Tuesday May 28, 2024. 5:40am
We are at our final Airbnb in Costa Rica, near Tamarindo Beach. We are in a resort area that clearly caters to wealthy tourists. It’s cute and fun, with a whole food truck village (which we haven’t eaten at), and the beaches are gorgeous.
Our daughter and I spent hours at the southern end of Tamarindo Beach yesterday. Our first spot was under a tree down the beach a few meters from a guy juggling machetes. He’d stroll out from under his tree into the sun, we’d hear the metallic schling of one blade running down the other, and then he’d toss them, one, two, then three, and juggle. He’d do that for a few minutes, then catch them each out of the air, then walk back under his tree and sit in his chair he had there. He also juggled what looked to be torches, were it night and the bulbous ends were on fire. He was practicing. He was there for hours.
Our daughter was happy as a clam, laying in the sun and taking swim breaks to cool off in the Pacific Ocean. The waves were gentle, unlike the first beaches where the surf was so big it seemed it’d crush you or pin you under or tumble you or suck you out to sea. After hanging out at the beach for a while, she and I walked to Costa Juice for Pitaya (dragonfruit) bowls, which I’m now addicted to and I want to eat all the time.
12:12pm
I’m sun-screened and bug-sprayed and sitting on a lounge chair in the grotto at the house. I’m in the shade, cross-legged on the lounge chair, leaning forward to write on the end of the chair. I took a brief cool-off dip in the blue-tiled swimming pool a few minutes ago. The water was refreshing since the pool gets some shade. I’m mostly dry now, but my arm may be damp at the bottom corner of the page. It’s just our son and me here; Brian and our daughter are at the beach. I’m reading Hemingway’s Garden of Eden again. I picked up and put down several other books after State of Wonder. This was the only thing I was in the mood for.
I shopped this morning with hour daughter. We went into a tiny artisanal coffee shop off on a side street that roasted their own coffee. I told the woman I’d like to take some home, and she told me all about the coffees and how they’re grown on small farms here in Costa Rica, and roasted here, and I didn’t really care that much but she was passionate about it and sweet and clearly loved the coffees and let me smell them all, and I bought a bag of the one she said is her favorite, and I’m happy to have some coffee to take home with us.
I can feel the sweat beading on my upper lip, and my right arm glistens in the sun as a write. The pool’s fountain tinkles, and I hear a bird whistling in the neighborhood. A breeze moves the pam frond text to me, and the shadow of another sways across my page.
3:30pm
A wind has come up. I’ve moved out of the air conditioning and back out to the grotto where I can hear palm fronds swoosh and every few minutes, the low growl of thunder. Raindrops dimple the pool’s surface. Now they splash. Rain rattles on the corrugated roof above the patio table where I write. Thunder rumbles over the ocean and the sky is dark. Maybe I should pour a glass of wine. Lightning just flashed in my peripheral vision. Now a thunderclap and a hard clatter of rain. the wind is blowing spray under the roof and my pages will soon be wet. The air smells of wet stone, warm from the sun.
This is really only day 8; I apparently didn’t journal on day 7, and day 9 was actually days 9 &10 and was mostly the ordeal of cancelled flights and journaling from airports and an unexpected hotel stay, none of which I care to relive.
Butterfly Mind 
That’s nice.
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