you know?

There really is no magical place that is paradise, though you can be coaxed into believing in it when you're vulnerable, when you're shivering under a Snuggie, alone in your vast expanse of king-sized bed, listening to the endless rain beat down on the new roof you just paid for in your soon-to-be-foreclosed house, and it's dark by 4pm.

You can sure as fuck believe in paradise then.

I moved to Costa Rica, but my kids didn't.  My friends aren't here. I feel isolated, emotionally and linguistically. I'm getting better at Spanish, but it's like communicating with your head wrapped in a thick, wet blanket. That shit's hard, people. I now have a husband to have and to hold till death do us part, but marriage doesn't magically transport your ass to the pages of Harlequin any more than taking a salsa class magically makes you Shakira. (Yeah, that shit didn't work. Turns out they don't actually put those footprints on the floor for you to follow.)  I traded in my big, empty bed for the challenge of managing marriage across two languages and two cultures, after a largely long-distance courtship.  And that, my friends, no es nada fácil. We could be a weekly sit-com, trust.  Yes, I walked away from my job -- how great is that?  Everyone's dream!  But I also walked away from my own pension and salary, stepping into the role of a housewife completely dependent on her husband in a machista part of the world.  And that kind of messes with your head.

The separation from my kids and friends ... ain't enough paradise to fix that. My insides try to rise up and choke me if I let myself go down to that cellar where the real feelings live; oily, snakey things, locked up tight, away from the daily business of life.  As a single mom, I got pretty good at compartmentalizing, at handling shit while appearing sane and competent, at keeping that padlock snicked shut. Tight.

Until I'm alone.

Because then no one has to know. 

So one night I'm cooking dinner (because I'm a housewife now, y'all) and my iPod pops up this lullaby I used to sing to the kids when they were babies, in that big rocking chair that got left on the porch of my now-foreclosed house.  It was fast, too -- James Taylor reached out and gut-punched me with a baby's song, hard, and the padlocked things slithered out, into my consciousness where they don't belong, except I'm not alone now, because I moved to paradise and new husband is sitting over there playing computer chess, and James Taylor is singing "and you can sing this song ... when I'm goonnnne," and now I'm the one who's gone, and freaking James Taylor slams me back into the rocking chair with that soft, chubby baby in terrycloth sleeper pajamas, except it's not real because now the baby has a goatee and a job and college and  bills and is doing it alone, without his mom, because she's in paradise peeling beets ...

... and then I'm in the laundry room of this tiny apartment, trying to get it under control because I need to be in control, but it won't stop, and I'm looking out at the coffee plants and banana trees (which aren't really trees) under the moon, with the mountains blocking the low stars, and this is paradise, where I'm not alone but I'm a different kind of lonely ... and then new husband is in the laundry room, probably hoping like hell it was nothing he did to make this gringa volverse loca in the laundry room (possibly wondering if this is an appropriate time to practice the "go nuts" phrase he just learned in English), and I try to tell him it's just that I miss the kids ... I just miss the kids ... only it's hard to speak clearly when you're crying and James Taylor is crooning his freaking baby's song, and I'm speaking in English because I can't think in Spanish when I'm crying, so it's harder to understand me, and we're doing that "¿Qué? ¿Cómo?  What?" thing, and I want to punch James Taylor but I secretly believe I deserve to feel this way because (you wouldn't be missing them so much if you hadn't LEFT THEM) really, who deserves to be happy in paradise?

And that's how it hits you. Like a fucked-up, run-on sentence that won't stop.

Anyway, I've been doing a lot of thinking about paradise and happiness and relationships and about how where you are affects how you are.  I'm having a pretty hard time, to be honest, living without my family and my friends.   I was prepared for the whole culture shock thing; I didn't Pollyanna that shit. I know the drill, I've done international moves before.  But not without my kids.  And in those places, there were other transplanted people who got it.  And who spoke my language. 

How can you feel sad when you're "living the dream"?  I feel like an ingrate. I mean, you quit your job, moved to a tropical country and found love to boot?  Bitch, shut the fuck up and get back to your fairy tale before I throw a mango at your ass.

Goddamn.

In Seattle, I had people whom I loved more than life, but I wasn't happy.  I had happy moments with my people, but I wasn't really happy in general.  I don't think most people know how deeply Seattle got in there, what it did to me. It was sucking the life out of me, sucking the me out of me. 

