Night Life in Costa Rica

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So, here’s the truth.  When eavesdropping on after-dark conversations taking place on nearby balconies becomes a pass-time, you know you have reached a new low on the spectrum of creative entertainment. You might as well also admit that you have achieved new heights on the scale of abject boredom.

But, guess what?  It can happen. Even in Costa Rica where everyone seems to be in a party mood. Peals of laughter bouncing from pillar to post. Laughter the order of the day.  Close encounters the order of the night. Everyone all coupled up. It’s down right depressing.  Where do these people get off……….all this gaiety and frivolity!

Don’t they know what a mess this world is in? Don’t they ‘get’ how tangled a web we’ve woven for ourselves? Well, actually, m-a-y-be they do. Maybe that’s precisely why they’re here. Doing what they are doing. Letting it all go. Maybe they do remember what a bunch of crap there is in our world, our lives, their lives. And, maybe this is their way to forget it all. Take a sabbatical. Just step back and forget it.

Well, you know what? I think I can sign on for that strategy. I didn’t bring my magic eraser to Costa Rica with me this time. The one that rubs out all the problems of the world. But, next time. The next time I come down here, I do not plan to sit in the dark on my balcony grabbing portions of conversations which float through the air and only serve to depress me anyway. I plan to come as a participant. Not an observer.

Yeah, that’s it. That’s what I’ll do. I’ll just up and go join them. I’ll just trot right over to those balcony parties on the ground floors and I’ll just let ‘em know I’m happy to be joining them.  Then smile. Smile big. Try to make them think I’m a party guy.  (Of course, I’d rather crash the 2nd or 3rd floor balconies but I’d need a 40’ extension ladder for one thing, and I don’t do ladders).

Anyway, I gotta find a way to fit in with this new crowd right away. Like quick. Because, at this point people are staring at me. Wondering “where did this joker come from” ? And that joker reference got me to thinking (since I knew what they were thinking).

Since all these people do at these balcony parties is laugh, laugh, laugh, I’ll just whip out a couple of my guaranteed-to-get-a-big-laugh jokes. Then they’ll think I’m cool.  You know. Maybe even invite me to join the party. So now that I’ve got this new strategy of ’no more eavesdropping”,  I figure I’ve gotta get serious. About being a jokester.

So, I thought and I thought. Running through my inventory of funny stories. I quickly identified 3 or 4 that would most likely pass the muster of ‘not totally obscene’ and would be safe for a liberated crowd of occasionally foul-mouthed adults. But there was a problem.

Each time I repeated one of these jokes in my head, I laughed so hard my eyes leaked and my stomach hurt. I was cracking myself up so much I decided “Who needs it?.”

I don’t have to crash a party of unknowns. I can sit here on my own balcony, ignoring those other balcony conversations and totally make myself laugh so hard I cry. Actually, none of my top ten jokes would have cut the mustard anyway for so much as a “PG-14” rating.

So, …oops…Wait! I think I just heard something. It’s starting to sound like a bedtime conversation over on the 3rd floor balcony, in the building over to the right of me.  Wow, things are getting serious over there.

Sorry, I gotta cut this short. More later.

So you think you know Spanish????

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OK, so here’s the deal. Just when you think you’ve almost arrived at that Golden Gate Bridge which takes you over that crevice of the language barrier between English and Spanish, here’s what happens to snap you back to the real world.

You sit on your balcony, overlooking the pool below, and it occurs to you that you are not the only one who enjoys the same vantage point. To wit, there are other similarly situated condos facing the same pristine view.

The down side to this is that with four buildings forming a quadrangle with the pool in the center, there is a tad of an echo effect on those rare occasions when there are numerous condos occupied at the same time.

On this particular evening, when the occupancy of these buildings has swelled to near maximum capacity, and a party mood prevails, I am shaken back to the reality that the Spanish I thought I knew is little more than pure fantasy.

Now, granted, I can manage to pretty much figure out how to say what I need to convey to get where I need to go and get what I need to purchase. But, listening in on a group of Ticos all chattering simultaneously.  It is pure madness.

You get a dozen Costa Ricans ALL talking at the same time and it is like trying to make a sentence out of alphabet soup in a blender. We’re talkin’ pure mush here. It’s not unlike an orchestra tuning up just prior to performing a symphony.  If only one of them would speak at a time, slowly mind you, I might, that is MIGHT, be able to catch most of it provided the speech was slow and distinct. But, you get all 12 of them yapping at the same time somewhere close to ninety miles an hour.  It’s like a a half dozen Beatles records being played backwards simultaneously.

I’m amazed even THEY can comprehend what is being said, shouted, sung, or whatever. This is when I realized, that the Spanish I thought I knew…well, it’s right up there with the Latin I aced in high school and promptly forgot the day I graduated.  Or the French I thought I learned in college. Mystery mush.

So, just about the time you get a tiny bit cocky thinking you’re just a little bit cool because you thought you’d “gotten it” in another language….come on down to Playas del Coco and see what really goes down when you eavesdrop on the native speakers.

