Back In the Day

The year was 1987 and my small statured self, strutted into Mrs. Wright’s Kindergarten class at Walnut Heights Elementary School, one of several public schools in the Alcalanes School District. Nap was still on the schedule, as was learning to recite the Pledge of Allegiance (under God) and the Star Spangled Banner. Older kids learning cherry drops on the bars and playing ‘Butts Up’ with bouncy red balls overran our playground. Butts Up was a game I would later get into, which involved the loser standing against the handball wall and allowing the winning player to shamingly peg their butt with a ball as hard as they could. Really, there was no game I didn’t play, up until many of them throughout my formative years, were banned for being ‘too dangerous.’  In the late 80s, pre-litigious years, we had it good. 

We participated in Red Rover, a game that encouraged kids to run at full speed toward another group of kids in order to break through their locked hands. It was all fun and games until some kid got clotheslined and catapulted backward or worse, a weak wrist wrenched into a position not designed for human joints.  We had tanbark to break our falls not soft rubbery foam to save our little bruised knees. When we warred on the monkey bars, we knew the consequence would be falling into the murky puddle of water and bark below the bars, soiling our layered puffy socks. We got splinters and caught our fingers in the metal chain of tire swings, which literally were a used truck tire attached to a chain. We sprained wrists on tetherballs and poked our eyes out with slap bracelets. I believe they built us tougher back then. 

In my afterschool program ‘Club’, I was often playing capture the flag in the nature area behind the school. The small, leapable stream acted as the boundary and several secret circles of benches doubled as amazing ‘jails’ for when ‘prisoners’, aka slow kids, were captured. If not capturing flags I may have been playing Heads-Up-7-Up or wrestling Terresita for bragging rights. The nickname Rorin Lauren, and perhaps an invincible mentality came out of those years in elementary school.  Proudly shaving the underside of my head with the letters WHO (Walnut Heights Otters) to rep my neighborhood swim team and growing stronger alongside the other girls on my relay team also helped grow an inner sense of strength and belonging. 

We raised funds for good causes and learned that giving back to our community was important.  We jumped rope for heart disease and raised awareness about obesity and the value of exercise.  We bounced on Pogo Balls and trampolines and jumped over Skip Its that counted our rotations. We raised money with sales from Girl Scout cookies to fund our adventures. Troop 776’s Thin Mints and Peanut Butter Patties helped us to earn camping and sewing badges, although I must not have learned that sewing part because when I looked back at my sash, all the patches Ide earned were stapled on.  Some might say lazy, some might say innovative, either way I’m pretty sure I was more interested in playing in the mud and raising my version of ‘hell’ in someone’s backyard than threading a needle.  Proud Tomboy. Still am. From Brownies to Girl Scouts I bridged, applying myself to learn more silly songs like ‘I Sit Upon My Sit Upon’ and The Girl Scout Law. I made new friends and kept the old. To this day I am still a collector of good humans and some of those troopers remain integral parts of my chosen family.  

I remember finding items like Teddy Ruxpin under the Christmas tree. An animatronic bear that played a cassette and ‘read’ stories aloud to you. It was an amazing technological advancement for its time that had me enraptured for days, listening to the adventures of Teddy Ruxpin, Grubby and the WhosiWhatsits. He was a 30 lbs. wonder brick of a toy. Perhaps it was the batteries or Teddy’s blinking (creepy) eyes that drew my attention away from my previously beloved micro machines or wooden blocks. I would spend hours building marble machine ramps down into the pit from our family room only to watch a marble drop for approximately 8 seconds. I believe this is how I learned patience but quite possibly, and more importantly, the reason why kids these days don’t have much of any.  Immediate gratification is a two edged sword. And, I just said, “kids these days”=my generation, we, you, us, are aging, gaining experience by the minute, growing knowledge, getting old.  Believe it.

