When in Puerto Viejo de Talamanca...

Well, if it's July, the main thing is that it rains. It rains constantly. It rains with a seriousness that you have to hide from under an awning and just stare at out of amazement and respect, because of the sheer volume of water crashing down everywhere, straight down, relentlessly, until the sky wears itself out, takes a four minute nap, and goes right back to raining like it has no idea that it can do anything else. The inexhaustible supply of water everywhere here makes it hard to believe that there are huge signs glowing yellow on California freeways right now announcing "serious drought" and begging people to conserve water. Between the rain and the humidity, my clothes and my skin haven't been dry since I arrived in Costa Rica two days ago.

I already have a hard red spider bite the size of a small pancake that I check on every fifteen minutes to make sure it hasn't changed size too drastically. I've efficiently located every vegan-friendly cafe in this somewhat touristic, very eccentric Rasta/Australian/French/Italian/Bribri/Tico-inhabited Atlantic beach town, and now know where I can buy vegan pancakes with strawberry chai jam, vegan chocolate cake with peanut butter chocolate icing, vegan mochas, vegan chocolate peanut butter cups made from scratch, pasta, hummus plates, burritos and everything else I could possibly wake up craving. Mostly, though, I want to eat pineapple and mango until I can't even stand the taste of them anymore. I even like the papaya here, which instead of tasting vaguely like puke (my experience of every papaya I've eaten in the states), fresh Costa Rican papaya tastes very mildly of cinnamon and pumpkin pie, and is delicately soft without descending into sliminess. (The strawberries here can't hold a candle to California strawberries, unfortunately). I ate a huge fruit salad for breakfast and watched the ocean.

My time so far has been divided between standing on the beach staring at the waves, wondering what's underneath them and whether the sun will be kind enough to stage an appearance that will allow me to go snorkeling, finishing The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Kundera, eating in cafes, drinking lots of coffee, talking to other travelers staying in my hostel, and learning how to write a screenplay.

I really dislike the literary necessity of plot. It seems cruel to invent characters, only to set them up for disaster and disappointment. Writing pain into the lives of loved ones is an exercise in self-denial, and I'm enjoying it only because I haven't written fiction in a long time, and this is a new structure that appeals to me immensely.

So today is a day of almond milk mochas, grey ocean and grey sky, and grey macbook, and watching sleepy dreaded Ticos do their normal rainy day Tico things under umbrellas in flip flop feet. Tomorrow might be a day of bicycle rides to other beaches, or of baby sloths, or butterflies, or reggae clubs. There's a lot to do in this tiny place, and the best things to do are the things that people call nothing. I could live here.

The Masters Would Have Immortalized Me, and other summer realities

I haven't been writing here lately because I've been living. Summer always happens fast.

I went to a marriage celebration that seemed like it brought so many things full circle. It made me content, proud, and excited. And the lemony asparagus was so delicious.

I've gone up to Pinecrest a couple times. I pet my poodle a lot and relish her adoration of my attention. I went on a road trip and hung out with friends. When Sacramento strangers asked me what I do, I replied "I'm on vacation." In a few days, I'm going to Costa Rica. I have no idea what I'll be doing there, but I love Costa Rica. I love the soft sweet Spanish, I love "con gusto" and "pura vida", and I love salsa (the dance), gallo pinto (the food), and I LOVE guanabana (the fruit--you might know it as soursop, although I never did). So who cares what will happen once I get there. I don't care at all.

After Costa Rica, I'll be in Boise for the end of July. Then, somehow I have to get to New York by mid August. The dream is to ride my motorcycle, and second best would be to find other people with a car with fewer broken parts than mine who also are going to New York, and to share the ride. After that, I'll consider taking a train. Obviously, the worst thing would be to fly.

What comes next for the unemployed and savings-depleting Laralyn who wanders around California? This summer is so full, but then next, I don't know what to do with myself first. I have a lot I want to do, but I don't know what to do first. There are years in the making here. My self needs an occupation. Myself is this body that needs food and a little shelter. Myself is several decades left on earth if I'm lucky, and all the connections that my heart can carry.

I want to be a writer, I think, but I don't have anything to say. I've never liked plots. I don't like sad stories. This is why I don't write much fiction anymore. I might be in an independent film in the fall, if it gets funding. I want to crew a yacht cruising around the Galapagos. I want to live in a van. I want to learn to surf. I want to make coffee and drink coffee. I want Provence and Tuscany, mostly I want to be in the realness of the idea of loud dinners with big families with lots of bread and olive oil and wine. I want to grow organic vegetables, for someone else, with someone else's instructions, someone else's love in the soil, someone else's dirt on my hands. I want to feed people. I want the ocean. I want it deep in my heart, pushy and salty and terrifying me with its opaque indigo. I want fire in the palms of my hands in everything I do, and I want to forget the moon for a while and be a summer child, a sun daughter.

I've been reading a lot. A lot of it I forget, but some of it I don't. I thought about listing all of the books, but it'd be so deceitful. It would make it seem like I have all of those words in my mind or my soul, and I certainly don't. They just stretch me out and keep me company.

I wear sun dresses and big hats more fearlessly these days, and sometimes I catch my reflection and think I look fabulous, like one of the soft curvy goddesses painted by the masters. I found this wonderful project, and ever since, whenever I see my body, my skin, I see an oil painting, soft lines and deep curves, or a fresco, surfaces for reflecting light, or a watercolor, hazy and sweet and warm. I'm not at all into the fat acceptance movement, but I am into seeing those particular edges of my existence as quite lovely and strangely beautiful even while they are under reconstruction. I'm into being comfortable, like an artist's model. I guess what I'm saying is that I've recently discovered that the greatest men would have painted me, if I had lived near enough to them in time. And if they would have loved me, then everybody with any sense must love me, and I love me, and anybody who doesn't think I'm glorious has no idea that I quite nearly modeled for Botticelli (I only missed the gig by five centuries) and so I saunter and flow around California in this basil green cotton dress, knowing that I'm extraordinary when I smile, without having to bother being painted at all.

Maybe next I'll practice humility.