Journals from the Jungle XI: If you only turn around and glance back, you’ll catch it … being
... it will captivate you like a spell, cause you to stop, and also be.
Thinking, Naturally is a Substack Bestseller! This reader-supported publication is dedicated to empowering your herbal health practices, natural-ness, and most vital lifestyle. For the full experience, consider upgrading your subscription to paid. Your endless support means the world.
Clicking ♥ on this post, sharing and leaving a comment keeps our newsletter alive, thank you for engaging and being here! XOR
•°. *࿐
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.
5/21/24
I fall asleep hard and fast and wake up thinking about how the sea, and surfing, are like a metaphor for life. This is the break—the being pummeled by waves and tumbled underwater, the rough between the inside and the outside. If I trust, hold on, don’t panic, and keep paddling, I’ll break through.
Midday: I walk to the beach, taking in the scene I’ve yearned for from NYC for …
… so many days. I rent a board and do drills in the whitewater until I am out of energy. I walk the market, touching jewelry and fruit. I walk home, which means I’ve been walking for most of the day already (exercise is so easy here, and not “exercise”).
Sunset: I begin smiling as I approach the beach again. The sunset is, as it always is here, beyond words. I walk to the edge of the beach where it meets the tide pools, which are full of light, and I feel like I’m on the edge of the world. I am facing … life? Death? Out. Into.
I think of Dad. Why are we so drawn to these edges? To being on a precipice?
The perpetual breeze comes off the sea, out of that light, steady and warm, like a cleanse, like a force, like life.
Should I be thinking about my life more while I’m down here? I don’t know how many days it’s been now, nor how many I have, nor do I want to.
I won’t know until I know. I don’t get to force this into existence any more than I already have. I hate not understanding (in general), but I love an enigma.
As I was leaving sunset, I turned around for one last glimpse and was stopped, as happens, by the softness. The layers of light slowly rolling out over one another on the beach. Pastel, glowing, like a soft offering to the senses. Quietly, a patch of heaven on earth appears. If you only turn around—glance back—you’ll catch it … being. It will captivate you, like a spell, cause you to stop, and also be.
Tomorrow I’d like to try to go deeper. Connect with this place even more. Less phone. Less in my head.
Day 5
This place is so un-conducive to doing anything. It’s much more a destruction of all things in order to reveal what lies beneath. So, in order to go deeper today, I think, I will try to just let go, let down, feel in, stay open.
One thing that I did worry about on my way down here was that I might feel like I’d made a big mistake. Buyer’s remorse, or the reality not living up to the memory, or fantasy. That has not happened, and that is a big thing. This is something to be very relieved about, happy for, proud of. How terrible it would be to feel that way and I haven’t had the slightest glimmer of it. I love this house! I love this place. It all fits me so perfectly.
What else do I have to learn down here? Plenty more, certainly. I love how strong it makes me—resilient and independent.
I go to a BBQ with new friends and it’s very cute. Enormous, freshly caught fish on the grill, tuna that looked like steak. Dorado and homemade guacamole and potatoes and apple pie. I sit back with curiosity about how and why I like this so much. The simple conversation, the unlikely mix of people (someone in crypto, a yoga instructor/tarot card reader, a couple colleagues from an IT company in the capital, a professional surfer, an architect, a property manager, a boxer-turned-lawyer) … I love the casualness, the lack of pretense, how everyone is barefoot and undone, arriving as just themselves. I love the ease, which is noticeable everywhere here and such a contrast to NYC. I enjoy that I can only partly follow the conversations in Spanish, and often I wonder why I find it so pleasurable to be surrounded by a language I don’t always understand, especially when they chat quickly in the local slang. I wonder if I’m “over” New York. Would I miss the depth of conversation, the pace, stress/adrenaline, the cerebral? Yet, that isn’t absent here, so it’s not exactly that that I’m picking up in this scene. Is cultural literacy and education level “depth”? Am I, again like dad was, drawn to “simple folk” and if so, why? These people aren’t “simple” though; their lifestyles are. Does the ease feel, well, easier? Yes. How much of it do I enjoy just because it’s different (novel)? That’s a big one, I think. Or maybe not. Only time knows.
The surfer will bring his board on their trip back to the city even though it’s in the middle of the country, “just in case.” What is it like to love a sport, to love an “activity” so thoroughly as to travel with gear even when it’s impossible to use it? The surfers fascinate me. And I have such affection for these people from all parts of the world, called to this wild land and tiny town to make a home here among the monkeys and crocodiles and waves.
5/23
I am here to bask.
I surf alone, throwing myself into the sea, paddling hard, hopping on, riding, over and over again. I realize that the sea can save me. That I can become a monster for it and it will always be there to overpower me—permitting me to exhaust myself in it. I feel our relationship change, my effort and struggle to improve each ride—each hand or foot or gaze placement, every detail little by little—eroding previous fear and shoving me into yet another wave.
Afterward, I feel elated and relaxed, drowsy and full of endorphins. I smell the plumeria scented air, see the jungle in new detail, attend to the breeze drying salt on my skin and lips.
I arrive home just as it starts to rain. I go to the yard and lay down on the hot tiles, my face to the sky. I lay there, and just laugh quietly. The land around me feels dense, alive, and also impartial—observant and indifferent.
Already, somehow, the day feels like a dream.
°•*⁀➷
Ahhhhh....looks like my fave beach in Costa Rica, that I just returned from! Heaven on earth, how we were meant to live, and what is truly important.