 

I remember tearing open packages of baseball cards. Top Deck if you were lucky, Fleer if you wanted a cardboard piece of bubblegum that left a powdery film on Chris Sabo’s goggled, cheating face.  It was the years of the Bash Brothers in Oakland and Will ‘the Thrill’ Clark in San Francisco. I could name every player on the ‘87, ‘88 and ‘89 San Francisco roster and would later meet Will Clark in his full camouflage gear and Kevin Mitchell on the back of his Harley Davidson.  The ’89 series was an epic showdown in what was coined the ‘Battle of the Bay’, only the lackluster Giants got swept in four games and the most ‘epic’ thing was the earthquake during game three that rocked the stadium and stunned people across the Bay.  If you can remember where you were when that quake hit, you can proudly consider yourself a northern California native.

If not opening up baseball cards, I remember pleading to buy packages of Garbage Pail Kids. Those crude little cards that incorporated every gross bodily fluid alliteratively attached to kids names of that generation. I was in elementary school and my card was called ‘Pourin Lauren’ depicting a boozed up waitress in fishnet stockings holding a tray complete with milk bottle and cocktail. Were these things marketed and sold to kids? Yes. Were they appropriate? Sure thing J Loosen up everyone.

In elementary school our minds grew with projects like the California Mission Report and the State Report that seemed a huge and insurmountable part of the 5^th grade curriculum. I remember that project looming all year. We worked so hard on gathering information from the Encyclopedia Britanica and drawing depictions of state flowers and important industry in our assigned state. When we were all said and done, I remember sliding my report into a clear plastic cover with a long, hard plastic binding to make it look ‘professional’. That’s how you knew it was a big deal, when it had the goofy plastic cover.  Do those things still exist?

We took pride in learning cursive and how to gracefully connect that capital L to the lowercase a.  We learned checkers and practiced our skills against other players. In the 4^th grade when we learned chess I remember thinking I wasn’t much of a thinker, as I preferred checkers because I did not have to consider two and three moves ahead with a pawn or a rook or whatever that funny castle thing was. We learned to Square Dance and were coached in the art of dodge ball and four square. We waited in line for school lunch (full disclosure, I was spoiled so only waited in line on pizza Friday). They served peperoni and cheese pizza, the difference being peperoni had one slice of peperoni in the middle of a square cut slice.  One piece! If some caca-farty-head came by and stole your one piece of peperoni you then had cheese. Boring cheese. Imagine the 9-year-old disappointment. Snack bar included corn nuts and fruit roll ups that we would wrap around our index fingers and suck on until they were sticky, gooey messes.  I hit up the milk cart everyday and by the 5^th grade, inflation had raised the price of a milk box to $.25.

At home after school we would watch Tiny Toons and later on Saved By the Bell, where everyone, even the boys, crushed on Zack Morris or the muscles of AC Slater. I had a routine of eating and watching some television before going out to play with Elaine or Sarah or other Amigo Laners. The day my Dad brought home our first computer, the Apple II GS, I remember staying inside for a record amount of time to discover what that machine could do. It came with a dot matrix printer that I created cards and banners on. One year for my mom’s birthday I recall waiting what felt like 2.5 hours and two ink cartridges later, to print out a color banner that read ‘Happy Birthday’. The perforated paper allowed you to hang it as one piece of paper in proper banner style. Boy did my Mom feign excitement well, which made those 2.5 hours so worth it to my 3^rd grade self.