Here in Costa Rica, the sunshine restores me, I feel better, I feel more like me.  I feel happy in general.  I have someone who loves me.  I have my dog.  I have time to breathe. It's warm.  It's yellow and red and so many greens and nothing is grey or cold or damp.  I just miss my kids, my friends.  Sometimes almost to the point of panic if I can't keep it shut up tight, where it belongs.

Even in paradise, life is trade-offs, people. Always.

I feel like I'm healing something, being here.  It's a process, but I feel it happening.  A location isn't really paradise, but it does make one hell of a difference.  There will always be stuff, but sunshine makes handling the stuff easier.  At least for me.  I'm that freaking Seattle crocus escaping the cold, snowy ground, basking my ass off in the sunshine.  Alive.  Sunshine is so fucking good.

Now if I can just find an agreeable monkey and teach it to ride on Batman, we'll be golden.

Escape From Bitch Mountain

I actually forgot the password to this blog.  So it's been two years.  That has more to do with my surrender to Facebook than with me quitting my job, cashing in my meager contribution toward the retirement I would have enjoyed at age 87 or so, moving to Central America with my dog and nine suitcases, and marrying a Costa Rican socialist.

coffee fields around the corner from my apt. with requisite volcano in the background

Oh, please. Don't act so shocked, most of your asses are on Facebook too.  You've seen the status updates.

Maybe I need a new blog. Even the colors on this one reflect those years in Seattle.  The grey years.  Maybe my long cyber-absence and the idea of a new blog are just ways to separate myself mentally from that time, I don't know. 

So I've lived here now for seven months, and the mental transition ... let's just say it's a process.  There's a part of me that is still surprised to see the sun every day, that doesn't truly believe it will really come back in the morning.  A part of me that even on muggy days, when my deodorant has raised the white flag of surrender, still mentally pays desperate homage to the weather gods so they won't take it away.  I still avoid the shade, and am weirded out when I see Costa Ricans using umbrellas against the sun.  They probably think I'm an idiot, trotting down the sunny side of street like some clueless tourist. Dumb gringa. Never mind, even the tourists have the sense to walk in the shade with their visors and backpacks and Hawaiian shirts.  And maps.  They all have maps.

Which doesn't help much because there are no street names or house numbers here.

In Seattle, people literally call in sick on sunny days.  No, really.   Because you never know when it will happen again, and there's a kind of giddiness that hits you.  Hey, I'm talking about a place where you literally may not see sunshine for a month, and then only that fleeting phenomenon locally known as a "sunbreak" before you're back in the grey. 

It's really not possible to explain the effect of living like that. There's this irrational fear:  don't waste the sun, if you don't appreciate it, it will go away.  And once that gets inside you, it apparently can't just be switched off by escaping to a tropical climate.

In Costa Rica, summer runs from December to May, roughly.  What they call "winter" is really just the rainy season.  The idea of a rainy season struck fear into my Seattle-scarred heart, but it really just means it rains every afternoon.  You still get sun almost every morning.  Of course, "rain" here can mean torrents that wash your house into the river as opposed to nonstop drizzle, but I repeat: sun basically every day.  (That house-river thing happened about a five-minute walk from us.  Rain does not play here.)

Going through said rainy season with no car, no dryer, and no furnace sheds a whole new light on rain, but that's another story.


So in December these trade winds, vientos alisios, arrive and the Costa Ricans, or ticos, as they call themselves, get all nostalgic and happy because it signals the beginning of summer and the arrival of Christmas. (I know.  Still trying to wrap my head around that combo.)  They put Christmas lights on palm trees, and these nativity scenes pop up everywhere.  Even in the bars.  The manger itself stays empty until the night of the 24th when the holy plastic child makes his blessed appearance. Even in the bars.

You know how the first snow and that crisp smell of smoke from the chimneys make us feel all happy and Decembery?  The vientos alisios are like that for ticos.  Except with no fireplaces or furnaces against the cold that rides in on them. The winds are insane.  Laundry dries in half an hour, but holy hell, can it be chilly at night!  The esposo loves it.  "Ah, ¡qué fresquito!"   I scowl and pull on my giant, fuzzy robe.  The one you all laughed at me for bringing.

I guess when you live your whole life where heat and sunshine are a given, every single day, those winds do seem refreshing, a relief, especially when they mean Christmas and summer.

It's hard to imagine ever feeling relief instead of dread at the arrival of cold winds or rain.  Even happy Christmas trade winds. I suppose someday I'll get there.  Until then, the sunny side of the street feels just fine.

She Lives!

Not to be confused with the religious hymn, similarly titled.

