Eduardo, the Protector

Eduardo, my landlady's ex-boyfriend who was using one unit to teach English to adults in before the breakup resulted in her turning it into laundry space, is a shouter. He is also highly protective, and seems especially determined (even without knowing my story yet) to make sure the single lady from the U.S. has a safe experience in the building and community.

This meant that before his classes had to be relocated I could not come or go from my unit without him stopping class to shout loudly, in very careful and formal English like he teaches, 'Hello, Mariah! Where are you going?' And the whole class would turn around and look at me until I answered.

One night just before six as the sun was setting (as it does at 6 p.m. year-round here), I tried to sneak past unnoticed. But like most good teachers, he could sense me even with his back turned through the open door to his classroom and whirled around.

'Where are you going, Mariah?' came the shout.

'To the Pali,' I replied.

'But it is dark out!' he shouted back. 'Are you sure you should walk there?'

'To the Pali,' I shout again, in case he misunderstood me.

The Pali grocery store (which I am told is the least expensive one in the country, and also gratefully has amazing produce) is steps away, literally, with several street lights on the sidewalk in between. He and his entire classroom--plus the dozen or so people out walking to get there themselves--can all see me the entire way there and are all within easy shouting distance.

'You must be careful!' he shouts.

This was the first one of his shouts that caused the women in his classroom to actually make eye contact with me, shaking their heads and rolling their eyes as if to say, 'Eduardo, the Protector! She is just going to the Pali!'

'I'll be careful!' I shout back, not adding that his ex-girlfriend walks back and forth into downtown daily till 9 p.m. and told me she has been doing so safely for 7 years. Or that this part of town is known for virtually no incidents of crime, which I asked and checked around about extensively before moving in.

But that is my new protective friend, Eduardo! And I could probably use a few of those in my life here.
Still, as our airline experiences post 9-11 illustrate, trading privacy for security does have its challenges!

Another day, just before the rains began, he saw me in town walking and pointed to my flip flops. 

'Have you ever lived in Costa Rica before, Mariah?'

I shook my head no.

'Soon it will be raining very hard. You must get yourself a pair of long rubber boots. You cannot walk around in those in the rain. It will not work. It will not be safe for you to walk around without the boots!'

I trotted in to the nearest store and bought myself a pair of boots (same kind I had on loan at the Casita for going in and out of the rain forest exploring.)

Well, the rains are here now. But I am the only one I have ever seen wearing the boots yet! Most people are walking around in sandals or flip flops. 

So the boots mostly stand outside my apartment, with my wishing I had the funds back for internet time or fresh produce instead! 

But the funniest incident caused by Eduardo's protective nature yet came last week. There is a fork in the road leading into downtown, which is great for me both because it gives variety in daily walks and because I can implement the self-defense principles I have living a pedestrian lifestyle in other cities: vary routes and times of day so nothing about your walking routine is predictable.
I had just made the fork to the left and was over on the far side shoulder, when he saw me coming the other direction out of the fork to the right.

'Hello, Mariah!' came the shout. 'Where are you going? You should be over here where there is sidewalk all the way into town. That is safer for you!'

Now, if the road did not have plenty of broad shoulder area on both sides, sidewalk most of the way, plus grass you can walk on... 
or if it weren't the far quieter and less trafficked road of the two, I might have agreed with him. Given how peaceful and easy to navigate it is, however, the other self defense principle of varying my routes between the forks has seemed wiser. But...I wasn't about to try to shout all that back across essentially the width of two roads and bridging the English as second language barrier!
He wasn't giving up, though.

'Where are you going, Mariah?' the shout came again.

By now, people have stopped walking and are staring back and forth between us, awaiting my answer.

'I am going to the Farmers' Market!' I finally shouted back, motioning the direction ahead of me, since that road takes me straight there.

The town practically is a Farmers' Market with year-round fresh produce everywhere, but there is only one event called the Farmers' Market: in a particular building on Friday mornings. And everyone in town seems to know about it.
But he apparently does not hear me.

'Where?' he shouts.

