The Way She Showed Us

I’m not overly fond of death. But I don’t fear it either. I understand our partnership with it. I don’t see it as an enemy but an ally. As I've shared in this blog before, I believe “life is lived most fully in close proximity to death”. For me that is an eternal truth, without exception. It is a true for me today as it was when I first uttered it. Anyone who doesn’t know this hasn’t been close to death, is in denial, is too busy to notice, or simply hasn’t lived.

Of course, we've all been close to death. It is close now. We cuddle up with it everyday if we agree to slow down, be present, see and listen for it.

Spring:


For me it has been a Spring of particular color- and introspection too.They always are I suppose but this one has stood out. Winter releases its death and life gets its vibrant rebirth. It is closeness with death we get annually. I’m back north in Sun Valley, Idaho. In California, where I just left, Spring is in full flower. Here, She is giving way glacially as sheets of deep snow painfully retreat inch by inch day by day.

A couple of days ago my brothers 13 year old golden retriever developed a vestibular infection. I didn’t know this at the time of course. She was suddenly unable to walk and looked like she was having a stroke or something. I pretty much thought she was dyeing. I’ve seen animals die. And this seem similar enough to what I've seen many time before. What amazed me was Olivia’s wagging tail. She just kept wagging that tail of hers. She wouldn’t eat and she wouldn’t drink but she would stop wagging either. She couldn’t walk but she tried and tried and looked at me hopeful and with her tail wagging happily. Olivia didn’t die. But day after day I wagged my head in disbelieve at her attitude in spite of all that was happening to her. 

Five years ago today my friend and former boss, Anita Borg, passed away. I spent the day with the recovering Olivia, still tippy and still wobbly, but also still wagging and working happily. In the morning we labored up on the hard crusted snow bank out in front of the house. Olivia dug with her front paws and ate snow. I plopped down with my coffee and watched a light snow magically appear out of a nearly completely blue sky. 

And I thought about my friend Anita and her courage, vision, compassion, dreams, and unwavering spirit to stand for what she knew to be right and true. Later in the morning I got a surprise call from Fran Allen who, like me on this day, was feeling “the hole in our worlds” Anita’s loss had created in our lives. Fran, like me, was feeling the proximity of death, and doing it as I've always known her to do it, without fear or regret, and living fully with courage, bravery, laughter and lightness.

Just like Anita showed us.

All good good things,
Eric

“Gringo Day”

Tomorrow is Gringo Day in La Manzanilla. Of course, everyday is gringo day for me. It’s difficult to escape. Sure my skin grows pinker, redder and then darker and my hair more sun torn and flaxen. But once a gringo always a...well you get it. Anyway as of tomorrow, Gringo Day, I’ve been here a week. I told someone on the beach today I arrived three or four days ago. It’s been a week. And time keeps slowing down, elongating...slipping.

They call this ‘the great sand suck”.

I’m here being gringo in La Manzanilla as the grateful guest of Gustavo “Angel” Caballero and John Fraticelli who granted me their beautiful home, Casa Piedra Del Mar, www.lamanzanillahomes.com/casa_piedra_del_mar.htm. 

Casa Piedras Del Mar (Stones from the Ocean for all you gringos) sits on the hills above the southern most tip of the village of La Manzanilla. I’ve got the best sunsets in town above a crescent shaped bay of the Costa Alegre sweeping north and then nodding west into the sea. With all the grandeur and perspective I should be able to keep an eye on the sand suck vortex below but I’ve had no such luck. Its even more pervasive than sand, that gritty find every nook, cranny, and orifice on your body substance. Sand Suck is in the air, in the dusty streets, in the breeze, music, taco stands, and absolute blessed normalcy of the place. This perch hasn’t made it better, it has made it happily worse.

From everything I’ve heard from locals and expats the one and single iron-glad criteria of Gringo Day is to pay the 18 dollar U.S. cover for a small bit of food and all the beer you can drink. This appears to be the only requirement to register, as and become, a full-fledged gringo, be you canadian, german, austrian, dutch, or from the united states. You pay...you drink, you gringo. I checked my pesos earlier today to be sure I’ll have enough for cover charge.

In another hour our two I’ll slip slip off the hill to the Fiesta and parade which kicks off both Gringo Day tomorrow and fours days of the Rodeo starting the following day. From everything I’ve heard, read and seen La Manzanilla has about 1000-2000 residence. I have not met everyone but faces have already started to look oddly familiar, and mine to them as well. The fisherman at the cooperative, the old man at the base of the hill who sits outside his tiny store, morning, noon and night, and even the rusty old hang dog down the street. He barked wildly at me on day one but now ignores me motionless more like a cold blooded reptile than a canine. Sand Suck got that ol dawg long time ago.

So tonight, lots of new faces as the community congregates for music, procession and revelry.

All good things,
Wig