Time has been flying by for me this year. There is so much happening in my work life, my home life, my student life, and in my life with Colin that I am having a hard time keeping up with any of it. I am busy all of the time and have lost all motivation and energy to do the things I love like write, hike, bird watch, run, bike ride, and go on fun trips exploring new places and things. I have developed anxiety, and seemingly chronic pain in my neck, back and hips that my massage therapist says are a result of constant stress and tension. None of this is good for me at all.
So here I lie, at 7:00pm on a skinny mattress with a small lumpy pillow in a concrete room with a wall of screen windows and a fan. In 95% humidity. The river is just meters away and the muddy water has drowned its banks because of rainfall over the past 3 weeks. Crocodiles live in the river and I am non-to-keen about walking out the door and into their jaws tonight. Fortunately, there are screens on these windows, because I do not care to sleep curled up with the multitude of large insects I can hear out there in the dark.
My colleagues are all sweating themselves to sleep down the path in another cabina. When we arrived at La Selva this morning and found out I was not rooming with them, I panicked, for like 6 hours. Clearly something is not right about that and this is not my typical reaction to being alone. But actually, it has become typical for me. I just hadn’t realized it until today when I travelled from chaotic San Jose up over the twisty mountains and then down into the lowlands and rainforest, where life suddenly took on a drastically slower pace…and this is exactly why I need to be alone in a simple room with the rainforest threatening to come get me.
Photo Gallery below (WordPress is acting up – sorry!)
Top: More fruits at the fruit stand. Bottom: Self portrait upon arrival at La Selva.
The Outside Within 