I cupped both hands to my mouth.

'To the Farmers' Market!!'

So now 30 or so strangers out walking and hearing all this (including the ones even stopping to stare and listen) know exactly where I am going!

It was so funny to me after I walked away and thought about what had just happened. I know he means well in trying to keep me safe, but asking me to loudly and publicly advertise my destination every time he sees me does not fit any of the safe walking kinds of classes I've taken or books I've read! Might as well just hang a sign with my destination on it around my neck each time I leave the apartment--in English, Spanish, Chinese and Dutch--so anyone who wants to can find me.

At least stories like these keep the rest of what is unfolding and what I am writing about from getting too dark!


Part II

Shortly after I posted the above, I had to return to my apartment from in town to eat and pick up a few things.  To my surprise, Eduardo and his English class were in the building, but this time up on the upper level of the apartments with no open door access to the outside--just windows.

I figured this would make it much easier to sneak past...but, no.

Once again the shout came, interrupting his English lesson to call out to me from above.

'Hello, Mariah!'

This time, presumably for his class to demonstrate how to use less than formal English like he typically does with me (and especially in front of them), the next line was different.

'What is new?'

Much as this may be a textbook informal English greeting, I can't remember the last time someone actually asked me that and as a result I stood there surprised and unable to think of anything that could be shouted back of what's new in my rather dramatic present life circumstances!

So instead I just kind of stared at him and his classroom full of adults turned and staring down at me and shrugged.

And that's when the depth of his protective side showed through.

He dropped the loud teacher tone of voice, leaned out the window, and asked me a question that caught me totally by surprise,

'Are you happy, Mariah?'

***

I was walking later that day.  The view of the Arenal Volcano and the surrounding mountains was breathtaking.  The air had not only its usual rainforest richness but also the kind of crispness that follows a really hard rain.  I was carrying a bag of fresh basil breathing its incredible aroma, (one of my favorite finds in one of the little produce shops that has since become at least a weekly stop--maybe a 7 x 4 bag stuffed full of basil fresh from an organic garden for 60 cents!)  I had completed another book chapter and was feeling productive and like you can after coming through a tough experience: relieved and grateful and excited about the prospects of how this work can help shift things for the whole.


And I suddenly thought of Eduardo's question again and realized that I am.  Happy, that is.  Very deeply happy despite all the ugliness and danger and difficulty of the past few weeks here in Costa Rica.

It struck me then that of all Eduardo's protective worrying concerns for me, this was the most important.

It is for all those we care about or are looking out for.

• Yes, it matters if my feet and clothing are protected from the torrential rains.

• Yes, it matters if I am able to walk safely on sidewalks away from the risk of vehicles hitting me.

• And yes it definitely matters as a single woman in a strange new country that I am keeping myself safe while walking after dark.

But the real question we all care about is Are you protected internally?  Are you safe inside?  Okay?  Happy?

***

When I arrived at the internet cafe later, I looked up the meaning of the name Eduardo.  

It means Guardian.  

Protector.  

I would say that he is living up to it.

101 Learning Curves: My Costa Rica Bus Adventures

I’ve been a foot/bus/train person for years now.  I’ve been one ever since I gave up car ownership in 2002 (hopefully for good!) for

• physical health, 
• environmental health, 
• community aspects and 
• the global and personal economy. So a country like Costa Rica whose motto is "Pura Vida" or "the pure life" is my kind of place!  Protecting the great rain forest air I breathe outside my writing view window daily by doing my part by riding the bus system any time I need to get to town just makes sense.

Of course, my lifelong challenges with motion sickness that seem to be at their worst in cars had a little something to do with my giving up car, too! If I had my way, I’d never have to get in another one again.  Plus I have a sense that future generations who find more pleasant and responsible modes of transportation someday will look back on us and say, “Why did they think folding themselves up into small spaces with poor quality of air and sitting for long periods of time in one position was in any way a smart thing to do or the best way they could come up with to get places?”

But…on to my newest bus adventures.

