Six degrees of separation is the theory that we are all just six people away from each other. In Costa Rica, it’s two degrees.

Costa Rica is small - between four and five million people - and the ex-pat community (though occasionally we think we amount to more than we really are) is quite a small slice of the Costa Rican pie. That community wanders around the cities, jungles, and beaches inevitably running into somebody they know. If I meet someone new, it does not take very long to find a person we have in common.*

One time I went to a small birthday party for Santa (yes, Santa) and his business partner showed up who is the cousin of the director of my daughter’s ballet school who often works closely with my son’s therapist. Then when my son’s therapist arrived at the gathering around the same time this other guy came who happens to know a good friend of mine showed up who knew a group of people I often hang about with.

When I caught a ride home the other day because my car’s still in repair (more on that later), this guy who’s a friend of my friend was also hitching a ride. As I unfolded the story about my car not reversing, he said he had a great mechanic and he’s the best transmission guy in all of Costa Rica. I guess he’s a Russian who’s been in Costa Rica forever and knows the backside of transmission like nobody’s business. Imagine all the people who know him.

Costa Rica deals a sped up version of the game. Anywhere I go, I eventually know someone from somewhere or at least their mother or cousin. As I head out to the hills to find “the best Russian transmission guy in the country,” I can’t wait to find out who he knows that I know.

*Yes, we’re small in numbers though growing. And this
group does generally add quite a bit to the economy
in dollars and “elbow grease.”

Coasting down a mountain pass, I put on the brakes. Instead the feeling of tight pressure beneath my feet, I got air. Mountain roads reign in Costa Rica. Every which way usually requires winding up or down to get there. It’s a good idea to bring along the brakes.

Since most of the vehicles I’ve owned over the flick of my lifetime have been “well-aged.” I have a deep vault of information stored in a back closet of my brain of how to get the most out of a broken or dying brake system. After the tingling shock ran through my sternum and exited my tail bone, I pumped the petal. The brakes returned. I pumped them here and there and all seemed fine. A few curves later….no brakes. A little bit more than discerning and though I wanted to rant or at least rave, Coco was in the back and I didn’t want to worry her. Since she’d already lived through one car drama a few weeks ago, I figured she’d hit her quota. We made it home safely. I limped it to the mechanic the next morning.

When he told me the diagnosis, I couldn’t help but think about that dentist joke. You’re teeth are great, it’s the gums that have to come out! The simple things - those less expensive things to fix were fine. But all the other stuff? I think the mechanic said - and I’m pretty sure on my Spanish here - you basically have no brake system left. Words like crystalized, non-existant, dangerous floated from his mouth. I got the picture.

The car was to be finished at 5 p.m. Coco patiently drew and wandered over to the television set while we sat in a plastic couch stuffed up against a wall. At 6:30 p.m. I got in my car. They’d washed it and wow, it looked brand new. I put it in reverse and it didn’t move. We sat there. It rolled a few inches and I was quite sure the gear wasn’t engaging. One of the mechanics gave us a ride home.

Why did the chicken go under my car? She was inspecting my brakes of course! That cluck cluck clucking was really a coded message that I should have listened to my instinct and gotten the brakes fixed when I thought about it in January. It’s never something to ignore in this mountainous land. And when a chicken wanders beneath your car….never take it lightly.

Patitio Feo came to a nearby mall. There were lines of screaming teenagers outside a music store. Since I couldn’t see into the store beyond the lines, I have no idea what character was on display.

I know nothing of Patitio Feo other than it was the original premise for Ugly Betty now on U.S. network television. Coco wasn’t with me, so I was able to swish by. Even if she had been with me, I think she would have declined to wait in line. She doesn’t watch the show either and knows only what friends tell her. Though that didn’t stop her from telling me about her feelings on the whole subject once I told her about the screaming girls in line.

She did have that glossy look in her eyes, however. That one I know is to come when she starts getting crushes and swoons. Do kids still swoon? I’m not even sure I did, but I did have crushes. Keith Partridge, Bobby Sherman, the entire Monkeys band, and who could forget the cute kid from the Karate Kid movies?

No matter how the it’s packaged, the girls still go wild over the latest and the greatest. Did I just say that?

Coco and I were watching a show about iconic art - what makes a painting or work last through the ages. Of course Mona Lisa flashed up among the images. Coco wanted to know who that lady was.

Coco: Who’s that?

Me: Mona Lisa.

Coco: No. What’s her name.

Me: Mona Lisa.

Coco: What’s her first name?

Me: I’m thinking Mona.

I began singing the famous rendition belted out by Nat King Cole. Coco winced and it did nothing to relieve her line of questioning.

Coco: You know mona means female monkey in Spanish.

We both looked at the image again.

Me: Well, that may not be far off. But I’m sure in her time she was considered a beauty.

(Pregnant pause.)

Coco: So what’s her name anyway?

The only thing I could do was start singing again.

Those little puppies in the window always get me in trouble. BioSalud is a health food store in Costa Rica. It’s the closet thing to a co-op or Whole Foods we get to in Costa Rica.

