A small tale from 2000 | DRAFT in progress...
NOTE: I started this project mid-November last year (2012) during an online writing workshop with the wonderfully talented and lovely Melissa Febos. She managed a small group or writers from Brooklyn in the wake of Superstorm Sandy's massive flooding. A trooper for sure and very encouraging.
My thanks go out to her again.
But now I must muster the will to continue alone and complete what I started. It seems the right thing to do. It seems like a beating.
Time to take my lumps.
What follows is intended as an introduction to a larger story, a series of vignettes strung together by the narrator dipping in-and-out of a journal. I'm starting with 40 hand-written pages from a 7-day trip—many gaps to fill, details to embellish, research to do. Far more difficult to make sense of than I imagined when starting. I thought, hey, most of the writing is already done :)
It is also my intention to illustrate (from bad photo reference and memory) this small tale in any way that strikes my fancy. I'm comfortable in graphite and ink, but have started teaching myself to paint with oils. Should be interesting.
If you've not seen my illustration style, check out seteleven.com
If you've not sampled my writing style, check out a bit more of this blog.
If anyone actually reads this—now or further along the way—feedback, critiques or encouragement would be greatly appreciated. Please comment, +1 and share at will if it seems worthy.
If I can get enough personal momentum and generate some interest, I may consider launching a Kickstarter campaign to fund the production and promotion of a hardcover illustrated novel. Just a blog for now, but maybe, just maybe...
Well, I'm here. Marga's Playa Colibri, La Palma, Peninsula de Osa, Costa Rica. Not my intended destination; not on my itinerary; not a more wonderful chance encounter in recent memory.
Referred to as la costa rica—the rich coast—by Spanish conquistador Gil González Dávila in 1522 due to the prominent gold jewelry popular with the friendly natives, Costa Rica was first contacted by Christopher Columbus twenty years earlier during his fourth and final voyage of 1502. Prior to choosing his familiar Latin name, Columbus went by the adopted Spanish name of Cristóbal Colón. In addition to branding Costa Rica's national currency, the colón, his legacy is repeatedly invoked in the place-names of schools, streets and cafes. For example, my room last night in the capital city of San Jose was at the Hotel Meson del Angel, near the intersection of Calle 20 (20th Street) and Avenida Paseo Colón, the main east-west thoroughfare used for travel, festivals, parades and demonstrations. My first authentic Costa Rican meal was devoured in a bustling, blindingly lit, spiced and humid open cul-de-sac set into the side of a battered brick building at street level and grandly labeled Soda Colón. The meat was good. The proprietor was unceremonious but affable. The nine-year-old cashier was serious but helpful from her high perch behind the raised counter. The local crowd was largely ambivalent.
Ticos, as the locals call themselves (short for hermanitico, "little brother"), have so far struck me as generally friendly and mostly tolerant of my presence. Given their mixed heritage of indigenous tribes, Spanish conquerors, imported African slave labor and white European immigrants, race relations are good. And while I surely stand out as a gringo, I also blend in with a respectable contingent of hardy tourists and wayward expats. Recognizing the former only from a distance, I've already become quite familiar with the latter. It seems the expatriate "community" in Costa Rica is a potpourri (literal French translation, "rotten pot") of the determined and the displaced.
But this is getting a bit ahead. And I need a long nap. If things go as they did last night, after an early dinner, Marga will be anxious to "toke up" and discuss my chakras; James, a 65-year-old ex-Jesuit priest, will be repelled by the weed and grump downstairs to get drunk in the kitchen; Marga will fall asleep in her chair. I'll crack open my journal, locate a pen, burn a few candles and begin near a beginning.
Stay tuned for the next exciting entry...
I REPEAT: If anyone actually reads this—now or further along the way—feedback, critiques or encouragement would be greatly appreciated. Please comment, +1 and share at will if it seems worthy.
If I can get enough personal momentum and generate some interest, I may consider launching a Kickstarter campaign to fund the production and promotion of a hardcover illustrated novel. Just a blog for now, but maybe, just maybe...
NOTE: I started this project mid-November last year (2012) during an online writing workshop with the wonderfully talented and lovely Melissa Febos. She managed a small group or writers from Brooklyn in the wake of Superstorm Sandy's massive flooding. A trooper for sure and very encouraging.