I played Oregon Trail and often lost an uncle to dysentery or typhoid or ran out of money purchasing an axle for our wagon that was broken along our harrowing journey. At least there was excess beef jerky stocked in the covered wagon that I had bartered for at the general store. I begged for several weeks for Where in the World is Carmen San Diego, which had me flying around the world as a detective, cracking cases about evil villains attempting to take over the world. In refelction, I think this is something I need to be doing right now. The computer competed with the original 16 bit Nintendo System that had two manageable buttons. I was the lucky kid who got the Power Pad allowing me to compete with world-class athletes in track and field. Over the years I could dominate Cheetah and bury friends in the 100-meter hurdles. What are meters anyway? Duck hunt was not my strong suit but that was ok really because I never did like that laughing dog that taunted you after missing several ducks in a row. Then came Mario 3, which turned gamer’s lives upside down because with a tail, Mario had the ability to fly. Imagine the massive leaps forward in gaming systems when a miniature man can wiz around in the sky with a raccoon’s tail! Later on in life I would be swept up by the SEGA system and learn the ‘blood code’ for Mortal Combat and ways to help Sonic & Tails zip past the rest.

The first day of fifth grade I clearly remember sporting the new Air Jordan Vs. All the sneaker heads out there know how baller this shoe was and still is.  Black suede, plastic mesh, reflective tongue, all sweet. They were a far cry from the white high top Reeboks with two Velcro straps that I sported for years prior to the teal and purple Andre Agassi’s that we bought from Simons. I found first day of school outfits to match my new shoes. B Unique surely had a perfect puff paint match to my florescent color scheme, sparkles setting off the wisps of color flung to every side of the shirt. I remember my mom coming home with Hypercolor shirts for my sister and me because they were ‘so cool’. So cool up until you were that kid that came in from recess with orange armpits that in no way matched the blue of the rest of the shirt.  Whose idea was that anyway? Stussy, Mossimo and T&C Surf were the thing along with your pegged pants and high top Vans. Then overalls and palatzo pants took over, which took my middle school by storm.     

Bad at math then, and bad at math now, they made me buy a graphing calculator to support a bogus, money making contract with Texas Instruments. It was the TI-82 back then and to be honest I don’t remember ever gaining any knowledge from it or with it, only that that $100 calculator could also spell out 58008. That’s BOOBS upside down. Hindsight once again, maybe I liked boobs back then too J. I do remember purchasing my first CD player, which would ignite a new passion for music and CD shopping at the Wherehouse. If you were lucky, which I was, you had several friends working there who could get you *discounted (*free) things from time to time.  The CD player came shrink wrapped with a Kenny G CD which was rapidly disposed of making room for my first CD ever purchased: 2$hort, ‘Gettin’ It’.  The profane and vulgar lyrics were abhorrent but the man came from Oakland and the beats were sick, so turn that up! Outkast, E40, Ma$e, Tribe Called Quest and Notorious BIG were the soundtrack of our lives in high school.  

I remember the day Cody and I walked past Newell Plaza to discover Taco Bell would be coming soon. Taco Bell?! We were so excited at the thought of this mega fast food chain slanging bean burritos in our neighborhood.  We would welcome a switch-up from our beloved George’s Giant Hamburger French fries dipped in mazes of ketchup and mustard to Double Decker Tacos doused with packets of mild hot sauce. Those mystery meat tacos filled my belly directly before soccer practice for what seemed like seven days a week in high school.  I looked up to Brandy Chastain and Mia Hamm who inspired girls everywhere to play harder and learn that double-scissor dribbling move.  To this day freshly cut grass strikes up nostalgia of the pristine soccer pitch at Arbalado Park and our team comradery of yesteryear. We sported Lotto and Diadora all matching track suits and had soccer bags to match, making us feel intimidating to our opponents as we walked out onto the mud puddle also known as our home field. In the middle of January, this scene is intensified when you imagine seeing 17 young women, matching warm ups, walking out under the lights, breath visible in the bitter cold, stone cold eyes, prepared for battle. Badass Knights.

