Sometimes, when we are getting ready to make a new start, it can be helpful to go back to where we previously began. I tried that this morning. not intentionally, mind you. None of this is consciously intentional. I think this is just more the way we get led as we more and more entrust our lives, wellbeing and future to the Infinite. I left the apartment for a longer than usual walk at around 8:30 this morning, then did something I don't usually do. I stopped for coffee. Not in just any friendly neighbourhood coffee shop, but in a rather special place. This cafe, on Davie Street in Vancouver's West End, is particularly significant to me and for one particular reason. I was the first artist to do a show there some twenty-six years ago in 1994. They had been open for just less than a year. The owners were a pleasant couple, and they were interested in art. But at first they did not want local artists exhibiting on their walls, claiming that they had neither the time or energy. So, I worked on them, and for almost a year wore them down and wore them down. They saw photos of my work and seemed duly impressed. Then, one day, they caved. Yes, please be our first artist, they said, and I could only graciously accept their kind invitation.
The rest is, as they say, history, Gentle Reader. Within a week I got a phone call from a young woman who wanted to represent me as my agent. It also turned out that she was the girlfriend of the young artist whom, just one year earlier, had quite firmly kicked my butt about getting started with painting seriously. My new agent quickly connected me to an architect, who bought one large painting and commissioned three more, all of them parrot compositions, to adorn the walls of a new hotel he had designed. I got quickly to work.
Just two months before that time I had been reading in the Globe and Mail an article about the Monteverde cloud forest in Cost Rica. I felt strangely compelled to go visit that place. There was one little obstacle, however. No money. Now, I didn't merely feel compelled to visit Monteverde. I felt distinctly called by God to go there. But I didn't have the funds. So, I said, Lord, if this truly is your will, then you will also open up the funding for getting me there and you will provide everything that I need. Four paintings later, I was visiting a travel agency, where I purchased a plane ticket for my first trip to Costa Rica.
Before I went there I had a dream. I was visiting a restaurant with lots of beautiful dark wood panelling. The waiter said I was too early for dinner, but I could stay for coffee, if I wanted. When I arrived in Monteverde, I went for dinner in a restaurant. It was the place I saw in my dream. And the waiter that I saw in my dream was there serving me. In the same dream I saw a door with the number 8. That was my room number in the bed and breakfast where I stayed during that trip. I knew already that God had spoken to me in that dream. This would be the first of many future visits. Not ready for dinner, or the main event, but that would come later.
I did feel strangely and powerfully connected to Monteverde. There was one little problem, though. I didn't speak Spanish. I had no way of actually interacting with and befriending any of the local people, and I felt very strongly that that was why I was being called there.
Three years later, a stranger, a gentle man of a certain age, on the sidewalk handed me a Spanish dictionary. He knew absolutely nothing about me. I started encountering him randomly several times. Then one day I stopped and asked him why he wanted me to have the dictionary. He replied that he believed that God wanted him to give it to me. I never saw him again. Interesting that just a couple of weeks before I was asking God for guidance about learning Spanish.
After that, the proverbial shit really began to hit the fan. I had no way of returning to Costa Rica. There was no money, and I was really struggling with some major issues of trauma. I ended up homeless for almost a year, just getting by couch surfing and selling and working on my art and cleaning homes for income. As soon as I landed in a shared apartment in 1999, I got to work on seriously learning Spanish. Suddenly, one door after another was opening for me, and I was able to attend free (almost free, one dollar a pop Spanish classes, network with native speakers, and obtain all kinds of educational material, making myself proficient in Spanish grammar and language fluency within a couple of years, with a rapidly growing vocabulary.
Other doors began to open. Through a series of random encounters on the bus, the housing advocate for the city of Vancouver helped me get into affordable housing, and then some vocational doors swung wide open for me helping me get back in the work force. I soon had a bank balance, obtained a passport, and in 2008, or fourteen years later, returned to Costa Rica. I have since been visiting countries in Latin America, Mexico, Colombia and Costa Rica, every year.
I have made friends in those countries, principally in Colombia and Costa Rica, and these friendships all seem like they are going to be long term. I am welcome back, and I will be going back, probably many times, at least for the foreseeable future. My Spanish has also reached a very high level of fluency.
Today when I was in this café I was working on a drawing and people began reaching out in interest. I mentioned that I was the first artist that showed here. Now it feels as though something new is about to be set in motion. Curiouser, and curiouser.
No comments:
Post a Comment