My thanks go out to her again.
But now I must muster the will to continue alone and complete what I started. It seems the right thing to do. It seems like a beating.
Time to take my lumps.
What follows is intended as an introduction to a larger story, a series of vignettes strung together by the narrator dipping in-and-out of a journal. I'm starting with 40 hand-written pages from a 7-day trip—many gaps to fill, details to embellish, research to do. Far more difficult to make sense of than I imagined when starting. I thought, hey, most of the writing is already done :)
It is also my intention to illustrate (from bad photo reference and memory) this small tale in any way that strikes my fancy. I'm comfortable in graphite and ink, but have started teaching myself to paint with oils. Should be interesting.
If you've not seen my illustration style, check out seteleven.com
If you've not sampled my writing style, check out a bit more of this blog.
If anyone actually reads this—now or further along the way—feedback, critiques or encouragement would be greatly appreciated. Please comment, +1 and share at will if it seems worthy.
If I can get enough personal momentum and generate some interest, I may consider launching a Kickstarter campaign to fund the production and promotion of a hardcover illustrated novel. Just a blog for now, but maybe, just maybe...
Playa Colibri | 11:30am, Wednesday
Well, I'm here. Marga's Playa Colibri, La Palma, Peninsula de Osa, Costa Rica. Not my intended destination; not on my itinerary; not a more wonderful chance encounter in recent memory.
Bored with lying on my cot against the lone south wall and in far too much pain to stand for long, I'm sitting now—painfully—in a plastic chair at a plastic table, looking out across the Gulf from the center of an open 40-by-40-ft platform, itself the middle level of a squat, three-story concrete and stucco structure set into the trees 150 meters from the beach. Overcast and still, the morning is in perfect sympathy with my mood. The salt air works with an all-pervading mix of warm decay and cool growth; I can smell dead fish and fresh flowers, wet tree bark and living cedar—it's wonderful. Even with mosquito nets raised, I've seen no insects, but their presence is nearly overwhelming; millions upon millions of staccato chirps and clicks gather in waves that swell around me, dip low and flow through me—deeply soothing. Bug sounds, birdsong, a persistent crashing that seems to circle my position as old limbs give out and make way to the forest floor in random directions. Toss in the frogs and monkeys and somehow it all inexplicably refuses to drive me insane. I would stay here.
Located along the inner north-eastern coast of the Osa on Golfo Dulce, Playa Colibri is the home and fledgling business venture of Marga, a wiry white-haired 71-year-old former teacher from San Francisco. Although not yet operational, she intends to open as a yoga retreat next Spring. The property is owned by her son and sat "unused" for years until her arrival in '97. With a kitchen on the ground floor, two interior living/sleeping areas, a covered exterior space—now sheltering my 60-lb backpack and miserable body—and an upper deck with seating, solar panels and rainwater collection ducts, the salmon- and rust-colored building was constructed offset between a beautifully swampy mangrove estuary 30 meters to the west and a thriving campesino family estate 200 meters to the east.
Costa Rica's land laws offer significant protection for squatters putting disused land to good use, e.g. living and farming. After three months, occupants gain some rights to a plot without regard to any title holder. A year makes such peasant farmers extremely difficult to evict, even through the courts; after 10 years, a squatter can register the property as their own. I have no idea how long this family of 6 has worked their tiny farm, but the impressively hand-crafted house and outbuildings with nearly flat, shingled rooftops are all driftwood and odd angles; maybe 7-ft at the dramatically extended eaves, could be a hundred years old. Easy. Unable to discern from this distance what grows in the gardens, the grounds crawl with activity indicating they've harvested few chickens recently.
Understanding this situation might distress a property owner, it nevertheless warms my contrary-inclined, live-and-let-live heart. Still, righteously aggravated, Marga has done little more than ask the campesinos to politely move and file a request for attention through appropriate official channels. In return, the family house and chickens are forever tended by at least one semiautonomous child. Tit-for-tat, I suppose, but Marga doesn't actually have bulldozers lined up to level the place. Thus, this simple life goes on.
