Vacations usually start off simple at face value. People go places and do things to break the monotony of the life that has swallowed them whole. They need a change of pace, and then back into the whale they go – into the darkness, until they re-emerge for another breath of fresh air, next year. The reasons to refuel from life and get sucked into this maddening cycle could fill volumes, but sometimes the reason to escape is simple. People use any excuse they can to get out into the world. What better reason to leave the safety of home than a wedding?
Down in Costa Rica, they have a simple motto that sounds so on point that you’d think a team of marketing moguls threw it together in a Manhattan high rise. It is printed on shirts for tourists and slapped on billboards and uttered from the mouths of locals. Pura Vida! They say as they take your American money and explain how things are done in their parts. Pura Vida! They tell you as their smiles beam with a happiness I know I am missing. This morning, before I go to my office job to earn that almighty dollar, I am drinking Costa Rican coffee from one of those damn coffee mugs I purchased down there. And on the mug, with some wretched irony, the words: Pura Vida!
Pura Vida is defined as “this is living” in English. And it’s probably right. Because I sure as hell didn’t want to leave. Or go back to the way I was operating existence, for that matter. That plane ride back was downright miserable for so many reasons. I would happily go back right now – back to the day after the wedding where I was treading dark water – only now I would go until my legs give out, and I sink to the bottom of the ocean as I watch the technicolor-popcorn-clouds hang out like balloons over the sun as it lowers, with my heart, just beyond the silhouette of a volcano-shaped mountain.
That sunset is where I let go for the first time in what seems like ages…
The first leg of the trip was spent at an all-inclusive resort on the Guanacaste Peninsula. It is the kind of place that thrives on weddings and it is designed to fulfill all the needs of grandma’s from all over the world. No worries for all the guests. Things were taken care of, especially for those not used to travel, like me. The booze flowed freely and ocean breeze air-brushed the skin with cool kindness. The first day and a half at the resort were spent getting settled into the idea of being on vacation. And then came the wedding.
Sam looked so very lovely walking down the aisle in her white dress towards her future husband. I can only imagine the how that scene looked to her with an ocean view behind her lover. If joy has a physical manifestation I saw it on her face as she strolled towards her forever. Tyler stood cheerful and proud, like a kid in a candy shop. He is Tyler, ya know? He is one of those people in life. He is in that group I’ll know forever if only because we are both the right kind of weird. We are jamming along to the same tune. He deserves to be in love. And Sam is his lobster. Now they are both part of my forever weird. I don’t know really how to describe it. I just hope, if you haven’t experienced it already, that you get to watch planets form like I did.
I have known the couple for damn near a decade, and it was surreal to experience the sum of so many years in such a short period of time. By all accounts, the twenty-some guests in the crowd were happy to be there, as was I, watching a fairy tale unfold. Vida happened in a flash on that beach. Life, as I know it, is picking up speed exponentially toward something besides death. Death is the end, but that space in between is far more interesting and dynamic every day.
There was a hush over everything. I only heard the wind and the waves as I watched them say their vows. I felt like I was living in a silent movie as I sizzled in the Costa Rican sun and I thought to myself that this is how it’s supposed to work. This is the winners circle in the game of life. The glorious smiles and emotions that filled their faces helped ease my mind. It restored my faith in humanity, if only for a while. If I peel back the layers of that moment I think it would be fair to say that I was witnessing the true meaning of Pura Vida like some sort of Biblical revelation.
The rest of that day fades back in the memory banks. It was a dream, I’m sure of it. There were pictures taken. I did my speech and I don’t know what to think about it. I wish I was better with words. The reception was fun and free and friends danced and laughed and the magic was real. I passed out before everyone from the exhaustion of the day and awoke to drunken hooligans stumbling into our room. We then proceeded to narrate a children’s book about the miracle of birth with our protagonists being a sumo wrestler and Blue whale. We were up until maybe 3am. These things happen when half-hammered soul mates all hang out in small quarters long enough. Really, though, that’s how life spirals out when you lay in the wake of new friendship forged by situation and commonality.
The next day we went on a booze cruise and laughed until it hurt. But before we got on the boat I grabbed a raw coconut from a vendor and added some gin to prime the cannon. We climbed aboard the moving ferry boat and set out on a spotless day. The bartenders handed our group a bottle of Bloody Mary Rum as we traveled along the coastline and danced and watched our time on the coast fade. They stopped and everyone went snorkeling. That was nice but it was hard to see the ocean floor and all the Vida that explored the bottom. Sometimes it is hard to see what you really want and because, simply put, shit you can’t control gets in the way. That’s true, and only a little bit corny. We headed back toward the resort with dolphins at the side of our boat until with stopped to watch a good portion of that endless sunset that I talked about earlier. I finished that night out in that dark water, with my eyes fixed on that dying sun with the popcorn clouds. Like someone who let’s go of religion, I dropped a burden from my shoulders and I reached some sort of peace with my needs and desires in this life. Pura Vida.
That concluded the first part of our vacation. The next day we headed off to the jungle, to be where the wild things are.
And now I am about to go to work and dive into spreadsheets. Something seems to be missing here and there is a sense of doom in the air. But not for long. I will get back to this story soon. It doesn’t end here. There is more to talk about. Mas Vida.