This has been quite the week, hasn’t it?
We went to nearby Playa Grande one day around noon this week. We’re currently in the tail end of rainy season here in Costa Rica, meaning it can rain for days, peak rainy season, so any slight break in the weather is a good excuse to travel the roughly mile and a half to Grande with our beach chairs, ice chest and other accompaniments for an afternoon diversions on the sand at the part of Grande that is Palmeras Beach because of the large clump of palms growing there.
Love the beach even during rainy season because you can get some dramatic photographs.
I briefly explored the tiny creek estuary I love. It was per usual filled with small hermit crabs scuttling every which way and with my beloved sea beans. Once I got back from nosing through the sea wrack looking for beans my husband Jim took his stroll on the sand to Dante’s Rock, a huge stony mountain of rock jutting into the Pacific Ocean that divides Grande from the next beach over, Las Ventanas.
We always take turns walking on this beach because we’re both doing completely different things. It’s sort of an analogy for our marriage, doing different things together, helping each other out, keeping watch for the bad things. A far cry from the attempts to live in the world of patriarchy that made both of us so miserable.
Took this photo of the clouds. The entire thing turns artistic rules upside down. Normally the lowest point in the horizon is the lightest one and the sea darker than the sky.
As I sat in the beach chair, holding a bottle of iced tea in one hand and my Kindle in the other hand I noticed we were having quite the cloud build up. Now, it’s usually very cloudy during this intense part of rainy season, so I don’t pay much mind to clouds then. But this was different. Fluffy white cumulus clouds with different levels of boiling blackish-blue behind it. As I watched this I noticed it’s moving rather rapidly! Too rapidly! In a matter of minutes it was upon us, and cold rain pelted down.
It was as my old crippled self was dragging chairs and ice chest back to the car in that cold rain that it dawned on me that the sudden overwhelming rapidly moving weather system was a good analogy for this not so great week. We knew that the presidential race was close, but at the same time never envisioned that our fellow citizens would vote for someone with clear declining abilities and hate-fueled rhetoric. But they did, and just as suddenly as this squall this was upon us.
It was like being suddenly doused with icy rain. The first day I was just in mourning for our democracy, and scared for family and friends. My son is a naturalized citizen of the United States because he was born in Germany when his father was stationed there. Loads of family and friends who are people of color, or immigrants, or part of the LGBTQ and beyond community. But one of the biggest fears for me was the fact that Trump threatened to put RFK Jr. in control of the nation’s health.
By the virtue of having been diagnosed about 18 years ago with mastocytosis one of the things I must do is trug back and forth from the States every 6 months with certain drugs I cannot get here. I also update my vaccines at the same time since I’m on private medical care here and unable to qualify for the jabs here because I’m not on the Caja socialized medicine system of Costa Rica.
On the petty tiny personal side I didn’t want Trump in power because eight years ago I wrote a column about religion for a division of Time-Warner and ended up somehow on the increased security screenings every time I fly. Apparently this happened to a number of journalists during that administration. All I know is that the day Biden took office the deep cavity searches (kidding of course!) stopped. Good thing because I fly a lot and it was scary.
I like to tell a story of what happened in one airport Stateside during that time. A nice young man of maybe 18 or 19 had his arms up to his elbows down in my computer bag feeling the big item in there saying, ‘What is this thing? What is it lady?’ and I had to stifle a chuckle as I said, ‘Oh that’s just my chicken cookie jar wrapped in my dirty nightgown and underwear.’ That poor TSA agent jerked his arms and hands out of my bag at warp speed and I was sent on my way. The jar was a gift I was transporting back to Costa Rica in my hand luggage.
After the shock of this sudden thing I realized a few things. There are enough laws in place that act as guard rails to our democracy that will keep our nation intact. Plus in Trump’s first administration he was highly ineffective, surrounding himself with the kinds of folks who didn’t know what they were doing. The real damage was limited to the Supreme Court.
In fact, Trump did pass a few laws that are still in place that financially benefited us tremendously. I anticipate he will do it again!
So just like dragging my carcass and my possessions back to the car we’ve taken actions here to ensure that what we can control, like medications and healthcare, can shift here as much as possible. We’ve done other things as well. Interestingly enough I’ve been approached by many friends and relatives wanting to know if I’ll help them move here. Of course I would! But I really think this isn’t going to be so bad after all. We will see.