Learning the bus systems in cities like Dallas, Fort Worth, Santa Monica, LA, New Orleans and Grand Rapids in no way prepared me for learning this latest one!

Don’t get me wrong; I love the Tican bus system & am very grateful I can live the way I’m living out exploring and creating in the untamed wilderness and still get anywhere I need to go. It’s probably my favorite bus system so far in certain aspects of it, in fact.   

But a good chunk of my 101 learning curves since arriving in Costa Rica are coming from being a bus person trying to make that work here, I think!

First of all, there is the reality that schedules are posted nowhere.

(Tilaran bus station with waiting area)

• You will not find a bus schedule on the Internet.
• You will not find one in a bus station.
• You will not find one at a bus stop.
• You will not find one posted in a bus.

The Ticans seem to just magically know these schedules, so unless you are fortunate enough to have someone overview them for you so you can write them down…well, good luck!!

Nor is the system intuitive along the lines of say “the bus comes every 10 minutes” or even “every three hours.”

I did, gratefully, have two people help me with the times right away.  I can get from my place at the Aguacate bus stop a block from my driveway

to town (for me that’s Nuevo Arenal) by catching a bus at any one of the following times—and only those times:

7:30

10:30

12:30

1:00

3:00

5:00

(Those are the times at which we all start waiting for the bus, that is.  I was told to expect it to arrive any time between then and 20 minutes later—and it has proven true.)

Getting back by bus to Aguacate from Nuevo Arenal, however, 

does not follow any certain pattern matching those times that I’ve uncovered yet.

8:30

9:30

12:00

3:30

5:30

6:30

are the times that a bus will bring me home when I'm done with my shopping and errands.

Now say I want to go to Tilaran, a city 30 minutes the other direction from where I live. 

(view of the bus stop from the church)

I can figure out what time I can catch the bus in Aguacate by adding about 20 minutes to the above times out of Nuevo Arenal since the bus will go right through here.

And then I can figure out how to get back by subtracting half an hour from the first schedule I posted.

But in the beginning—before that had registered—I just had to ask the people around me at stops or stations who don't speak English with my limited Spanish what the schedule is, which is where one little somewhat costly mistake came in!

I think maybe 4 and 5 are confusing to non-English speakers in the way ses and siete can be to me at times.   Because not one but two people at the bus station told me 5:30 was one of the departure times.

Nope!  Final bus out of Tilaran leaves promptly at 4:30 (actually usually a few minutes before) and if you’re not on it…well, you’re paying for a $25 or so taxi ride instead of a $2 bus ride!  (And in my case, you’re also getting quite sick rounding all those mountain curves in the back seat of a low-to-the-ground vehicle.)

But at least it’s a mistake you only make once.

The fares on the other hand…

First you have to realize that, like the schedules, these are posted nowhere also.

And since three different companies run the buses, the fares are all different as well.

• They differ by what bus system you are boarding.
• They differ by what time of the day you are taking the bus.
• And they differ by how far you are going on each route.

I have not been able to figure out the pattern yet since I don't take most of the bus routes, though I imagine there is one.  But I have learned the hard way after a few frustrated bus drivers to write them down as I learn them on my written schedule I now carry with me at all times—and hope they aren’t dependent on who’s driving, too! (In defense of the drivers, the people here seem very warm and patient by nature, but I am pretty much the only non-Tican riding most of the buses I take, meaning they don't have to put up with waiting for someone to try to figure out the fare.) 

But that’s just one part of the fare challenge: knowing which bus route and time of day and destination charges what.

There's also the money system itself.

Like most everything else about the place, the money of Costa Rica is very pretty. 

And the conversion rate is gratefully pretty simple:  500 Colones equals $1.

But if you came here just thinking you’d pick up Spanish along the way and only know your numbers from one to nine, and if on top of that you’re writing a book or two in your head most of the time and especially while you wait for a bus that can easily be 20 minutes or so late, well…let me tell you!   2700 doesn’t sound anything like the words for “two” or “seven!”  (It doesn't sound much like it in English either, though, so who knows why I thought it would in Espanol!) 

