Journals from the Jungle IX: Save the Life You Can
One day you finally knew
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Welcome to Journals from the Jungle—a series of stories from my recent travels, drawn straight from the pages of my journals. These are reflections on breaking free from a life of structure, convention, and societal expectations, and finding my way back to an embodied, authentic self. Through journeys in nature—and into the nature of self—through adventure, challenge, rest, and the dramatic dismantling of old beliefs, I explore themes of freedom, pleasure, love, and the strength that comes from shedding what no longer serves us. I hope these stories inspire you to embrace change, reclaim your vitality, and live more freely.
HRV 140. HR 40. This is such an incredible place, and way to live for bodies. Either exercising or at rest and never in between.
Two days remain. Ouch.
But, that house …
It’s hard to think beyond right now.
I sleep? I sleep. I wake up eager, eager, eager. And happy too. Definitely happy.
Everyone asks if I’m ever coming home, do I live here now? I say no, and yes, and it feels right. They say, You look so happy. My friend sends me a Mary Oliver poem and it’s the first time I’ve cried on this trip.
I am just riding this wave. Like I know to, because eventually it will break. Like Dad taught me, like nature taught me. I am, I am. And, I can’t handle my life right now—it’s immense.
Could I describe how I feel right now? I feel …
… suspended. Between moments. Liminal (though I hate that word). And I realize again how much of what I write—how I write, how I know how to even—comes from feeling. How I feel, which is so forceful. From direct experience, and then attempting to articulate that. And so of course I love being in the throes. I love being overpowered.
~
A couple of us sit on the beach, watching the waves and sometimes talking.
Me: “Is there always a breeze here?”
“Yes.”
Me: “Of course there is.”
We talk about how slow it is here, and how fast New York is.
Me: “Everyone walks fast there, no matter what.”
“Why?”
Me: “Because otherwise you’ll get run over.”
And why do they like their simple lives here? Why do they choose happiness, and avoid stress or worry? “Because otherwise you get aging and unhealthy and a worse life.”
I am again impressed by the perspective and its stark contrast to that of the states’. I ask if they learned it somewhere. “No, it’s just my person.”
Does my disinterest in considering “what I’m doing” reflect or represent any bigger theme or tendency in my life, I wonder? Rebellion? Play? I don’t really care to know right now and that’s certainly related. I am doing what feels both good, and right.
~
The sunset is gold and teal tonight. It’s breezy and mild, not a cloud in the sky of this soft paradise. It’s a salve—mesmerizing and very quiet. I walk there through a rustling jungle and the hush of dusk. The colors began traditionally enough and then transformed into yet another version of themselves—of a hypnotizing show. So much so that I was drawn into it, magnetized up off of my log and into an entranced walk to the water’s edge. Magenta and indigo now with a glassy sky whispering below me, surrounding me, an orb of hot pink searing over the slowest waves I’ve ever seen. I felt a bit dizzy from their confusing crawl—tiny, rippling trickles that seeped toward and around me—reflecting the lipstick light of the sun and erasing the boundary between earth and sky.
I didn’t cry, but almost. It took my breath away, and also my mind. It was again a scene from my dreams—the ones where I’m swimming in a sea of sky.
And when the sun dropped below the waves, everything murmured into pastel—blush, blue, yellow probably too—ivory, foam, haze, mist … unreal. I couldn’t turn away. I kept trying to leave but stopping again just to stare, to absorb the landscape of heaven, to encounter my dreams while awake. To allow it in, to … to try to remember to try to see as much as possible, to try to believe, to try to connect, to try to be in it. To try to … I don’t even know what. Whatever it is that great beauty does to us.
~
There is something new in me, and about me. And isn’t that one of the reasons that we love, love, love encounters, as Rollo May describes them. These enmeshments with other(s) that yield … more. More of ourselves, more of life, more, more, more.
From the first catalyst on I had asked, “What does this represent?”
More. It is: more.
~
The last day. For now. I wake up happy, and sad.
Post surf: Aye beaming day! Aye heart, aye paradiso, aye todo, todo, todo de esto.
We surf. Conditions aren’t great but we go straight out beyond the break and I catch a left straight away. The dizziness returns but I’m determined to stay out, so do. The sets get powerful and the turtle-rolling is especially hard. I bail reluctantly after several big ones and we take a break on the beach for a bit. As the session nears its end, coach says I look so serious. “I want to make sure you’re having fun.” They all do that—after wipeouts, after turtle rolls, and just because—they grin, and they grin at you in order to make you grin back. They teach everyone who comes there how to smile as a way of life. From then on, I grin. I say, I could not be happier.
I sign the paperwork to start the process of buying that house.
Am I making decisions in an altered state? The reality is that, yes I am. But, the altered state may be, as my friend says, actually reality. Like, I might be awake now.
I’m not sure, but I have a sense, I have some … belief. And, it’s forward motion. And it feels good.
My brother says, “Shell the bell! Blazing trails down in Costa Rica!”
Me: “You sound like Dad.”
Brother: “You’re acting like Dad.”
A friend says, “You should just keep doing what feels good because it’s clearly working. Your intuition is bang on.”
~
Sunset is incredible. All the impossible to describe colors and textures—the sky on the land and me between. Me, in my dreams, stunned by a sun that is yet another color tonight. The milky froth is some surreal seep that anesthetizes.
When I have to turn to go, I cry. A little sob—the pain in my chest. I try to hold it back, put my dark sunglasses back on, and walk with my head down, tearing myself away from this place.
And then, I run into Neils, fresh from the sea where he’d been surfing. The two of us meeting on this beach, in this country, after so many years—it feels meaningful. I wipe my eyes and admit to being emo. He says he’s out here feeling the same way. We chuckle and time catches up in the silence as we gaze at the scene.
“This place is strong.”
Walking home, I feel some sort of closure. I mutter “strange” as I look at the jungle, which seems to be some sort of portal—some Bermuda Triangle. As if this so-alive land swept in and saved me. Freed me. Healed me by preemptively cutting me loose, knocking me awake, and then giving me what I didn’t even know I needed. Like a final, whispering trickle of whitewater over my ankles, another wash clean. Another release. More … something.
As if I could sleep last night. I don’t care. I am breathless. Gasping awake and feeling empty in a gaping way. My little body. Heart racing, tanned limbs, long and lean and hungry, thirsty, humming. This medium, which I have no choice but to be for this land.
I can barely see, I’m so wound up. I dance, trying to shake out my nerves. I’m sweating. I drink chamomile tea. I run to the beach and throw myself into the sea and feel so much better.
I catch my ride to the airport.
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your writing is just so beautiful. and that poem—couldn’t have come at a better time.
Beautiful, all of it.