I spent this past year contemplating. The existential sort- of the dangerously bottomless thought variety. The end of last year's adventure was left hanging on our site, but has been tied up in drafts, video projects and memoiresque ramblings, I have played with and collected offline. The stillness here at lookingforjohnnymuir was real though; is real. I have yet to be as impacted, moved and changed in such a way, by six weeks of open unknown. The whole essence of my experience was felt and viewed in a very second person sort of way. My head was home to a new realization that trumped and enveloped my existing troops of hummingbird thoughts and unresolved questions. No longer was my disconnection to my heart and fuel at the forefront of my mind, but encased. I seemed to be fluttering inside a glass bowl of the more imminent disconnection I now knew; that which lives between man and earth.
Ok so how do I pick a new summer plan for my family? I just fell in love with walking, with sleeping outside, with surviving and leading my beasts through the mountains with everything we needed on our backs. But I didn't want to stick to what we knew, despite the worlds left unseen and unhiked by us. I wanted a new world, and put off deciding on our summer, until I couldn't avoid it anymore. As late as almost June, I scrambled my vacation time (mucho gracias Q-State), tax refund and discount flight sites to Yahtzee a plan. After finding Marie-Cecile's and James' Institute of Oceanology (working to preserve the coast and farmlands, as well as the soul and community in Guanacaste), I went with Costa Rica.
So listen, listen, listen: should you choose to read along, do so at your own risk! I will not be proofing, and apologize ahead of time for autocorrections, typos and nonsensical posts. But you will be along for the ride, in all it's absurd glory. This trip is grossly underprepared. Our Spanish is atrocious and bears an off balanced French accent. But acclimating and living in a Spanish speaking country for a month, daily ocean exploration and surf, rainforest hikes and crazy biodiversity, mountains and volcanoes..all seemed to offer the possibility of new. A new box of comfort was set to escape, and I believe, our last great comfort escape might lend wisdom to this summer's travels and challenges. Or maybe we will just lounge on the beach.
July 28, 2015