Living with Jungle Critters

Kiss. Kiss. Kiss. The strange noise wakes and frightens me. Something has invaded the sleeping area of our large safari tent. A frog? A large beetle? A snake? All kinds of creatures inhabit this Costa Rican jungle. It could be anything. Kiss-kiss-kiss. My husband sleeps peacefully beside me, so it’s not him. I sit up in bed and shine my headlamp over the canvas walls and high ceiling where a large fan revolves. Nothing. But the noise continues. Finally sleep overcomes my fear.

Costa Rica has between 200,000 and 250,000 species of insects. This doesn’t surprise me. At least a third of them must dwell in this forest. As I ascend the trail from our tent, perspiration streaming down my face, the air vibrates with the deafening, incessant buzz of cicadas. Ahead of me two black beetles with yellow stripes scurry under a log. Tiny insects flutter past. I stop to observe a moving trail of green triangles, just the hard-working leaf ants bearing their cargo to their underground nest. Lizards scamper away as I approach. This air, this soil pulsates with activity.

At breakfast in the main tent, I’m taking in the panoramic view of the blue-green water of the Pacific when I hear the kissing noise again.

“Did you hear that?” I say to the others. “That’s what was in our tent last night.”

“It’s a gecko,” says my son, who, along with his girlfriend, is managing this eco-lodge.

What relief. I can live with the tiny salamander-like geckos which creep about on walls and ceilings. They eat insects. So do some birds, like the flycatcher we spot and the colorful squirrel cuckoo which dines on cicadas, wasps and caterpillars. The white-nosed coati that passed by our tent was no doubt foraging for tasty beetles and spiders. Insects are not even safe at night. Sitting at a small bar lit by a string of tiny lights along its base, we discover a nocturnal visitor, a large warty toad whom we name Kermit, or Rana René, as  they say in Costa Rica. I watch his tongue flick out in a flash to devour bugs drawn to the light. He makes quick work of a very large grasshopper. Later we meet several of Kermit’s cousins further along the walkway.

Other jungle inhabitants prefer hanging out in trees, like the howling monkeys pigging out on the mangoes dangling over our heads. The ceibo trees are in full brilliant bloom, their red flowers attracting a multitude of yellow butterflies.

We descend from our hilltop lodgings to an uninhabited white beach. Well, not exactly uninhabited. Hermit crabs hide in tiny shells while the larger ghost crabs speed to their burrows or into the sea as we approach. I follow uniquely patterned prints in the sand to depressions covering the eggs deposited the night before by two sea turtles. How many will survive? Then I notice wiggly prints in the sand. “A snake!” I call to the others. It’s a yellow-bellied sea snake struggling to return to the water.

My son points out a drama unfolding in the shallows – hundreds of tiny fish fleeing over the surface in leaps and bounds to escape a large dark shadow visible just behind them. Fish face danger from overhead as well, where pelicans glide and frigate birds soar watching for a catch.

The word to describe this landscape is intense. Intense heat. Intense rains. Flamboyant oranges, yellows and vibrant greens. Countless varieties of unique species, all working members of a complex, wondrous living network.  I know that I have only glimpsed an infinitesimal part of this jungle world.

Otoño

My garden reveals its own names for the seasons. Today it tells me that fall is the time when:

the hummingbirds return to town after their summer get-away

chrysanthemums perfume the air with their pungent scent

bougainvillaea petals among the chrysanthemums

the leaves on the snowball bush blush in tones of burgundy

yellowing leaves of the apricot tree flutter to the ground

camellia branches bear swelling buds, pregnant with promise

leaves on the tomato plants recoil from the cold

turtle doves and chincoles discover something interesting in the dry weeds where a lawn once grew

the scent of wet, dry leaves evokes childhood memories

sequoia branches sway in greeting to the wily wind

and sister sun follows a more northern path

street sweeper with Chilean rake

The Egg Lady

“Remember going out to Mrs. Bianchi’s?"
             Paula laughs. “Yes! The egg lady!”

Our long distance, weekly phone calls replenish our spirits. Together we reminisce driving with our moms out to the northern California hamlet of Woodacre, a primarily Italian community of houses, farms, a church and a general store embraced by rolling hills. We’d turn off the main road to a country lane and pull up in front of white wooden house set behind a fence. There we’d buy fresh country eggs. Ours were not big families, yet our mothers felt it was worth the effort to make the trip. It wasn’t far, but it was out in the country.

            “My mother always gave me soft boiled eggs for breakfast.” I tell Paula. “I hated that runny gelatinous slime. It would stand before me turning cold as I tried to gather up the courage to eat it.”

“Me,too! Awful! Just couldn’t get them down and would barf all over my St. Anselm’s school uniform!”

“Those early soft-boiled ruined me for eggs for life!” We howl with laughter at this yet another convergence in our childhood memories.

I haven’t changed my opinion over the years. Scrambled and egg salad I’ll accept. Forget poached, fried or eggs Benedict. I now justify my egg phobia pointing to the mass egg production process, herding thousands of hens into wire cages with no elbow room and just food and water. Only free-range go into my shopping cart.