I've been missing out on all of your lives. Unless you're on Facebook. You know who you are. And you've been missing out on me bitching about the requisite lack of sunshine, the infamous This Old Motherfucking House, and other adventures in the land of rain.

I ask you simply this: is it so wrong to consider up and leaving TOMH and moving to Costa Rica? For reals, people. Also, it appears that your favorite bitching blogger may be, finally, working on her love life. But it's complicated.

Also, I've lost 37 pounds, can run almost three miles and will be happy as hell in about 20 more pounds. Although the aforementioned love interest says to stop now with the weight loss. Gotta love that, eh ladies? Nice being seen through a non-US-beauty-standards lens. So yeah, it seems that military training has kicked in, overpowered the Seattle slump that was clinging to my ass like a Puget Sound barnacle, and I'm currently kicking my own ass all the way to finish line.

Hoooah, bitches.

I leave you with these thoughts, for now I must make the rounds and catch up on your lives. I have missed you, contrary to my apparent slackassedness and lack of interest, and will return shortly.

Where's My Fatted Calf?

And lo, the Prodigal Blogger hath returneth. Actually, you can scratch that fatted calf deal, given my vegetarian status. After a record hiatus, I figured I at least owed you a catchy title.

And by record hiatus, I mean I haven't hollered at you all since Santa swept down my chimney. In my defense, it's been hard for me to tell the difference, given that my Christmas decorations are still up. Don't judge. It's been that kind of a year. After a while, I quit seeing it, to tell the truth. I'd be sitting here doing homework, and suddenly feel a troop of nutcrackers, staring down at me from over the stockings. Like a festive line of Chuckies illuminated by Christmas lights, which, by the way, are still going strong, and do give a nice ambiance, if I'm honest about it.

Yes, by record hiatus, I mean about three months. Exactly the length of, oh ... say, winter quarter at one's local community college. This non-traditional student gig sucks ass, people. Especially at your place of employment. Yeah, instructors also being your colleagues ... just a little added fun.

I don't know why I thought taking a full load this quarter, on top of working full time, This Old Motherfucking House, the offspring, and the four-legged beasts was a good idea, but I did. Even then, it would've been okay had one class not turned out to have a two-legged beast of a brutal-grading instructor. Do not let anyone tell you that graphic design is a fluff class or "just an art class", people. This was the most time-consuming, stressful class I have ever taken. And that includes organic chemistry, as well as advanced anatomy and physiology. Yes, worse than cadavers staring up at you while you examine their muscle fiber. Graphic design was no joke, people. I wanted to pop my instructor over the head with my final portfolio by the time it was done. If I even think about taking GD II, somebody slap the shit out of me. Hard.


Side note: Dear Mom and Daddy, you were right. I should've finished school when I had no other responsibilities. You were also right about that: I had no responsibilities then. Also, you were right when you said that if I got married young, chances are I would not finish school. You were also right about that whole getting married young thing, just as a bad fucking idea in general. As well, you were right when you said I should have my own money and make an emergency fund for myself, if I was going to insist on getting married young. You were also right about my pride being my downfall with that whole, "I don't need your goddamned alimony! Just take care of your children!" thing. It is true that going to school later in life is fucking hard, and worse when sitting in a classroom of bored 19-yr olds who think their lives are hard, while staring at an instructor who is also your colleague, and who is secretly wondering what the fuck you're doing there. It makes me feel even older than I am, which is quickly becoming "pretty fucking old". So basically, you were right. Even though you're now crazyass teabagger right-wingers, you were right about school. If I could go back in time and kick my own ass, I would. I'm surprised you didn't.


Okay, so, in other news, I will also be spending this next quarter researching the ins and outs of foreclosure. Yes, you heard me right. That whole, "You can never go wrong buying property" thing? Bullshit. Worst decision of my life. I haven't decided for sure yet, but the more I research it and run the numbers, the more I'm having to face the fact that there doesn't look to be another solution. My credit score was almost 800 when I bought this bitch. That's about to change. Anyway. That's all I have to say about that.

Male Offspring switched to the Running Start program, which is where high school students can take college classes for joint high school and college credit. This means he is also attending classes at my place of employment. Of course, I don't see him in any of my classes, him being in the engineering track. He's about to take the 3rd level of chemistry, and has moved past pre-calc to straight up college calculus. I'm still contemplating that "Math Anxiety" course. On the bright side, he's a reasonably good shot at financing my beach house when I'm old and infirm. He's also discovered swing dancing. Pretty cool. He actually dons suit and tie, and goes with his friends down to a ballroom in Seattle for swing and salsa. He helped start a swing dance student club, and even started taking classes at a local ballet company and is taking a swing class on campus. They love having a wrestler-slash-football-player who can actually lift the girls and do the steps! So if the engineering gig doesn't make the boy rich, there's always Dancing With the Stars.