Even 700 took me a while to get.  Between trying to remember the fare for that time of day and destination plus getting the Spanish number for 700 to stick in my head, I was rarely prepared with fare.

The poor frustrated driver for that particular route, destination and time of day!  I think after about the third time I found myself on his route and he had to keep repeating the fare while I helplessly shrugged and pushed coins at him till he found the correct amount, he looked like he was ready to ask me to walk.

But... 

I’m taking the approach out here that if you want to learn to ride the bike, you’ve got to be willing to fall off plenty before you do.  

So I resisted beating myself up over it, and just kept trying till I got it right. 

The day he picked me up and I handed him 7 100 Colones coins, his face broke into one of the biggest smiles I’ve seen.  Now we’re friends and exchange the few Spanish greetings and goodbyes I know each time I ride.

The buses can also differ dramatically in quality of ride, which is something very new to me in a bus system, and I imagine is a big factor in the wide range of fares. On the ride one direction you may find yourself bumping along in a converted school bus, and even one that picks up a school route in addition to the other passengers.

(two school buses side by side, waiting for passengers at the Tilaran station)

And in the ride back, you may be riding in luxury on a former tour bus—with your own adjustable light and air, curtains at the window, seats that tip back and music playing.

That brings up the other challenge.

Not all of the buses have ways to let the driver know you want to get off!

This has been a slightly terrifying experience a few times, given my challenges with the language.

One of those was one of the few times I took the bus after dark.  I had my arms full of a week’s worth of groceries, and considering that I’d told the driver my destination as I boarded (which you have to do so fare can be calculated) I wasn’t too worried about signaling him.  Still, as we approached Aguacate, I did try to find some kind of rope to pull or button to push unsuccessfully.

“He’ll stop,” I figured.  

I was a woman on her own with her arms full of groceries.  Walking back to a bus stop in the dark didn’t sound particularly wise, and since there were not a lot of passengers on that ride, I assumed he had probably noted the situation.  

(the beautiful little town I live in is right on a curve on Hwy 142; the steeple--even in the dark--let's me know when we're approaching it)

But as we hurtled through Aguacate with no sign of even slowing down, I realized that backtracking through the dark with my arms full was exactly what I would soon be doing!  

I jumped up and started down the aisle, balancing my groceries and myself in the rapidly moving bus as best I could, calling out, “Stop, please!” 

The bus driver did nothing.  No one around me did anything.  In fact, they didn't even seem to notice me.  (It gets very dark in Costa Rica once the sun goes down around 6 p.m.)

Finally, I remember the “Alto” on the red street signs all over the place that are shaped like our Stop signs in the U.S. and called out, “Alto, por favor!”

And the bus magically came to a stop—not too far past the bus stop.

I’m learning that I’m more likely to keep trying till I get my Alto’s and my Stop’s right if I laugh about it.  And I’ve also noticed that if I laugh, others seem to be more comfortable and free to enjoy the fun of the mistake with me.  So that night the driver and I had a good laugh, with him calling out encouragingly, “Alto!” after me as my bags of groceries and I stepped off the bus into the night.

Makes Me Think

Here are a few pictures taken through the glass window of a moving bus on the drive around Lake Arenal into Tilaran to showcase better why—despite all the above challenges—this is one of my favorite bus systems yet.

Imagine sitting in all the luxury of a converted tour bus for a 30-minute ride that only costs you $2 for these views!   That to me is worth putting up with all the above learning curves and then some! 

But then again, I’m writing this after I’m past most of those early mistakes.   

Not 

• while I’m running shouting down a bus aisle in the wrong language, 
• or misunderstanding the word for 700 for the third time on that route, 
• or missing the final bus out of a station for the day and having to take a taxi instead. 

Just those painful parts of the process of not wanting to fall off the bikes of life causing us to sometimes prefer to skip over to save ourselves the embarrassment or cost or feelings of helplessness or stupidity.

But the reward is so worth it! By the time we’re riding the bike—or in this case the bus—successfully, we tend to forget it was ever hard in the first place.

