Pure Life.

We are driving out of Tamarindo - me and the other 11 passengers, 1 driver, 1 me. 11. That number has become significant to me. It keeps showing up over and over.  11 full days. 11 people.  Two lines. One shape. Aligned.

And as that number shows up I hear, over and over, in my spirit that I have come home to myself. Coming here, again,  was coming full circle - back to the home that was always waiting, traveling within me. 

Little Suan, 5 years-old sitting in the mirror loving every inch of the gift was/is her hair, her smile, her skin, her family, her life. Little Suan who desperately wanted everyone to feel as loved as she did - standing in the middle of a kiddie pool yelling at the top of her lungs - "Everyone here is my friend!" She and I have come together again. We lost touch because the middle-school Suan began to believe the lies around her. At 12 years old she began trying harder and harder to be accepted, to be acceptable - misaligned surroundings and circumstances. The Suans from 12 to 30 have healed and grown from that time of pain, confusion and loneliness.

Too long I picked at pieces of myself, shaved and chipped off little bits over and over until I was a mess of tiny grains. DIS-integrated - a thousand pieces of sand that used to be sea glass and born to be a diamond. The only way to make sand integrate is through heat. Not just a little but the kind of heat that melts sand into lava. The kind of heat that scorches the earth and forms mountains, earth, planets, stars - illuminates the sun.

Integration after so much time is painful - like the sting of disinfection. And every time the white hot pain of healing came - I ran. I hid from anything that could hurt me including facing myself. I retreated from the flame that is my nature. When a flame is smothered, lava cools into ash and rock. For transformation to occur time, heat, and pressure is needed to cure molten rock into precious stone.

Part sand, part ash, part jagged rock - I didn't feel like myself. Disconnect clouding my every choice. Anxiety and depression are manifestations of the falling away of self. Greatest pain is a reminder that greater healing is needed. Like a phoenix, I needed that hot blue flame to rise again. The only way was to face the fire. Embrace the flame. Embrace my nature. Melt the sand and ash and rock back into one.

Tamarindo has been my place of healing twice - 2016 & 2022. Both times I was with people who completely accepted me. People who held me to my truth because they saw/see the value in the authenticity that comes from the divine light within. Those who could hold my hand as I mustered the courage to be completely authentic. Relationships, new and old, near and far, bolstering me as I remembered how to be an explorer of my own life - no longer a tourist obsessed with following the itinerary or deadlines set by others.

Even if I am late I am gonna take my time. - Big Sean 'Single Again'

Presence without being present is still love. Over and over being validated by the idea that something true will persist. Listen to the still small voice. Sway with the music. Feel and follow the vibe that allows me to dance forward through life. I am the master of my destiny, the captain of my ship, the one holding the ore. All I have to do is breath and choose. All I have to do is be. 

Pura Vida. Pure life.

Pure life is to be one's self unapologetically and to love unconditionally.

Pure life is to walk with purpose and act with kindness.

Pure life is to know that I will never walk alone and I will accomplish much because my life is bigger than me - it is connected for my menagerie of loved ones. In this pure life we are all connected and the more that integrate with themselves the more we all become whole. 

Pura Vida. Tamarindo, thank you for bringing me the rest of the way. I am home. I am at peace.