Defining Home

I was around a year old the first time I moved from Costa Rica to another country. I don’t remember much of the relocating, although my mom tells me I was a pain in the ass at the airport. One of the greatest legacies I’ve inherited from my maternal grandfather is a love for peeing outdoors. It’s just so much nicer to let go on a tree, or on unsuspecting ants, or just on some cute flowers. There’s no need to flush and no wasted water. Plus a part of you literally goes right back into the Earth, as a minute precursor of our bodily destiny. It’s nice and simple.

But back to the travels. I was little, I had to pee, and there were some plants at the airport…you can figure out the rest.

This time we moved to the US so my dad could go to graduate school at George Washington University. I remember visits from grandparents, aunts and uncles and friends. I don’t remember the fact that my sister and I shared a mattress with the current president of Costa Rica, but apparently we did, as she too was in Graduate school in the area (at Georgetown). The visits were nice, as there was travel to places, and nice family time. In some ways it prepped me for the rest of my life of moving around from place to place. It gave “home” a relational character. Home was here now, but our home was also elsewhere. People would come and go, and then we would go and come. Visits, hugs, tears, goodbyes.

The name of this blog is “Our home in Monteverde”, but as I do before I travel, I feel uneasy. Home is there now, but home is also elsewhere. Never is home complete cause we are always away from someone. This hurts. You have to dull a piece of you, sort of like putting ice over a wound. In dulling it, you only make yourself a bit colder. I don’t like this moving. I love traveling, and I love the life I’ve lived, and the people I’ve met and places I’ve seen. But I don’t like this moving. Again, I don’t like it because there is never going to be any actual soothing. I can only numb, dull, and take comfort in the fact that this moving away is also a coming to. Like peeing on trees, it too prepares me for my bodily destiny.

I have as a goal to be completely ok with my death. I want to embrace it and look forward to it as an important part of my existence. This is not to raise any alarms: I don’t want to die any time soon. In fact, I want to be old and walk around saying really inappropriate shit to people. I simply want to come to terms with inevitability. Perhaps this moving, coming and leaving can help me achieve my goal.

As we get ready to go back to our current home, I don’t want to numb anything; I want to have the sadness and joy and hopes for the future with me. Time to go.