Oh, also, all that community work I've been doing the last few years? The son is about to take on the school board with his own cause. Next Tuesday he will speak at the board meeting with other students from the gay-straight alliance, asking the board to allow high schoolers to talk to the middle schoolers about the National Day of Silence, and for staff/administration to support student participation. They made a video they want to show to the middle schoolers, but the m.s. principals are not all down with that. Feels pretty damn good to just attend the meeting, and not have to do a thing but watch certain principals and administrators squirm.

Teen Demon (who is now two years past teenhood) is back in school, has transferred out to a university in central WA, and is doing well. For those who didn't know, she was in a horrible accident at the end of summer, in which she made it out, but lost her best friend. I don't have any words to describe that tragedy, and the effect that it has had on TD and her friend's family. I don't even want to try, here. I just want to let you all know she's back in school and seems to be healing, as well as can be expected. She likes her classes, she's been getting outside in the sunshine, and got a job working with young children in an after-school program. That ties in with her major (education) and she's making a difference with the kids -- they are mostly Latino kids, and she was warned that the kids were "hard to handle" and that she'd need to "take a firm hand" to get them to "behave". TD is having none of that, says the kids are great and just want someone to actually give a shit and be a mentor. Plus, Spanish is her minor, so she does well with the communication. Super proud of her. I don't know how I'd do, going through what she went through. She is something. Tomorrow is her friend's birthday. Today is mine. I'm really sad about that.

The Bohemian is about to graduate college. I know. She's trying to decide whether she'll go straight for her masters, or ... y'all best sit down. Sitting? OK, she's trying to decide whether to go straight to grad school or join the military to pay for it. I know. I told you to sit down, didn't I? She's been on a full academic scholarship the past 4 years, with a stipend, and has gotten used to that. She says if she doesn't get grants/scholarships to cover grad school as well, it's ahoy matey she goes. I suspect it's less about paying for grad school and more about her dream of running away to sea that she cooked up when she was 10 or 12. She was one of those kids who, in addition to inventing her own language for the fantasy stories she wrote, and keeping a sketchbook, also kept a journal of life goals that she swore she'd never forget like people tend to do when they grow up. Like Peter Pan without that racist bullshit of the Lost Boys or chasing after Wendy's lame ass. I suggested that she become the musician for a cruise ship for the summer, put that fancy piano degree to use, but that suggestion was met with disdain. Cruise ships are about as far away from the pirate's life as you can get and still be on water, I guess. Cruise ships are not badass. Also, they tend to be overrun with rich white people. Yesterday, she called me, and I was having trouble hearing her.

Me: Where are you?

Bohemian: What?!

Me: Where are you? What's going on?

Bohemian: Oh, I'm at a protest.

Me: A protest for what?

Bohemian: An anti-war protest.

Me: ... you do see the irony here, don't you?

Bohemian: Yes, yes, I see it, OK?!

I worry about how an anti-war protesting, outspoken, progressive extremist, kick-ass, openly pan-sexual young women will deal with shifting herself enough to deal in the military. I have no doubt she will succeed, I just worry about what it will cost her. Not to mention what our government -- yes, the current government, not just the old one -- is doing with the troops. I can't even think about that. Going to college was supposed to keep her from that life. She spent years in a military environment, it's not like she's clueless about military life, and she's grown now. She's done well with everything in her life, and regardless, I'll support her ... I just don't want it to cost her too much. Plus, you all know I will have to mock her for being a Navy puke. I mean really, the Navy? They can't even march in cadence. And those dungarees. Please.

In other news, it looks like there's trouble in paradise for the Ex and his bride of not-quite-three years, but I'll have to update you all on that another day if you know what I mean, and I think that you do. Hang tight.

So that's my update. I should be around more often now. There's been a lot of bitching building up, and you all know I can only go but so long before it spills out. Happy Spring Equinox, by the way.

On a Cold Winter's Night ...

Another Christmas come and gone. Sitting here with the Bohemian, bathed in the glow of Christmas lights and our computer monitors, Nora Jones adding to the late night ambiance after a long and good Christmas day. The Ex is back at his hotel, Male Offspring and Not-So-Teen Demon are dreaming of sugarplums snug in their beds, dishes are done, dogs are tuckered out, wine is poured ... it was a good day.

