Pura Vida

Volcano Arenal in 1979.

I almost didn't see this.

Back in 1978, I was a young college graduate. I loved the small town where for two years I had been a cub reporter on the county-wide newspaper. I loved my job, which was entirely made up of talking to interesting people and writing stories about those interesting people. I loved my friends and my church and my Army-green Ford Maverick. I was renting a cute house and had my own piano and furniture. If I'd been married, or even had a dog, I probably would have stayed there forever. 

I was 24 years old, though, and something inside me wanted an adventure. One day I was agonizing over this dilemma to a friend who was married (with kids, and a dog).

"So let me get this straight," she said to me. "You're going to live your life, and get to be old, and you're going to tell your grandkids 'I really wanted to do something cool, but I had a house full of second-hand furniture'?"

Within a few weeks I had quit my job and stored the few pieces of furniture I wanted to keep in the back of my grandmother's garage.  A couple of months later I was a Peace Corps volunteer living in Costa Rica at the base of the volcano you see above.

That sounds much more primitive than it actually was: I was renting a room with a family in a medium-sized town, and that family took me in as if I was one of their own four kids. I was the same age as the oldest daughter, and although I could not have been more different from them in looks (I was taller, wider, and blonder than any of them) I felt like one of the family.

It was the perfect adventure for someone of my timid nature and fear of creepy-crawlies, and I fell in love with that family and that country and that time of life.

Costa Ricans have a phrase they use at any opportunity: Pura vida. It means "pure life," and can be used to respond to almost any question, as long as the answer gives you pleasure.

How are you today? Pura vida. How was that fresh pineapple? Pura vida. What's the outlook for the future? Pura vida.

My Peace Corps experience was pure life, with the usual ups and downs of life accentuated in an unfamiliar environment that soon became home. I loved the musical accents of Tico Spanish as much as I loved the beaches and friendly Ticos and fresh fruit and well, so many things I can't list them.

When I left Costa Rica in 1982 I assumed I'd be back yearly for the rest of my life. Instead I've been back only twice--once with the whole family in 2001, and again with Husband for a long weekend in 2004. That second visit was so brief that I couldn't even visit "my" family.

Then a few weeks ago Boy#2 and his Lovely Girl decided to celebrate their first anniversary with a trip, and invited us to celebrate along with them. Their destination? Costa Rica. I managed to keep from shrieking out loud at the invitation.

Husband and I will spend a few days with my other family there, then join Two, LG#2, and Boy#4 for several more days in the country I adopted decades ago.

Next month we'll be at the foot of the volcano again.

Pura vida.