Wouldn’t we be more willing to tackle the hard things in life if we had gentle reminders of other times that we did that paid off? So we don’t forget where we started?  And how far we’ve come?

Which is precisely why I’m recording this learning curve in this blog. 

As an ongoing reminder.

You Can Take the Girl Out of the Country...

So does it strike anyone else as ironic that after working as hard and fast as I could to leave my rural roots behind and morph into the black dress and pearls arts-oriented city girl (which had always been an internal part of me waiting to be expressed) during my 15 years in the Dallas area...

 

that I would end up finding my perfect writing environment in a rustic Casita on a Farm in Costa Rica??!!

 

 

But life does seem to have a way of bringing us full circle, doesn't it?  And integrating all the mixed-up parts of ourselves if we let it, I think. 

It's not like I went straight from my Dallas days to this lifestyle, either. 

It took a while to figure out how to reconcile the complex intermingling of the little woods wanderer naturalist meets lover of Shakespeare and Handel that I remember being from about age 6 onward.

And it involved a somewhat confusing to others journey that took me from from Dallas to Fort Worth to Santa Monica to New Orleans to finally a healing season back in the small Midwestern town of my childhood home that I'd left far behind.

That was then...

(Dana Buchman in the speaking photo, Louis Vuitton in the one on the brochure to the left--both purchased at Neiman's, I believe, and each costing more than my total monthly expenses are now!)

My personal staff during those days of the rapid business growth consisted of

• a housekeeper,
• a gardener,
• a landscaper (and yes, those were two separate people--the one who tended my garden and the one who kept lawn and flowers beautiful),
• a personal assistant,
• an errand-running service,
• an image coach/personal shopper for wardrobe,
• a massage therapist who brought her table into my home weekly,
• a personal trainer who brought her equipment into it a couple times a week to train me
• and a succession of three different personal chefs.

I was, in other words, pretty high maintenance!! Or at least my chosen lifestyle was.

But this is now...and these are my daily neighbors in my very low-maintenance life...

(Taken out my writing view window, without zoom--just by sticking the phone out the open slats of glass--to give you an idea of how close they are.)

Those are examples of what is often between me and my rain forest/Swiss Alps combo writing window view!

And the closest thing I can see out my front window is a little Babe-like Charlotte's web entertainment by mommy sow and the piglets:

(Note: if you want a very entertaining picture of sibling rivalry, watch little piglets in action for a while!  They trip over themselves and each other trying to be first for Mommy's attention--and feeding.)

Can't imagine a single place in my life here that I could wear black dress, pearls and heels, actually!

Practically back to where it all began.

I grew up in the rural Midwest on about 60 acres of land.  Much of it was overgrown orchard, which is where I learned about that Naturalist side of myself in early childhood that is eternally fascinated by the ferns and mosses and new floral and fauna around each new bend out exploring.

We didn't personally farm the rest of our land, though.  It was rented out to area farmers and the only animals we had were cats and dogs.

But my Grandpa John was a gifted farmer, who somehow managed to farm something like 500 acres while also working a full-time job at General Motors! Some of the family found out after his death the high level of respect the area farmers had held him in, often consulting with him to learn what he was doing to so successfully utilize his land. My primary exposure to life on a farm was through that property, just half a mile up the road--helping bale hay or harvest pumpkins or watching cows being milked, and a fuzzy memory that maybe included a pig or two being there? Definitely some happy moments from my childhood.

When years later my father's secret life erupted publicly, I left rural life and everything about it in my rearview mirror.

Yet here I am in Costa Rica living Tican style and loving it!!

But while I didn't have a clue where exactly I'd be living in Costa Rica till a few weeks before my relocation and am as surprised as anyone that I ended up on farm, maybe that's the point. I am, after all, writing a book trilogy based on my father's secret life--and that secret life began on a farm.

Only this is not quite my father's farm!  Or his father's father's. 

Yes, the animals are somewhat the same.  The surroundings, the culture, the crops, the farming practices--and especially the blessed climate!--are all dramatically different.

 

Which also makes for a bit of a learning curve and some humorous mistakes.

