Fifth Time In Costa Rica, 25

I spent the morning laying low. Except for a quick breakfast in the reception area, I stayed in my room, drinking coffee and working on a hummingbird drawing. I am still a bit tired from yesterday, but I have traced the source. It was´t so much family noise here at the bed and breakfast, but coping with a group of six very dominant and loud French people, all verging on seniordom. They´re probably very nice people, but the breakfast room is rather small and when you have six loud, strong people dominating the space, and they are not going to welcome anyone else into their little kingdom, well, they can be very daunting to be around. Especially first thing in the morning. So, three mornings in a row of those people must have helped wear me out. This is one of the downsides to budget travel: you get what you pay for, and if you have any extra sensitivity to noise or crowds, well, it´s Darwin 101, dude. Survival of the fittest. Travel can be challenging for anyone. If you are easily affected by noise and crowds, as I am, it can become particularly challenging. This is not going to stop me from travelling. It does challenge me to be a little more inventive about how I travel, and to be careful to pack my own little toolkit of wellness. Practicing wellness does not stop at the flight check-in, and I think this is something we all need to learn how to practice and master if we are going to get the most out of our vacations, and still arrive home looking at least a little better than our passport photos. I try to think of this time away as an opportunity for nurturing my own mental health, given that the other eleven months of the year I am constantly nurturing the psychic wellbeing of others. So, I turn into my client and I become my own personal peer support worker. It´s knowing when to step out of my comfort zone, and when to retreat back in, when to challenge my boundaries, and when to stay within them. It means applying just enough exposure therapy to myself till I almost hit breaking point, then to back off and hide in my room for a while. Then to know when it´s time to get out of my room again. So it´s this balance and rhythm of exercise and fresh air, rest, doing art, reading, spending time with other people, writing this blog, but doing everything in balance. Despite some of the difficulties yesterday, it was still pretty interesting and, at times enjoyable, especially for people watching. While indulging myself on the balcony of Café Caburé I was noticing a small family group. The male partner was built like an eighteen wheeler, with beard, mega tattoos and sunglasses. He looked like he didn´t quite know whether he was a hipster, a biker, or trailer park royalty. Likewise his partner. She was wearing those dreadfuilly tacky leotards that leave nothing to the imagination and far too many women seem to like to wear them in public these days, as though screaming in accents loud and shrill, ¨Ï have low self-esteem!¨ They had a baby with them, perhaps just under a year, and it was actually kind of touching seeing how tender and attentive the father was to his child, belying completely the toxic masculinity exterior. I think they´re both local people here. Later, in a resturant for dinner, I was approached by a Mexican woman who saw my sketchbook and seemed interested in what I was doing. She said she´s artistic but has trouble getting motivated, and I suggested that she stick with media and styles of art she enjoys but to also practice self-discpline. I hope she does okay. This morning I was still feeling a bit fragile from yesterday. It has been drizzling a lot today (rather appropriate for Good Friday) with sunny breaks. This morning, for two hours there was a nonstop rainbow in the garden just in front of my room. I wondered, and kind of hoped it was a sign from God. I should be careful with this kind of talk. They might diagnose me with something. Well, they can prescribe whatever they want for me, but no one´s going to make me swallow it! (and for your information, Gentle Reader, I am not, never have been, and hopefully never will be on any kind of medication, other than the thyroid supplement and the pill I take to keep the tumour from growing on my pituitary.) Then I saw something else on my way out. At the entrance to the driveway of the Mariposa (Spanish for butterfly), where I am staying, I saw a beautiful huge morpho butterfly, which then landed right next to the driveway. Then, in the reserve, I saw my first quetzals, a male and a female. So, yes, I am now really beginning to wonder what God might be saying to me through these little signs, and they can prescribe to me whatever the hell they want. They still can´t make me swallow it. Well, I just picked this up from Uncle Google: ¨Butterflies have long been associated with a deep and powerful representation of the soul and spiritual transformation. The blue color is often thought to symbolize healing, whether it be personal healing or the healing of someone close to you. Many natives of the rainforest see the “blue butterfly” as a wish-granter.¨ This about rainbows: ¨ What is the meaning of a Rainbow? Rainbows speak directly to our heart and soul, filling us with awe and energies of liquid love pouring all around us...¨ The quetzal, given it´s beauty, was sacred to the Maya, and is a symbol of freedom and divinity. So, if these three signs today, and this being Good Friday, when Jesus gave his life for us, then I´ll leave it for you, my Gentle Reader, to do the math and figure it out for yourselves. If you have any ideas, then please, comment by all means. It was a cooler and wetter day than usual in the cloud forest, with quite a few visitors, though I still enjoyed some long quiet stretches. I was there around two and a half hours. It was a lady in a group of Latinos who pointed out to me, very carefully and patiently, the two quetzals, male and female, attending to their nesting box. Words fail me to describe the beauty of those birds. The males are very attentive fathers, and this one went right into the nesting hole to nurture his young, his two long iridescent green tail feathers sticking out. When I came back, his two tail feathers were still sticking out, then he appeared. When he saw me looking at him he seemed a bit spooked and concealed himself behind a branch and I thought I might respect his space and move on. Later, I found a dry bench to sit on for a while, when a small, iridescent jade green beetle hopped into my knapsack. So, I emptied out my bag to help liberate the bug (who was actually quite beautiful, like a little jewel) He was on top of my Spanish New Testament. Then I saw a young couple come by and thought I would share my find with them, and they seemed quite intrigued. It turns out they are Canadians, from Winnipeg and complained that right now, March 30 it´s snowing and sixteen below. Then I complained to them about how impossibly expensive my dear Vancouver has become. Ah, so Canadian of us, to winge and complain about our respective cities like that. By the way, this is how I could tell they were Canadian. when I showed them the pretty green bug she said, ¨neat, eh?¨ Now you can´t get more Canadian than that, eh? One thing I really took note of today, while staring out at the cloud forest, is how many plants depend on trees and other plants to support and sustain them. Wow, this is so contrary to the kind of Darwinist dogma that the capitalists have tried to brainwash us with. The truth is, we all stand on the shoulders of giants, and for those of us with the stength and the ability to stand strong, straight and independent comes also the responsibility to support and nurture those who may not have that strength, but still have other gifts and beauty to contribute. This isn´t to say that Darwin was incorrect with his theory of evolution, of course he was right and in so many ways. But he was also a child of his age and was influenced by the biases of the Industrial Revolution, hence this survival of the fittest nonsense, when really, we are all in this together, integrated and interdependent in this complex and marvellous web. Even in my own life experience, in order to flourish and offer my gifts in the best possible way, I need to live in housing subsidized by taxpayers and be employed by our public health care system, paid for by...the taxpayers. None of us gets out of here without owing others. A big hug and a fistbump. Handshake, too.