pura vida.

  

it's strange how a certain smell can bring forth such a vivid memory as if you're re-living that moment. how that scent trails to your nose and paints the images so cleary in your mind, and you simply inhale it all in and watch the mini video clip of a certain time in your life play in your head. it may sound strange, but  the smell of smoke (like a barbeque + burning wood combined), or the smell of a certain soap remind me of costa rica so much. just a couple weeks ago while walking home from work a whiff of smoke filled my nostrils and sent me back to 'rich coast'. where the sun shines a majority of time, and the warm rain falls hard against the tin roofs but strokes your skin gently, where you can walk out to the street a certain time in the morning and pick out fresh fruit from  the man with the cart (and ice cream and sodas around noon), where howler monkeys yell as you head towards school or the beach- oh the beach. where the sand is  made up of crushed sea shells, the waves thrust themselves passionately against the rocks, and the water so clear with schools of fish painting the rainbow as they swim by. then the scent disappears, and just like that the image.

my memories of costa rica are starting to fade a bit. i only remember certain pieces but i can't hear the voices or put names to certain faces. it's been over 9 years since i've seen half of my family. they still picture me to be that tiny little tomboy chiquita that climbed trees and chased after boys when they bothered me. i'm probably taller than a couple of my relatives now. and i have new additions to the family, they know my name, about the cousin that lives in canada. but i know nothing about them. i hear tid-bits of stories when my mom gets off the phone with one of her sisters or mom, but i don't know which little cousin or family friend she's speaking of. probably cause it saddens me a bit that i have no clue as to who they really are, or i might be more concerned about how my abuelita sarah's doing. i just hope i can go back soon to see my abuela before...yenno the years catch up to her.

 

PURA VIDA COSTA RICA, te extraño mucho.

(ps. i'm starting to get that pain on my side again. can't it just go away...)