The morning after

Yesterday at the LA airport when the US Customs Officer handed my passport back he smiled and said, "Welcome home". I very nearly shed a tear. If you know me, you know how rare that is unless I am watching a video about suffering animals or a smalchy dog food commercial. Not that I was desperate to get back. I wasn't. In fact, I'm really not even back yet. I am between worlds. Here and there. Last night I dreamt about Centroamerica, the people and places we came to know. The friends we made. The animals, the smoldering volcanoes, the Mayan world, ancient and today. The interesting, sometimes bizarre travelers sharing the road. The horrible (not)cobble stone streets of Antiqua and winchy sidewalks embellished with neck-breaking, jaw-crushing drop-offs and skull-bruising windows overhanging the narrow and wildy irregular passageways. Bar none, the sidewalks in Costa Rica take the tarta. They include sudden, unmarked holes deep enough that Mr. Lee, who is 6'3, could stand upright in some of them and disappear completely from view unless you happen to be standing right at the edge of one of these random and inexplicable gapes. I even miss them. They challenge my Attention Deficit Disorder by turning the simplest Sunday stroll into an adventure dangerous and thrilling enough to rival even the edgiest episode of Survivor. And the mossy, moldy, cracked and crumbling walls being ravaged by trees and sagging under creepers blooming up and over. I especially miss them and the lull of languages, like the language of birds, a welcome hiatus from too much information.

Already the conveniences and routines of life here are reclaiming me from that improvised, life-size, handmade reality that opens and closes like nocturnal flowers. Don't get me wrong. I am glad to be back. Certainly the good ol' EE. UU. (US en Español), is an amazing and wonderful place that I am fortunate to call home. And, yes, it is good to be back to my own language although, of course, we are both going to work on our Spanish every day because we are going back and anyway learning a new language is a good workout for the brain. Certainly traveling to and in Mesoamerica is a huge pain in the ass but the place has gotten in our blood. I don't want my world to be complete without all that chaos and mystery and color and, of course, the sweet empanadas we bought every Sunday from the nice woman who baked them then sold them out of the back of her station wagon while her family sat in the car and waited. And oh... those tasty pineapple tartelettes on special occasions. But this morning, in spite of the nostalgia, I managed to fill the feeders in the Bird Park. No one has discovered it yet but they will. Someone will do a fly-by and discover the payload. Oh yes.