We played hacky sack at lunch and laughed at each other during homecoming week for a silly lip-sync performance. ’99! ’99! LLP!  We experimented on Bunson Burners and dissected hearts. I was one of the last holdouts to get a pager but the quickest learner when it came to pager code. I could decipher a paragraph in no time locating the best party lickity split. We drank free smoothies from Juice Time and filled up on Coke Slurpees when the weather was hot. We cruised with our windows down and music up, not a care in the world. In retrospect this can likely be attributed to the fact that social media and things like Facebook did not exist then.   What would we have done if our every embarrassing or illegal activity was captured and documented for the rest of the judging world to see? Yes, illegal. I was not exactly a saintJ Instead, we concerned ourselves with planning 90210 watch parties-Dillon dreamboat and Brenda bitch successfully wrapping us up in Beverly Hills, California drama.

Those were some brilliant years I spent growing up in the Bay Area. Years I will never forget…

Montezuma, Costa Rica

Montezuma, Costa Rica.

Tucked away along the coast of Punta Arenas Province, is an eastern facing town called Montezuma. If you look at a map and run your finger down the Pacific side of Costa Rica, Montezuma will appear as you reach the southeast side of the first peninsula extending into the sea.  I hear foreigners on the street here describing this place as 'quaint' and 'bohemian' so yes, I would say it's a hippy town, only with less tree-hugging hula hoopers and more dreadlocked, jewelry making stoners. Mellow. Slow moving. Warm ocean breezes. Cold beers perspiring on charmingly dilapidated wooden bars.

I arrived here on Monday planning to stay two nights and everyday since I have walked downstairs from my quiet little deck to tell the woman at reception, (the open shutter along the side of the house) I will stay "one more day". It's Saturday now and I haven't felt inclined to go anywhere. Each day has been incredible. With a bathing suit, sarong and some Colones you can do whatever you want.

The first evening I lay back on the beach mesmerized, sand still warm from the sun, salt water pooling into my belly bottom. I watched the color of the blue sky seamlessly transition into soft pinks and oranges highlighting the billowing clouds. As the sky turned, I could sense a shift happening inside of me, creating a liberating sense of peace. It moved slowly into my chest, swelled like the tide and overflowed in the form of one large alligator tear spilling out of my right eye. A single tear of joy. Ahhh, happiness.

I wanted to tell everyone- and so I did.

I grabbed another Pilsen beer and sat down with a local guy I had struck up a conversation with earlier in the day.  In these small towns you can't help but run into the same people several times a day while meandering the main drag. He was charming and quick witted and understood the feeling I described to him saying, 'Yeah, that happens here.'

For me, as a native of North America's west coast, sunrise on the ocean is counter intuitive yet despite this truth, waking up for sunrise over the ocean here feels so natural and so much like home. Mornings involved watching our sparkling orange ball of fire arise from the water. Daily breakfast consisted of watermelon, pineapple and mango and then potentially passion fruit, tangerines and cold beer for lunch. I was fully sustained on fresh fruit, banana bread, beer and fresh fish caught on the line earlier that day.

This was just the beginning.

While boating out to Tortuga Island we spotted humpback whales breaching. We followed them for a few minutes and got to see an entire tail flip out of the water. A whale's tail?! Come on, isn't that 88 years of good luck or something? Underwater and with a snorkel and mask, I spotted boxfish, clownfish and shark. With a glassy ocean, I swam out into the deep and felt like a fish myself. Hikes to views, more cold beers and like minded New Yorkers. More than once I caught myself smiling from ear to ear for no specific reason at all, other than believing it was the best day ever. My eyes would wander along the lush jungle and then be refocused by the erratic flight of a butterfly, seemingly as big as my face or ospreys circling above catching warm thermal updrafts higher into the sunny sky.

After morning swims along the shore I would drink fresh lemonade with mint and passion fruit and notice the corners of my mouth stretching upward into a smile again. One day, I found myself giggling quietly because just below my bare feet a woman was sweeping up beautiful flowers which had fallen from vines twisted into the landscape. Something in life is going right if beautiful flowers become a nuisance. Another sign things are on the right track is when you get to know the guys who work at the 'super mercado'. The one mini supermarket in town with constant foot traffic and workers restocking shelves by the hour. You know the place, one of everything, floor to ceiling stuff, from birthday candles to baking soda to bubble gum. With insider connections you can avoid the warmer beer due to the constantly revolving doors on the beer cooler and be welcomed into the cold beer club. It's a secret society of small town people who have 'made it'.