They carry whole grains, essential oils, nutritional supplements, and those hard to find items like Mother’s Apple Cider Vinegar or yogurt starter. They also carry beauty stuff like Henna and Shea butter and Birkenstock shoes. Then, there’s those puppies.

Coco gravitates right to the section of soft - really soft - plush animals and as if she was loaded with a tape recorder below her shirt, she’ll say:

Mami that puppy is so cute! Addison would love the monkey!

I’m no fool. This is a small child’s ploy to get me to fork over the cash so she can walk out of the store with one of these peluches stuffed in her pocket. When I can, I try to shop without her. It’s just less stressful to try to manage my consumption alone and not the huge desires of a bouncy eight year old.

If you are a “health food store” aficionado, you will find BioSalud lacking in many items. But take comfort in the fact the we are still a country close to many of it’s agricultural products. We can get eggs from down the path and goat’s milk from the farmer up the way and limes right in your own back yard.

There are locations in Multiplaza in Escazu and Plaza del Sol in San Pedro. I’m sure I’m missing a few other stores, but those are the ones I frequent. And when I do manage to go alone, I look at the stuffed animals and smile and promise she’ll be back. However, no matter how cute they are - they’re not making it home in my bag!

Bodies are quickly buried in Costa Rica. So funerals happen as soon as possible. And although the country is predominately Catholic, it has to do more with the tradition of embalming rather than faith.

My mother-in-law died in Costa Rica and getting her buried was a tough affair. It was Sunday, and we couldn’t find a funeral parlor open because the big soccer game had the entire country glued to the set.

We finally dug up a guy at the local bar and he came over with hs station wagon. I had had the unfortunate task of tying her jaw shut. The aide took over dressing her in white, Gladi’s favorite color.

Costa Rican families have not lost touch with death as a cycle of life since most die in the home. One of my nannies has gone through a horrible string of death in her family. She’s lost six people within an eight year time. And close people like husbands, her mother, father, and a sister. One thing I notice, is by keeping death close at hand, the grieving seems to happen also close to the heart and with intensity. No one’s afraid to cry.

Gladys didn’t have many people at her funeral. And I bet she would have never put money down on odds that she’d die in a country she’d never seen before. We picked a gray, fuzzy casket with a window in it. We could see her face as the casket remained tightly shut once the body was inside.

My nanny said her sister had no children and had a few things she’d left behind. She left behind a small house the family will rent or sell to pay for the cemetery lot, just like Gladys. So what do we take with us? We leave our clothes and shoes and jewelry and money and even our body behind. A few will split the goods while the soul moves on. I wonder if we all held that thought more tightly into our chests we might have a better world where love and light shine rather than greed and pain.

The nanny has gotten a bit accustomed to death lately. She waits for Addison to come home from school and occasionally she’ll stop and tell me a story about her sister, some good some bad. That may be what really remains.

Miguel was tame compared to the last hair dresser I had. He only had one piercing in his lip, and since the hair salon had changed management, he had to wear a blue smock with a rose on it.

It had been a year since my last official haircut. I resist going to beauty salon not because I don’t like get my hair rubbed and combed and played with. No. I hate making appointments and act very immature about it as if I was a nine year old going in for a filling. Do I have to?

My last haircut was so short, it made my family appear as if we had two brothers and a sister instead of two sisters and a brother. I promised Coco I would never get it cut that short again. However, I realized that fateful day my hair desperately needed to be cut down to size. The residue of pregnancy and all it’s raging hormones ravaged my hair. It was a good decision.

The reason I so love this salon is because I can always get in without a cita. Miguel winced as he listened to my Spanish while I chattered on about layers and blending and bubbles that grow out of the side of my head if the cut isn’t just right.

I passed on the $28 special hair treatment that was supposed to last for a week and change my life. Instead I went for the $8.00 “you’re kind of cheap and want to look good treatment.” The actual cutting part was so short, I got worried he wasn’t trimming anything. But Miguel made up for it in his delicate yet efficient hair drying with that big round brush.

Miguel spun me around so I could look at the back of my hair. A tradition I’m not all that comfortable with. When I hold up the mirror to look I never know whether too “ooooh” or “ahhhh” or just nod in contentment. Then he got out his style book.

You know, he said as he flipped through the pages. You have a face that would look great in a short hair cut.

He spotted a cut that was the “tousled Meg Ryan look.”

This would look great on you. This is something I could create for you.

I wanted to ask him if he was going to come home and pop out of my closet every morning so he could dry my hair and make it look like that. When I try to dry my hair with that roller brush, I just get it all tangled up; have to spend 15 minutes removing it from my skull; and when I’m finished it looks as though I ran outside and let the Trade Winds dry my hair anyway.

All you have to do is be wild. Dry it like all crazy and then use some gel.

(And good lighting and special effects wouldn’t hurt.)

Miguel, I think I love him. Just because he thinks I have a chance in hell in looking just a bit like Meg. He doesn’t understand what it means to have children. To shower less. To wear hats and scarfs more. And to surrendor to bad hair days all year ’round.

I got lucky. For several days I passed this tree and promised myself I would take a photo. The wind can rip the blossoms off these beauties faster than it can ruin a $40 haircut and style from the beauty salon.