It might be just enough to send you packin’with your tail between your legs. REALMENTE!

My Brief Career as a Musician’s Agent

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Tammy at home in Costa Rica

Being in a foreign land, a different culture where the language can be mysterious (even to those of us who’ve attempted to learn it), where the money is colorful and adorned with the exotic icons of local flora and fauna …  being far from home and out of your comfort zone can render you either greatly intimidated or uncharacteristically bold. Sometimes both.

Like the other afternoon.  I was with my special peeps Monte and Tammy from Bozeman, MT chillin’ at a joint named Coconutz, one of the local hotspots in downtown Coco, chowing down fish tacos and tossing back some cerveza and vino.

During their last trip here, the one that straddled Christmas and the New Year, Tammy had been invited by the owner to perform on stage at Coconutz during their next (this) trip. She does a three set gig playing the acoustic/electric guitar and singing like, well you name any of the outrageously popular female vocalists you hear on tour these days, and there you have it. She is dynamite.

Unfortunately, it turns out that Dan, the owner who was to confirm the gig, ended up being out of the country during our stay in Costa Rica this trip.  So the arrangements for Tammy to perform were down the tubes. Learning this during our mid-afternoon lunch and early happy hour, I could see the disappointment settling over her. Like the shadow that creeps across the land when thick, dark clouds drift between the sun and the earth. It’s like that with soul-mates. You kinda feel what they feel. You read their thoughts as though they were your own. I just hated the idea that she had so much emotional investment in having this opportunity, her first performance in Costa Rica, and…boom. Gone. The thing she had so looked forward to…evaporated right here on the front end of our stay in Coco.

So, in a rare moment of chivalry, I said to her this…  I said “Tammy darlin’ just don’t you worry. I’ll get you another gig here in town. You just wait and see sweetie-pie. I’ll be your agent. Nobody’s gonna pull the rug from under my Tammy-girl and get off Scot-free.”

“Oh, it’s OK”, she said somewhat down heartedly. “I guess it just wasn’t meant to be.” But, it wasn’t OK. Not with any of us. Not really.

Now, I’m not sure what the Hell I was thinking. I simply knew there must be some way we could square this insult. Erase this disappointment. Restore that excitement Tammy had felt during the preceding weeks in anticipation of this now lost opportunity to do what she loves most: entertain crowds from center stage with her musical prowess.

Emboldened now, by a few more libations, a little voice from inside began to chat me up. You know, convince me that I had a mission.  That I had a responsibility and needed to answer this, this call to action. So as we strolled along Coco’s main drag (OK it’s only drag), “the voice” whispered to me: “Woody’s“.

Woody’s is one of the other most popular restaurant/bars in Playas del Coco. The main competitor with Coconutz. It’s owned by a guy named Woody (duh). He’s an American ex-pat who along with his Filipino wife, Rochelle, manage this and several other establishments in Costa Rica.

As we approached the restaurant, I could see Rochelle behind the bar. That’s because it’s one of these places that you’re inside but outside at the same time. You know, covered but without true exterior walls. Kind of an open air type of deal. So as we strolled in, I quite boldly made a bee-line over to Rochelle saying, “Rochelle…we gotta talk!” Then with a simultaneous wagging of my index finger, one of those come hither gestures, I drew her to the end of the bar and said, “You see that beautiful blonde my main man Monte and I came in with?” Quick glance and a slight nod from Rochelle.

“Well she is a performer out of Bozeman, MT and they live here part-time. You wanna set some new records for food and beverage sales in here? Then you gotta get her on your stage for the happy hour and dinner crowd. She’ll pack the house!”

Tammy at home in Bozeman, MT

Rochelle gave me one of those “yeah, right” looks and said, “Jimbo, you’re gonna have to talk to Woody. He’ll be here in a minute.”

Sure enough, out of nowhere, Woody steps up to the bar.  I repeat my spiel. Amazingly enough, after a very brief chat among the four of us, bam! Woody agreed to a Friday & Saturday night gig for Tammy and they quickly negotiated a verbal contract which, truth be told, exceeded what I think any of the three of us expected was possible. Especially since Woody was clueless about Tammy’s musical abilities and there was never so much as a hint about an audition.

So there we were. Now basking in a renewed glow of anticipation. Recharged with the excitement of Tammy’s debut performance here in a foreign land. There was only one thing to do: celebrate our success in booking a gig that would give Tammy the opportunity to experience that joy which comes from thrilling a crowd, from putting smiles on a sea of faces, from making people happy due to the harmonious effect that well performed music has in bringing people together.

Whew! What more could a musician’s novice agent hope for his first day on the job?

A Word about Friends  

Yesterday, my first day back in Costa Rica, was a touching and joyful reminder of what friends mean in the course of our lives. 

First, there were the emails I received from friends who were compelled to respond to my “morning musings” blog. Some were in fun, reminding me of the benefic qualities humor can have in relationships. I have always believed that humor is the Vaseline of social intercourse and that to laugh is to love. How one can get through this life without humor is a mystery that defies solution from where I stand.