            I can no longer picture Mrs. Bianchi, but I do remember the trip. What a treat sharing those memories with Paula, recollections only she and I, as lifelong friends, can appreciate. Our phone conversations ripple with laughter:

“Remember the Russian Dance in ballet class with those flowered headdresses and streamers we’d wear?”I ask.

“Yes! Yes!”

“Didn’t your mother have an old grey Plymouth?”

“Yeah. It was a 1939 coupe, dark grey, had running boards (remember those?) and a rumble seat.”

“Remember our buckeye apple fight with those mean kids in your neighborhood? I’d walk alone to your house over hill and dale. No roads or subdivisions between my house and yours.”

“I know.”

“What was the name of that crazy, untrainable dog you had?”

“Folly.”

“That’s right! Now that Easter is coming up, I think of the photo of us decked in our Easter dresses and hats sitting in our front garden.” I say.

“And the gin fizzes that our parents drank Easter morning.”

            “At your house.”

“No, it was your house!”

“Sometimes we’d go to the Hamilton House in Fairfax for Easter brunch.”

“I remember that place, right across the road from where you and I go every year for dinner.”

“Our restaurant.”

“Let’s have a long distance toast on Easter.”

“Yes, let’s. Cheers.”

“Love you.”

Fall Explorations

 These golden-brown fall days spark nostalgia. The scent of wet leaves underfoot and a wood fire. A campfire. Bright crackling flames in a dome of darkness. Roasting marshmallows and singing old Girl Scout ditties: Down yonder green valley where streamlets meander.... 

    Fall is bright days punctuated by an occasional shadowy day, like today. I pull on my Berkeley sweatshirt and take off for a stroll. I am grateful for the growing coolness after the harsh summer heat and savor the soughing of the paper-dry leaves waving to the breezes, tapping like strings of wooden beads.

    Five months without respite from this city stirs in me a need for a distant, uninterrupted horizon stretching out before me. Forest and ferns, paths through moist soil, gurgling streams, fresh cool air filling my lungs. While I wait for an escape to the countryside, I take refuge in a new book, Robert Moor’s On Trails: An Exploration. Just what I need. The author, while hiking the Appalachian Trail, begins to ‘ponder the meaning of this endless scrawl.’ He wonders who created the trail and why does it exist. Some trails are very old, often starting as animal paths. Usually, no one person made the trail; it just emerged satisfying a need. 

      I wish I’d read this before treading the many paths I’ve covered over the years. Trails invite me to appreciate and communicate with the natural world, maybe spotting a kingfisher, a frog, a coyote, or a delicate forest orchid. But did I stop to wonder how this trail emerged or who were the first to walk it? Native peoples? Deer? Rabbits? Wild boar? I think we humans share most trails with animals. Though smaller animals – skunks, rabbits, badgers – have an advantage over us, carving narrow paths through thickets and prickly grasses where we just do not comfortably fit.

Chilean kingfisher

        Although a sporadic hiker, I possess a deep treasury of trail memories which bring me great pleasure. In case my memory fails, I can turn to my travel journals that include descriptions of the trails I’ve known. Yet, what gives me the most joy is recalling sharp visual memories of those landscapes – whether they be Patagonian glacial moraines or slopes of California’s Sierra Nevada – scenes I can call up on a moment’s notice.

Mr. Moor explores the deeper meanings of paths: the roads we choose to follow in life. Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken comes to mind. Many writers and philosophers have pondered these meanings: Emerson, Wendell Berry, Lord Byron, Bruce Chatwin in Songlines. Rebecca Solnit devotes an entire book to exploring people’s meanderings in Wanderlust: A History of Walking.

I don’t know which will be my next trail, but I do know I’ll be pondering its origins. Will I unknowingly leave a subtle sign here marking my passing? A bent fern frond? A footprint?  Will I be changed by having taken this path? Will it have made all the difference?

Sweater Weather

Three days into fall and our first overcast day. Fog. Having grown up in the San Francisco Bay Area, I’d know fog anywhere. The deep bass sounds of the fog horns are rooted in my childhood memories. I can read the sky. The fog will not clear today. I sit sipping two cups of coffee, alternating my attention from Wolf Blitzer to the pairs of doves and sparrows poking in the grass for tidbits.

            Silence pervades our house (aside from the television which I’ve now turned off, totally disgusted with the repetition and evasion of spokesmen and lawmakers). My husband is away for five days, off to a southern lakeside home with his running pals. I enjoy having days home alone. I consider the possibilities of how I’ll spend my time. My first decision is to eat only salads while he’s gone and cycle at the gym across the street every day. This is day three and I’ve stuck to my guns.

I’ve watched more television than I’d like. There’s a TV at the gym and I get caught up in sugary, totally predictable dramas, even hurrying home to watch the finale. An inner voice tells me that I’m not spending my time well. I wrote in my last blog post of my admiration for astrophysicist Neil de Grass Tyson who stated that knowing he’s going to die someday gives the focus to his life. I feel impelled to do something productive in my days. Yet…I tell myself that we all need some lightness and fantasy in our lives. Perhaps watching that silly movie earlier has loosened my writing tongue.