Our season of colors on the trees begins around December and lasts until the rain starts. Others will bloom randomly through the year, but there is this wonderful cycle of blooms that liven up the landscape that gives way to dull browns during the dry season. I notice in the Central Valley, we’ll start seeing orange blossoms and then yellow and then some lavender and pink.

I have no idea what this tree is called. There’s a yellow one that blooms in a similar way. What’s so exciting about stumbling upon this color is I think the tree only blossoms every other year. That’s what I seemed to notice from trees I became up close and familiar with.*

If anyone knows what it is, let me know. Otherwise, it really doesn’t matter. I mean that color speaks volumes all on it’s own.*

**Here is a nice descriptive site that names trees. Maybe it’s the Roble de Sabana.

The moment the words came out of my mouth I ran as fast as I could to catch them and take them back. Too late. My reflexes have slowed down since I’ve had kids. The moment they hit the air and reached my daughter’s ears, I was doomed to yet another, craft project.

As a simple and fun diversion to kill some time before taking Coco to ballet, I spread out a large white piece of paper. Markers or pencils would have been fine. But nooooooo - I had to say:

Would you like to use paint?

Coco’s eyes lit up and I was shocked at breaking my own basic rule: Keep it simple, stupid. So there I was, fishing paint out of a plastic bin. Of course all the tops had dried shut; Coco had her delicate pink ballet suit on; and we’d dribbled all over the floor before we’d even gotten a brush out.

Addy joined in and had paint on all his limbs in less than thirty seconds. Coco decided to go all out and use the Jackson Pollock method of spraying dots all over the canvas with every color she had. Addy went for the streaky look.

The paper I spread out was almost useless, but did manage to keep the mess from turning to pure disaster. Did I mention I did this in my living room?! I hung the masterpieces in the garage to dry. Addy was submerged in the bathtub, and I carted Coco off to ballet.

As I tried to scrape the green paint out from under my nails that night, I repeated to myself my mantra and that I would never stray from K.I.S.S. again - no matter how great thou art is. Yet, I couldn’t help but think how lovely those paintings would look with a nice frame around them…….now if I could only find my saw. I wonder if I have any wood anywhere?

Living on the edge is a norm, not an exception in the jungle. Yes, we have snakes and scorpions and live volcanoes. Any day we could die from the poison of an insect or be swallowed up by the flow of burning lava. Moving to a different culture brings to the forefront all the fears we see on Survivor and the Animal Planet. All of sudden in a new culture we’re surrounded by these beasts and critters and norms that are foreign and frightening.

Funny thing thing is - after a while - it all becomes a normal way of life. My kids play in coffee fields; sleep with scorpions skulking right beside their beds; play under bubbling volcanoes and swim in their warm waters with a cool drink; and eventually - in some small way come to terms with the biggest beast of all - the roadways.

Coco and Addison really have no idea what “American” life is other than what I give them and my close friends also offer. Coco latches on to my music and my way of dressing (which doesn’t include stiletto heels or jeans below the waist line!) and Addison loves reading all the books I have in English. Other than their annual trip to the U.S., they are so much more Costa Rican than I can believe sometimes.

And one of the greatest things of all this passing back and forth of traditions and customs and mores is that we have an appreciate of two ways of life. We can take a bit of one culture and mix it in a bit with the other and perhaps get a better idea of a more sane of life.

I did want to bring up my kids in a less rush-rush culture, and we have exactly that. In fact a friend and I were remembering that when we do take those airplane flights to visit home, we are quickly reminded how gracious Costa Ricans are to children. How much the culture loves to slow down and not only pay attention to children, but their are rules that pregnant women and children get to go first in line! Imagine that!

There has been more than a few times I’ve been swamped with caring for Addy and Coco out in the world and complete strangers come to my aide to hold the kids while I go to the bathroom or carry a backpack down the airway. On top of all that, I am never in fear of someone taking off with my kids.

Now of course there are North Americans that help me with the kids, and I’ve run into delightful people who’ve helped me get off the plane and push a cart and surely there are grumps on the Costa Rican side of the fence too. Yet in Costa Rica, it is almost always the case that I get the extra mile from adults who not only help with my kids - they enjoy doing it.

And thing I noticed a funny thing, many of the North Americans and Europeans I hang around with also have this kindness about kids. In fact I just attended a lovely party thrown by a delightful Canadian lady for a group of kids Coco and Addy hang about with. Her kids are grown, but she always goes all out with crafts and treats and fun. It’s odd - or is it? Costa Rica seems to draw people who jive with this platform of beliefs that “kids” are just where the world is at.

I may never become comfortable with scorpions. I’m also keenly aware that we can all die tomorrow by stepping on a bar of soap in the shower. I take care everywhere I go and know that as I peel more and more layers of fears and examine more and more my “customs” I feel afraid of less, understand more, and know my kids just might have a shot at being citizens of the planet rather than guardians of a gate that was never meant to be erected in the first place. Another funny thing is, I don’t think we have to move anywhere “exotic” to understand this. This is something right in our own backyards. Just like Dorothy said.