Feliz Ano Nuevo

My people! I have not abandoned you! My sincerest apologies for not writing for so long. I've been traveling, and decompressing from the rather stressful end to 2010. I don't know one person who wasn't simply thrilled to kiss this past year goodbye.

I took refuge in Costa Rica a mere two days after my last entry, and after being there, something has changed entirely. Nicole and I did a phenomenal yoga retreat in the mountains where I finally got my yoga practice back, lost my seemingly debilitating dependence on sugar, was face to face with a jaguar, a ghost face monkey, a tarantula, quite a few crocodiles and so many beautiful birds. I went zip lining in the cloud forest. I let my heavy heart get light. I slept as I've never slept before. I don't feel the cold anymore. (An affliction I've felt for over 20 years.) I saw rainbows in the coffee fields every single day. Here, see for yourself:

While I was there, I arranged for a massage, where I told the practioner about my struggle and unhappiness with the braces. He worked on my whole body, but at the end, held my cheeks and jaws in his hands for quite a while, simply letting his heat and energy absorb into my face. This struck me as so kind, and so intimate that I wanted to cry.

It was so interesting to find upon my return that Dictionary.com's Word of the Day was "mansuetude" which means "mildness, gentleness" as in "For indeed, it is possible to attain a state of divine mansuetude that nothing dismays and nothing surprises, just as one in love might, after many years, arrive at a sublime tranquillity of the sentiments, sure of their force and durability, through constant experience of their pleasures and pains." -- Honoré de Balzac, Jordan Stump, Adam Gopnik, The Wrong Side of Paris

I don't know why I love that quote so much, but I do. It somehow sums up everything that I've been feeling, and the profound shift that has happened since being in Costa Rica. I feel balanced, unburdened. I want to smile and I don't care what's on my teeth. They look good to me, in fact, and I've caught up with quite a few friends who I haven't seen in months who have been utterly beguiled by how good they look. (And may have inspired a friend or two to take the plunge themselves)

It is no coincidence then, that Dictionary.com's Word of the Day, right after mansuetude was "creolize" which means "to combine local and foreign elements into a new, distinct whole." That would be me. I've been creolized. I've been Costa Ricafied. Quite literally, I've been enriched by the Rich Coast. I am local, and foreign, and a new, distinct whole. Put simply, I am ready. I don't know for what exactly, but I've started drinking coffee again in gratitude, and it feels lovely, warming, luxurious to do so.