An overcast day spent in solitude encourages thoughtfulness. My thoughts are with my son and his girlfriend, who at this moment are flying from New York City to Costa Rica to a new job and an adventurous change. My son was feeling melancholy these past days, moving out of his apartment and leaving friends and the city that was his home for the past five years. I feel his sadness. New beginnings often start with difficult partings.

So what have I accomplished today? Aside from Pilates class and cycling? Well, I did plant the two lavenders in the large pots by the front door. I look out the window to admire them. And I painted my nails (clear polish) which I seldom make the time to do. I’m overdue posting something on my blog. I tried to call my soul sister in California, but no answer. Think I’ll try again. Then I’ll tackle the pile of papers to be shredded. I’m saving the best for last today. My sister-in-law and I will go downtown to attend a concert by the Orquesta Sinfónica. Tchaikowsky and Greig. Music for the soul on a foggy day.

Small Joys

My Facebook and emails overwhelm me with multiple petitions to sign – save the elephants, no to Environmental Protection Agency budget and staff cuts, investigate Trump’s ties with Russia – and I sign them all. I’d vowed to cut my addiction to Face book “news” and to CNN, but I haven’t been very successful. Quite honestly, I haven’t tried. Today I miss Wolf Blitzer only because I forget that last Saturday the U.S. went on daylight savings time, so all the programs are an hour later for us in Chile.

            Buried amidst the repetitious posts and emails on the U.S. administration’s latest gaffs and lies, I discover some gems: a video interview with Neil de Grass Tyson, astrophysicist, a new acquaintance of mine. He expressed so eloquently the philosophy of life that I hold to now in my seventieth decade: Knowing that he’ll die creates the focus that he brings to being alive. He speaks of the urgency of accomplishments and the need to express love NOW.

            Reconfirming and expanding on these weighty thoughts are quotes from writers I find in Maria Popova’s Brainpickings newsletter. Two more gems are from Annie Dillard: “How we spend our days, of course, is how we spend our lives.” And on a post-it stuck to my computer screen you will find: “Life consists of what a man is thinking of all day.” Then there are words from Hermann Hesse praising life’s small joys. He asserts that the most available and most overlooked of small joys is our everyday contact with nature. Oh yes.

Brainpickings is addictive. One article links me to another which connects me to a book or an author. I stop to look at an illustration by Maurice Sendak in Ruth Krauss’ book Open House for Butterflies of a small boy sitting by a stream with the caption: “Everybody should be quiet near a stream and listen.” Something I do whenever I can, but not often enough. Streams are not readily available to the big city dweller.

Speaking of city dwellers, writer and photographer Bill Hayes comments on life in New York City, saying he makes a point of waving or nodding hello whenever he can. “…kindness”, he says, “is repaid in unexpected ways….”

My city garden offers me many small joys. This summer I’ve been watching closely the progress of my four potted heirloom tomato plants. I’m learning as I go. Because they are potted, the plants are not very big. I resort to Google to find out why their leaves have curled. Too hot? Too much water? One has several tomatoes, slightly larger than golf balls. We ate the first two to ripen. Absolutely divine. Definitely worth the effort. And the scent of their leaves – heavenly.

More garden events: at summer’s end the apricot leaves are turning lemony yellow and falling to the ground; the abundant avocados grow steadily; the nasturtium leaves are infested with little green voracious caterpillars, the result of eggs laid by white butterflies; two azalea bushes have their first blooms; the camellia is covered with buds, promising winter color.

Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt.  John Muir

                                                                 

The Way of Water or What to Do with My Anger

My anger seethes. In theory, I know it is not healthy, yet I seek out what produces it. It’s an addiction. My anger came to a peak after watching the movie “Welcome to Sarajevo.” Critics claimed it was not accurate and that there are better movies about the Bosnian War. Still, it brought home to me the horrifying consequences of war, particularly for children. I immediately thought of the ongoing suffering of the children of Syria. These tragedies are happening now, in the present and, yet, the current American President wants to build up the military and reduce the budget for diplomacy and the environment. There is the root of my anger – a Presidency that foments anger, hatred and fear and mocks the values of honesty, tolerance and compassion. I recommend that the current Administration be locked in a room and shown “Welcome to Sarajevo,” the current documentary “The White Helmets” and Al Gore’s “The Uncomfortable Truth,” exposing them to the raw truths they choose to deny.

    What to do with my anger? I found a positive answer in the latest blog by writer, Ursula LeGuin. The current political climate also has her asking the question: What do I do? She says: “I am looking for a place to stand, or a way to go, where the behavior of those I oppose will not control my behavior.” In the thoughts of Lau Tzu she finds an answer: the way of water. Water is a metaphor for nonviolent resistance, for it is adaptable, changeable, passive, yet unyielding, always going the way it must go. It is a thirst-quenching glass of clear water; it is the persistence of the ocean currents; it is a stream wending its way to the sea.

    I will be a part of the resistance, but I must now break my addiction to CNN and Face book if I intend to follow the way of water,