We just got back from a trip to the US. We usually do it once a year, and try to make it correspond to a visa run. We got to see my son and his fiance (my future daughter-in-law) but of course there was not enough time - we made the trip without much advance planning (well to be honest pretty much no advance planning) - but we did get some really good visits in and I am so delighted Danielle will be part of my family. I also spent time with my aunt and my cousins. It was also a great visit, and something that does not happen very often. We have not always been real close, but I love my extended family very much.
Going back to San Diego is getting strange. It does not feel like home anymore, which is okay since it's not. It is somewhere I used to live, albeit somewhere I lived for a long time. I really loved San Diego, and i still do. it just isn't home. The US isn't home. It is just a really easy place to get stuff it is hard to get down here. And the food is really really good and you get a lot of it. Too good and too much. This time I made an effort to limit my intake and did not gain any weight, at least not that I noticed. Nothing that fit me when I left did not fit when I got back, and such has not always been the case. Once when we went to San Diego, Wisconsin, and Arkansas and came back fat as hogs. It was horrible, but fun while it lasted.
I am always glad to get back HOME - what ever I am calling home at the time. HOME is an interesting concept to me. I call every place I am sleeping "home" while I am sleeping there. My hotel room is home, my tent is home, and my boat is home.
My boat, of course, was the only real HOME for seven years. Where ever it was, that was where home was. My stuff was there. my bed was there. I knew all about everything there. Even when I knew nothing about the area we were anchored/moored/docked in, it was still home. It still is - especially if I am going straight to the boat instead of the house after a trip. Nothing felt/feels better than unpacking and stashing the suitcases away, then surveying my tiny domain and feeling like an empress. The fish around the boat - those are MY fish. The birds that most people consider to be pests because they hang around the boats and make messes - MY birds. I don't even really mind cleaning up their messes and dealing with their nest building. They are part of my little empire.
Then we got this house. Now I am like Eleanor of Aquitaine - I have to travel between my domains. I never thought I would own a house again. And I never thought I'd do it in Costa Rica. But I did and here I am, sitting at the table in my kitchen writing this post. I have a cup of coffee and I can see my orchid tree with its gorgeous pink and magenta flowers. (Side note: In Costa Rica, some of the most beautiful flowering trees flame out brightest in the dry season. I didn't expect that, but then I have a lot to learn about the tropics. So the flowering trees stand out even more in the dry season because there are fewer leaves on the trees. Just branches of flowers. The leaves start to appear when the flowers fall off. While the temperature doesn't change much, you can still tell a real change in seasons just by watching the flora change.
My dad used to bitch about California, saying that there was no "weather", and his tone left no doubt in my mind that "no weather" was in some way indicative of a place less character-building, less challenging. Something like that. I have no idea what he'd say about this place. I think he'd like the boat, and if he were alive he might like to have a sailing vacation with us. My mom would like it here at the house, because it is up in the mountains and nice and cool. If she were alive, she could live with us (we might build her a little house of her own on the property) and take care of the chickens we (c)(w)ould get. I don't know if she would be much help with the garden. I don't see enjoying the boat - too hot even with the fans. And frankly, i just never thought she was that much of a water person when it came to boats. She liked water-related activities, like fishing and beach-walking and water-watching, but that seemed to be it.
I am losing my mind sometimes over being so lucky. Almost every day I think to myself "How did this happen?" "How did I manage this?" It seems like some huge mistake might have been made and I was accidentally given someone else's future and the mistake will eventually need to be rectified. Not really, but that thought is ever present. I have had that feeling in some form about some thing pretty much my whole life. Even though it has never come true.
So enough for today. I am trying to figure out what this blog will be now that Life Aboard the Magda Jean is only part time. Hell, let's be honest - I am trying to figure out what my life is going to be now.
Signed, Always at the Crossroads
"Never does nature say one thing and wisdom another." (Juvenal)
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