My landlord was pretty gracious, as one illustration, when he tried to explain to me--after I asked if it was okay to pick the bananas anytime I wanted them off the plantation since he'd said they were free to me with the rent--that this is not like going out and picking apples off the trees in the overgrown orchard I grew up next to!  There's no way I could reach them to pick them apparently.  There goes my childhood idea of how bananas grow. :-)

This is taken of the buildings on the farm from the highest point on the slopes where the cattle graze and I write.  Far back building is my Casita; green area in front of closest building on the right is the banana plantation.

(It's fully organic, by the way.  One part of the tour I maybe could have skipped was of the vats full of what the cows leave behind. :-) This extended farming family imports a special worm from California that turns what's in the vats into a special kind of compost that allows them to use no chemicals at all in the farming.)

Perhaps it's this combo of the familiar with the exotic that's allowing me to finally re-embrace my rural roots with such enthusiasm--out snapping pictures regularly, much to my landlord family's amusement, I think--

(especially since we have babies like these, right now....)

 

 

This is not just a reminder of my past; this is a whole new world that includes some of my own unique top values, not just the ones handed down to me by my past and my family heritage.

To memories of my history it adds a new flavor: the things I craved and didn't have in my childhood.

• The adventure of being able to get all over a beautiful new country to so much diversity in a small space with the bus stop just a block from my farm's driveway...

(bus stop is the green building)

• The exotic aspect sprinkled in right alongside the ordinary and familiar that speaks to something deep inside me, reminding me there are so many new worlds beyond my own to be discovered and explored...

 

The peace and serenity in a different style and approach to life of the culture that the little back woods wanderer in me has perhaps always craved and needs to balance out the more intense sides of myself...

(views from my favorite spot I've found with wireless internet yet for my town days in Nuevo Arenal; one during the day and one as sun is going down to my right)

Loving it that it's looking like my lifestyle for these next years of the book trilogy completion and promotion will be the perfect intermingling of these two diverse sides of myself.

As per prior blog posts, I spend most of my week right now in complete solitude out in nature--or in my Casita surrounded by beautiful views of it--discovering and daydreaming and creating in this whole new world to me--which I totally thrive on.  An assessment one coach did for me about my best pattern for working a few years back identified Nature as the key stimulant to my creativity, and being out in it year-round yet uninterrupted from the flow of my creating is ideal for me.

But every quarter or so, I'll be resurfacing and heading to the cities in the States where my key networks are to reconnect with the community that cares about this issue and project and do speaking events and book readings...

...hopefully timing those trips in conjunction with major artistic events--

• Art Prize in Grand Rapids,
• Jazz Fest in New Orleans,
• the Van Cliburn in Fort Worth,
• and maybe take in a ballet in the Kodak theatre while in Santa Monica area,

so I still get my black dress and pearls cultural fix a few times a year as well. :-)  The world of the arts stimulates something very similar inside of me as a creator as being alone in the world of nature does.   

It's taken 46 years of life--and 15 years past when the key career counselor in Dallas suggested a pattern something like this would be my best and most sustainable fit and optimum way of making a difference for the whole--to figure out how to do anything like this! 

But, you know the saying: better late than...

Makes Me Think...

I've never fit easily into conventional society--perhaps because of such dramatically different sides to myself.  Tricky to do a pedestrian lifestyle in a nature-oriented but densely populated city like Santa Monica, for example, if your preference is to look and feel like you stepped out of a Dallas spa and are ready for a symphony performance when going out in public. :-)

Also very tricky to do the in-depth solitary wandering while creating writer's life out in nature if you run into people you know everywhere you wander, as I typically did in both of the beautiful cities of Santa Monica and New Orleans when trying to be productive there.

Here I have a daily hiking trail that takes me up to an incredible view of acres and acres that is just me and the farm animals, no interruptions in my solitary little Casita from phone or internet or drop-in guests, and on my town days when I'm trying to stay focused enough to complete blog entries I'm rarely interrupted.  I don't speak the language, and I look like I don't.