Tonight, during a break in the dinner preparations, I went outside for a few minutes, and thought about passing time. It was one of those rare Seattle nights - crisp, clear, glowing moon, twinkling stars, the whole bit. Maybe the rarity is a good thing; when you add Christmas lights, slightly chilled Shiraz, and the distant sounds of a busy kitchen to the aforementioned twinklyass stars, it all adds up to one tall glass of melancholy. Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about.

Anyway, I'll leave it at that, and just say I'm exceedingly glad for the time with my family today, glad that we're healthy and together. I'm thankful for my children. I'm thankful that their dad could come spend Christmas with them. I thought about people I miss today, and people whom I know only via the wonders of The Internets. I'm a slackass blogger; you all know this. I entertain myself with thoughts of you accepting this as an endearing foible. Hey, my blog, my fantasy. Whatever. Seriously though, merry merry to all my cyber friends. Connections are important, whether in the flesh, or in the heart. So here's to making it through another year, and to connections that help maintain our tenuous hold on sanity. Merry thoughts, all.

In My Blood Like Holy Wine

Damn you, Joni Mitchell.

Just ... why?

Why would a foreign language instructor assign her class to write a paragraph about "a place you'd like to go", when we haven't yet learned future tense, and we're supposed to be practicing two different past tenses that we HAVE learned? I mean -- and I'm just coming up with this off the top of my head here -- wouldn't it have been better to write about a place we've been?

Just wondering.

All Hail the Power

You know, I'm really fucking sick and tired of "God" getting all the credit for anything good that happens, yet none of the blame for any of the bad shit that goes down. Am I the only one who notices the disparity here? What kind of sense does that make? Seriously. It's bullshit, people. You can't have it both ways.

So anyone who wants to tell me that bad times are the perfect times to turn to some spiritual guidance, you know what? Fuck you. And the cloud you rode in on. If your deity isn't man enough to step up and take responsibility for the bad shit, then he's apparently not allfuckingpowerful enough to have had anything to do with the good. And if he were responsible for the good, that means he could've damn well prevented the bad, but didn't. Seriously, could it be any more clear? So no, thank you.  Been there, done that, woke the fuck up.

And that's all I've got to say about that.

Just Call Me the Snug Meister.

I bought a Snuggie, people. Yes, as seen on TV. This accursed PNW weather has finally pushed me into the the desperate realm of the oft-maligned Blanket With Sleeves.

I know. I hear you mocking me. It's okay, I understand. Until a few days ago, I was a merciless mocker of Snuggies myself. Besides, the offspring beat you to it. They were first, second, and third in the mockery line. And you know those kids were raised on the milk of sarcasm, so it's been more like running the damn mockery gauntlet around here.

It's all good though. Mock away, bitches, this thing is warm. I mean warm. Like swine-flu-fever warm. Like I-have-to-crack-a-window warm. Bite my snug ass, Seattle weather -- go on, bring your best. Rain, sleet, snow, never-ending dampness, go ahead. Because this winter I'm armed with the chocolate brown folds of the sleeved shield of glory. That's right. Just call me the Sleeved Avenger. Yeah, you heard me. Let's go, Seattle weather. Consider yourself served. By a Snuggie. We'll see who comes out ahead this spring.

Columbus: Still a holiday. Still a Genocidal Asshat.

I'm humbled and, frankly, shocked shitless, that many of you apparently remembered my 2007 rant about Columbus, bold discoverer of genocide and thievery.

If you want some truth about Columbus, check it out: Columbus: Bold Explorer or Genocidal Asshat? I even reread it my damn self, just to see if it still had the same effect on my blood pressure. Check.

Also, as some of you know, I've been attempting to butcher learn the Spanish language. As such, I've plowed through some simple articles, most of which kicked my non-comprehending cerebrum in the dirt, but I laboriously learned some cool stuff about various revolutions and other historical tidbits.

Like the fact that in Venezuela, Hugo Chávez renamed it Día de la Resistencia Indígena in 2002. A couple of years later, some students celebrated that auspicious October day by toppling the statue of Columbus that had stood in Caracas. Nice. One year on Oct. 12, Chávez gave 1.65 million acres back to some of the indigenous peoples in particular areas. I think it'll be a cold day in Alabama before we see anything like that here, but it was nice to hear that someone somewhere realizes that celebrating this man's "contributions" to the world is just a shameful way of condoning genocide.

Anyway, click the link if you haven't read it. No, you know what? Click it if you have. We all need to remember...