A lot of times I sit and look out the window of my apartment and I think: "Whew! It’s been a long road. Where are we headed next?" Finding myself in the suburbs of San Jose, Costa Rica doesn’t surprise me at all. Not one bit. I always knew that it would be this way, even when I was in college. Even when I had my life carefully planned out for myself. When I thought that I would get out and go to work for a brokerage house and get married at 27 and have kids at 30 and work for 50 weeks out of the year and vacation for those two weeks that everyone gets. Possibly, Down At The Gulf of Mexico, as the song goes. Those two weeks as a non-person. Anonymous. A tourist in some silly flowered shirt and shorts with a wife in a silly flowered sundress with a stroller and a kid and a camera.
But, somewhere along the way I got twisted. I got warped. Maybe it was the day that I was sitting in one of those high-backed leather chairs in the bar at the Ruth’s Chris across from my office, sipping a Manhattan and flirting with some sales assistant from the Bear Stearns office upstairs in the same building. When she asked me what kind of car that I drove, my eyes flashed out in utter repugnance and I casually said that I did not have a car, but rather a helicopter that was stationed on the roof, and would she like to come for a ride sometime?
Or, maybe it was when I started to talk about it with people after having rolled it around in my mind for months. I once spoke with a friend of mine that is quite easily old enough to be my father. (I find myself surrounded by friends that are twice my age. I value their advice.) I told him that I was thinking about taking some time away and going to Costa Rica. He said: "Do it now while you still can."
I guess I started then, like people boarding up their houses in lieu of a massive hurricane which might alter their entire existence. Then, I started to wonder: Just what is it that you are looking for?
More months passed, and although I still didn’t have an answer I continued to nail my house shut, one board at a time. I hoarded my cash, bought my plane ticket and packed my bag.
On the day I left, I said goodbye to no one. There was no one. I remember riding the transit train down to the airport at 2am the morning before. It was the last train and I had to check in for my flight two hours before, which meant that I needed to be at the airport at 4am. The train roared to the airport and I sat, alone, with my one carry-on bag, in the car and I knew that things were never going to be the same again.
I boarded my flight and we took off. I looked out the window at the Atlanta skyline and waived. The stewardess came around and offered us drinks. "Sure," I said. "How long is the flight?" Five hours, she told me. I told her to just give me five beers and I would be okay. So I sat there at seven in the morning, and sipped my beer, and waited.
When we touched down in San Jose and I got through customs, I stood for a moment looking out at the chaos of taxis and cars and buses and people all clamoring for a fare or looking for a loved one or waiting for a tourist. The automatic doors opened and I stepped out into the humid morning, and then it hit me: freedom and knowledge.
I had been looking for those things that we all value, but sometimes never achieve in our short lives. The freedom to do what I want, when I want, and for whatever reason that I want. And, the knowledge to know exactly how things work. Oh, and it was here. Maybe it was in a lot of other places, but it was most definitely here.
And thus began my journey throughout Costa Rica. I vowed allegiance to no one and nothing. I was and I am an orthodox hedonist. I didn’t want to travel to say that I’d been there; I wanted to live there to say that I’d lived there. So, if I spend two years somewhere, writing about it, learning the language and the customs, then it’s because I am planning the next two years and the next two years and the next two years…