Perfect blend for me of the general connection to humanity with all the fun of life happening around me but able to stay in flow for maximum productivity!

Not a conventional life at all.  But then again, if we were each fully true to ourselves,

• would any of us fit all that well in trying to blend into the lemming-like nature cultures naturally lump themselves into? 
• aren't each of us a mixture of complex parts? 
• and might the world not be an even better place if we could figure out ways that allowed us to fully embrace and express all sides of ourselves? 
• and all give each other that freedom daily?

It might also make it easier for us to answer that highly individualized question of reconciling our histories with our own uniqueness:   How do we mine our own unique diamonds out of the coal that is passed down to us from the generations before?

My hope is that this optimum environment will allow me to stop running from the intensity of this call on my life and do the dark, hard, yet beautiful kind of storytelling that needs to be done if we're going to turn the tides on this issue of childhood sexual abuse that impacts 1/3 of the population in such damaging ways--with ripple impact to the rest.

It is the quest I am on here in this Costa Rica Writing Adventure...

• a world away, 
• yet also only a few steps away,
• from my rural roots.

My Writing Day

My days here in Costa Rica literally begin at the crack of dawn.  At around 5:30 a.m. when the roosters get their first glimpse of light, they are up crowing--followed closely by a variety of bird noises--some familiar and some completely new to me--that surround my Casita and pour in from the rain forest next to me.  By around 5:45, the cattle are streaming past one of my windows being herded onto the slopes for the day.  (And sometimes I'm up even earlier, given that one of the ranchers lives off site and pulls in around 4 a.m. most days--parking right near my window.)

Amazing as it has been to me after being a night person all my life, my circadian rhythms have adjusted beautifully here!  It's a consistent sunrise and sunset year-round, which is new to me, so that may have something to do with it.  Sun is up by 6 a.m. and begins setting at 6 p.m.  By 7 p.m. it is very dark everywhere--and it's not uncommon for my day to end around 8 if it has begun at 4, or 10 on days when I manage to sleep through the roosters till 6.  I write or work on the book for 12 hours out of the 16 hours of awake time, and break those 12 hours roughly into 4 3-hour segments.

After my Bible & Breakfast time, when dishes and shower are done, I spread out the scene cards for Book I.  It's an 11 x 11 grid--11 chapter each with 11 scenes--and fits beautifully on the island in my kitchen. 

This process of setting it out daily puts the big picture of the book fresh into my mind so that while I head out on my morning hike, I have already begun the first step: creating the day's scenes internally.
This is a key part of the writing process, as many of our greats from history have written about.  Wordsworth, C.S. Lewis, and more recently best-selling author Jonathan Franzen have discussed how key their hours of walking out in nature have been to the work they've been able to create. 

Stephen Covey in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People would label this the First Creation phase.  Everything has two layers of creation in his teaching, and those who take the time to create internally first do more effective work.

I have definitely found this to be true in my writing.  So on go the hiking boots (which here, due to the frequency of the rains and nature of the clay ground are mudding boots--compliments of my landlord family!)  And on goes the backpack, with plenty of water and my writing notebook for capturing ideas and phrases as they come to me while doing this level of internal creation of the scenes for the day.
 

 

 

This is probably my favorite part of my writing days!  To quote Cicero, "Only the mind that is relaxed can create, and to that mind ideas flow like lightning."  I could not have asked for a more perfect set-up for my best creativity!  I carry this lightweight stool on my back--taking photos and gathering wildflowers on my way up and down the trails--and set it up on one of the highest points on the ranch property, with a beautiful segment of forest to my back for shade.

 

These are some of my views.

 

That's the town of Aguacate far below in the above picture.  And the one below is of the buildings on the ranch I live on, including my Casita which is the far back one, from my writing spot that I hike to daily.

 

 

These are my only neighbors and companions while I work, for as far as I can see!! 

 

No one else is out on this private property from the time the cattle are herded out to graze in the early a.m. till they are herded back before sundown. What the pictures can't do justice to (including the views, since I'm just using a little phone camera with no zoom or other special features to it) is the amazing quality of the air and wind coming off the lake, from the brook that runs through the property and from the rain forest behind me!!