Located along the inner north-eastern coast of the Osa on Golfo Dulce, Playa Colibri is the home and fledgling business venture of Marga, a wiry white-haired 71-year-old former teacher from San Francisco. Although not yet operational, she intends to open as a yoga retreat next Spring. The property is owned by her son and sat "unused" for years until her arrival in '97. With a kitchen on the ground floor, two interior living/sleeping areas, a covered exterior space—now sheltering my 60-lb backpack and miserable body—and an upper deck with seating, solar panels and rainwater collection ducts, the salmon- and rust-colored building was constructed offset between a beautifully swampy mangrove estuary 30 meters to the west and a thriving campesino family estate 200 meters to the east.
Costa Rica's land laws offer significant protection for squatters putting disused land to good use, e.g. living and farming. After three months, occupants gain some rights to a plot without regard to any title holder. A year makes such peasant farmers extremely difficult to evict, even through the courts; after 10 years, a squatter can register the property as their own. I have no idea how long this family of 6 has worked their tiny farm, but the impressively hand-crafted house and outbuildings with nearly flat, shingled rooftops are all driftwood and odd angles; maybe 7-ft at the dramatically extended eaves, could be a hundred years old. Easy. Unable to discern from this distance what grows in the gardens, the grounds crawl with activity indicating they've harvested few chickens recently.
Understanding this situation might distress a property owner, it nevertheless warms my contrary-inclined, live-and-let-live heart. Still, righteously aggravated, Marga has done little more than ask the campesinos to politely move and file a request for attention through appropriate official channels. In return, the family house and chickens are forever tended by at least one semiautonomous child. Tit-for-tat, I suppose, but Marga doesn't actually have bulldozers lined up to level the place. Thus, this simple life goes on.
Referred to as la costa rica—the rich coast—by Spanish conquistador Gil González Dávila in 1522 due to the prominent gold jewelry popular with the friendly natives, Costa Rica was first contacted by Christopher Columbus twenty years earlier during his fourth and final voyage of 1502. Prior to choosing his familiar Latin name, Columbus went by the adopted Spanish name of Cristóbal Colón. In addition to branding Costa Rica's national currency, the colón, his legacy is repeatedly invoked in the place-names of schools, streets and cafes. For example, my room last night in the capital city of San Jose was at the Hotel Meson del Angel, near the intersection of Calle 20 (20th Street) and Avenida Paseo Colón, the main east-west thoroughfare used for travel, festivals, parades and demonstrations. My first authentic Costa Rican meal was devoured in a bustling, blindingly lit, spiced and humid open cul-de-sac set into the side of a battered brick building at street level and grandly labeled Soda Colón. The meat was good. The proprietor was unceremonious but affable. The nine-year-old cashier was serious but helpful from her high perch behind the raised counter. The local crowd was largely ambivalent.
Ticos, as the locals call themselves (short for hermanitico, "little brother"), have so far struck me as generally friendly and mostly tolerant of my presence. Given their mixed heritage of indigenous tribes, Spanish conquerors, imported African slave labor and white European immigrants, race relations are good. And while I surely stand out as a gringo, I also blend in with a respectable contingent of hardy tourists and wayward expats. Recognizing the former only from a distance, I've already become quite familiar with the latter. It seems the expatriate "community" in Costa Rica is a potpourri (literal French translation, "rotten pot") of the determined and the displaced.
If my host, Marga, is the determined, as she seems to be, then her resident chef and handyman, James—my impromptu guide and traveling companion during yesterday's unscripted 51-km hike down from Servicentro Chacarita, the abrupt endpoint of my truncated bus ride from San Jose, south into the mountains and up over the clouds—is certainly the displaced.
But this is getting a bit ahead. And I need a long nap. If things go as they did last night, after an early dinner, Marga will be anxious to "toke up" and discuss my chakras; James, a 65-year-old ex-Jesuit priest, will be repelled by the weed and grump downstairs to get drunk in the kitchen; Marga will fall asleep in her chair. I'll crack open my journal, locate a pen, burn a few candles and begin near a beginning.
I REPEAT: If anyone actually reads this—now or further along the way—feedback, critiques or encouragement would be greatly appreciated. Please comment, +1 and share at will if it seems worthy.
If I can get enough personal momentum and generate some interest, I may consider launching a Kickstarter campaign to fund the production and promotion of a hardcover illustrated novel. Just a blog for now, but maybe, just maybe...
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