Domesticated Ungulates and Glittery Lights Warm Crazy Woman’s Heart

orignally posted Dec. 18, 2006

The other day I worked myself into a tizzy about this or that thing in my life. The issue? I can’t even remember what it was. I was probably being served some injustice by the world.

As I drove down the highway, it took only moments for me to realize: I have so much to be grateful for.

There is a family that lives under a bridge. I pass their home several times a week in my car. Chickens often peck away at the sparse grass between the freeway rails; a young mother brings her baby up for “fresh air;” laundry dries on lines strung from the bridge arches.

As my froth was building in my mind about my “issues,” I drove along the freeway in the sunset listening to music and hoping for respite. I looked to the left at the bridge. I always do. Christmas lights dangled between the bridge’s concrete structures.

“Christmas lights,” I said to out loud to myself.

I sat back against the back of my seat. Just the tires on my car cost more than probably all those people’s belongings. Where on earth did they cook? How did they stay warm? Dry? Yet whatever they faced in life, optimism prevailed in the twinkle of those little lights. I was humbled.

A little further down the road, three cows wandered down the right lane of the highway. They were nervous. Each car slowed down so as to let the domesticated ungulates (ok, so I looked that one up) continue safely along. How in the world is the farmer going to get those cows back? There’s a law that if you hit a cow, you have to reimburse the farmer. But let’s face it, what a mess. What if the farmer never finds the cows?

That’s the thing about Costa Rica - it teeters on the edge of a developed/underdeveloped. It takes only a moment of looking at those who struggle to survive to put my problems in perspective.

I have a lot to be grateful for: I have my family. I have friends. I own a blender and a good pair of tennis shoes. I have access to knowledge, and although I do have to figure out what to make for dinner every night, my family always has a meal.

It takes just a moment to look around the corner, or under a bridge, to remember how much I have to be grateful for. That’s a pretty good reason to kick the pot aside and find the joy in the holiday season.