 

Back at the Casita, I take a quick cool shower to regulate my body temp adjustment from working out in the sun and humidity to working indoors, arrange the wildflowers I've gathered during the hike to brighten my writing space, and make and eat a healthy snack and shift gears.

I write anything new that I need to for the scenes so it can have time to gestate before the rewriting phase.  I also edit the previous day's work. 

 

My writing positions can be varied throughout the Casita--both for variety and for physical health.  I do some of the writing from a stool at the bar by my writing window (see a prior blog post on my writing views.) 

 

Some of it I do at the table from the chair. 

 

 

Some I do standing at the end of the island, facing toward the writing view window. 

 And while this may sound funny, some of it I do bouncing on an exercise ball at the foot of the bed!  (This one is perfect height for my bed height, and bouncing on it while you write I've heard is good for both spine and lymph system.  Plus it adds that fun, playful connection-to-childhood element to each day.  It bounces really well on the polished clay floor, too!)

 

 

While I make lunch and do the clean-up from it, I listen to music.  This is my first auditory stimulation of the day beyond the sound of the animals, and by then I'm needing a bit of a change of pace and stimulation!  After lunch, I shift to siesta position in bed for the afternoon to do the slower-paced more artistic writing as I seek to craft each scene so it sings.  This is actually the angle from which I do my best creative writing--probably per the above quote by Cicero--and in this culture and climate, afternoon siesta time after such an early morning lends itself perfectly to that more slowed-down pace of the brain and body from which I do my most poetic writing. 

 

I start into it by reading samples I've gathered through the years of my favorite poetry and prose to get myself into a hopefully more artistic sounding voice in my writing.  I also have gathered items related to the scenes of the book that help make them more concrete and stimulate other parts of the brain; these items, such as the samples pictured, travel with me from place to place in this portable filing system.

 

This part of the day is the culmination of all that goes before it and is what takes the work of the day into a finished product.  To shift gears, I watch the sunset from my front window and then draw the curtains and close up the windows that don't have screens on them for the night (or any light attracts the moths like crazy!)

I typically watch a favorite television episode or short movie from the ones I have downloaded on my laptop with me (opted for no television, dvd player and cable here, though it comes with the rent, to protect my writing focus and input streams.)  That gives me something to get my mind off the book for a break while preparing supper, eating and doing the clean-up after--as well as any little puttering household tasks required.

 

My evening writing segment involves mapping out some of the next day's work as well as any blog entries.  I try to make this time as concrete as possible as well, using a clustering technique in notebooks with colored pens that I learned years ago for maximizing creativity.  This tool is also known as mindmapping, and I have a stack of notebooks mapping out each scene in color and diagrams that has to travel with me everywhere I and the project go! 

 

I also download, crop and organize photos during this time for blogs and (for the future) the books to add another visual element and variety aspect to the writing day.  I also read back through past drafts and mindmaps of the scenes for the next day during this time.

 

After a healthy bedtime snack (required for my blood sugar issues), I unwind by reading or doing a little Sudoku.  And that's my day--4 days a week! 

 

The difficulty of the writing process for this level of writing and the darkness of the subject matter are tempered by the variety and by honoring all I've learned about myself and my own rhythms through the years.

 

Makes Me Think:

 

I owe a major debt of gratitude to all the coaches, writing mentors, counselors and arts-oriented friends along the way who have helped me learn my best mode of working and ideal conditions for doing my top work.  I could not be to this level in either my writing or my personal development now without them!!

 

And it makes me think of what one of them (actually a coaching mentor to one of my coaches) likes to say.  Every single person is a national treasure in terms of what we each have to give to the world.  It becomes a personal stewardship journey to gradually--no matter how long it takes and how deep the root system is that is required--to find out what that is and how to maximize our potential.

 

Please keep me in thoughts and prayers that it will all pay off in producing works of the calibre they need to be to help spark more of a movement for stopping childhood sexual abuse!!