Some replies were in such sincere earnest that they brought tears to my eyes, reminding me that there is a unique bond between true friends who may not have had much contact of late, but share such a deep and abiding closeness that time and distance are powerless to create a feeling of separateness. 

Some of those friends wrote that my thoughts of yesterday morning actually gave them pause…a reason to reflect and even served as a trigger to ponder and re-evaluate their own responses to certain situations and life experiences. 

I suppose this, more than anything, caught me by surprise. Clearly, that response was completely unanticipated and was a totally unintended consequence of my musings. But, it reinforced my recognition that friends can and do have both accidental as well as purposeful effects on one another. 

Friends share their feelings and talk with each other about their wants, needs, hopes and fears. They laugh together and sometimes cry together. Such sharing has the effect of  helping to create balance and structure in life. The giving and receiving of feedback provides guideposts and direction which keep us on the right track as we move along life’s journey. It is this interdependence that is the thread from which strong friendships are woven.

Last night I was invited by a small group of friends to join them for dinner at a little beach front restaurant in Playa Hermosa. Nearly a year had gone by since we had last seen each other. But when we met, it was as though not a single day had passed since our last visit. We picked up right where we left off in the Spring of 2012 and the ease of conversing, relating and sharing underscored the notion that real friendships endure the voids and chasms of physical separation.

Tonight, at the airport in Liberia, I will collect my friends who are arriving from Bozeman, MT. It is their stunningly beautiful residence that I have been enjoying since my arrival here.  That I have been given the keys to their kingdom to use as though it were my own is the literal expression of “mi casa es su casa”. I will be moving to my own abode in a couple of days once my tenants have vacated. But in the meantime we will live like a family, because that is what we are.

True friends like these, and those to whom I’ve previously alluded, are the cornerstone in the building of life. It is the construction of such relationships that pave the road for the walk we all have to take.  May all those who read this walk in peace! Namaste!

 As this is my first stay in Costa Rica since I lost my wife to cancer last year, it admittedly feels strange to be here alone in a place we spent so much time living life to its fullest.  Although I feel that I’ve reached that stage of grieving where I can now dwell on the good times we enjoyed for so long instead of the anger and pain of loosing her, it is the kind of monumental loss that leaves a permanent scar on one’s psyche. The task of processing all that was and coming to grips with the present reality is a long and arduous journey. Some of my thoughts about that journey are reflected in the following passage on this, my first morning back, in the other place we called home.

A Morning Meditation in Costa Rica 

Sitting here on this vast flagstone pool deck in Playas del Coco overlooking the Pacific Ocean, the solitude punctuated by the chirps, whistles, songs and squawks of exotic, colorful birds, my thoughts glance off the shimmering surface of the infinity edge pool and come to rest somewhere out there at the end of the ocean.

Some 1,500 feet below, Coco Bay lies, quietly dotted with the white specks of sleeping boats tethered to moorings which maintain order. Mountains, rugged and brown from the effects of the dry season, rise from the beach as a reminder that in spite of this peacefulness, it is a harsh world in which there are an infinite variety of challenges great and small we all must endure from time to time.

Among those obstacles, the loss of what or who we value is one inescapable injustice each of us must face at one time or another. It may be the loss of a job, a loved one, a friend, one’s own good health, or simply the depression that springs from the loss of one’s faith in the basic goodness of fellow human beings.

Whatever the source of the grief that follows loss, the challenge is the same. Although it is helpful and normally required, the love and support of those around you is only part of the equation in navigating the waters of personal turmoil.  For ultimately, the key for unlocking the solution for recovery from significant loss lies somewhere deep inside of you.  Finding that key requires looking for it.

Discovery of the answer demands introspection, review, self analysis, and forgiveness. There is no acceptance of the status quo unless the anger, guilt, regret and blame are released.  Letting go of the past and focusing on the “now” means in-sourcing.  It means drawing on your strengths and assuming responsibility for your future. It is choosing to take charge of your life and the direction it takes. It is steering the boat instead of letting it drift aimlessly. It is deciding that finding that new job, that new relationship, that happiness, or whatever it is you have lost is your responsibility and that it is up to you and you alone to create the outcome that you desire.

If, this morning, I sound like I’ve been vaccinated by some self-help guru then so be it. The irony is that I’ve always avoided such books, yet here I am spewing forth what are probably similar preachings. However, what inspired these musings was a Delta airlines commercial they played on the plane yesterday. I’d seen it on TV before, but for some reason, it stuck with me more this time than ever before.

It was a commercial which exploited the various usage of the word “UP” because as the commercial says “Delta is in the business of “UP”.  One of the many examples of the uses of this key word was “when we fall down, we get UP”. And, I thought, you know what?  They are exactly right. And that’s the thought that was still with me when I woke UP this morning.

So there you have it. I hope this little essay doesn’t make my best friend back in Venice throw UP.  I can hear him now saying “Jimmy you are completely full of shit!”

He may be right, but I think I am UP for his challenge. :)