Just south of Montezuma and up river are a series of waterfalls nestled into lush jungle. Within 20 minutes you can arrive to the first fall and 20 minutes after that the second. For those with more grit, there exists a third fall which requires grasping onto tree roots and shimmying up more treacherous terrain. But, for the scramblers and the gamblers a bigger reward awaits: a beautiful fall and less of a crowd. This fall had a jumping rock that peeked out above the moving water. Not for the faint of heart, it's one of those jumps where you have time to think in the air, really ponder things in the seconds of free fall. A leap where if you don't nail the landing, your arms will be smacked along the surface of the water causing instant bruises. So Big. And SO fun :)

Launching off rocks and diving under waterfalls felt like I imagine the Phoenix must have felt rising up from the ashes. Rejuvenating like nothing else. The fresh cool water pounding on my shoulders and such internal excitement that even though no one could hear me, there I was saying out loud how amazing it all was. Permagrin. Again. The next morning, a sore body in all the right places from deep ocean swimming and trail traversing was just the right way to wake up. Back outside where I spen t all my days I saw pelicans flying in flocks 60 birds strong, like nothing I have ever witnessed. Their V formations stretching out along the backdrop of the pacific, each bird drafting along the wings of the bird in front of them. No matter how many times they flew over I would gaze up, the peaceful glide of their flight never losing its novelty. Even the small bits of sand in my sheets signifying a hard days play in the ocean held a weird sense of novelty in the state I was in.

Invites to bonfires on the beach whose dry drift wood logs burned until morning. A shooting star dashed across the night sky. The Irish chancer in me thought it was time to make a wish and so I looked to my new friend Javi to see if this wish phenomenon exists here. Javi explained that he didn't have a wish. 'I have everything I need', he said, as he sat there shirtless and barefoot in the sand. 'I have everything I deserve,' he continued. I sat in the bold silence of his response and smiled. I appreciated him for this grounding perspective, which is the reason I seek out the knowledge of perfect strangers. But. My wish was already made. He coaxed it out of me. He nodded his head. Smiled. 'It will come' he assured me. These things always do.

In this place I have no real need for hair product. I can't even remember the last time I washed my hair. The combination of fresh water deluges and salt water swims has given my hair an amazing texture, settling perfectly atop my head after a good shake and comb through with my fingers. Everyday has been a good hair day and more so, a really good day. Full stop.

Yesterday, while hiking back to the waterfalls for more adrenaline, I ran upon a band of monkeys. These monkeys have been made almost fearless, as people have taken to feeding them for a 'cute picture'. (Side note: attention everyone, everywhere, please don't feed wild animals. Ever.) Moving on. So I see these monkeys seeking any opportunity to sneak my snacks and they're all in cahoots, working to distract me from my goodies. I act big, clap my hands and begin to play with them. Out loud again, as if these monkeys understand language, let alone English in this Spanish speaking country, I say, 'I'm going to get you monkey!' I'm in such an exuberant mood that even when said monkey darts above me causing a mini sized avalanche, which sends a rock the size of my fist into my leg, I'm not even mad. It struck blood immediately and my first thought was not of pain but of, 'you got me that time monkey.' Smiling, I shook my head. Then I laughed to myself, thinking that a scar left by a playful, yet still conniving monkey in this incredible place is a scar I will take. Touché monkey, thank you very much. Pleased, I kept walking, blood dripping, feeling alive.

Moments later, while gripping the rocks to stay vertical, the man in front of me on the trail almost puts his hand around THE LARGEST iguana I have ever seen. Seriously, I am not just saying this because it sounds cool. It WAS. So. Cool. The beard alone on this guy was incredibly striking. A regal creature straight out of the land of dinosaurs. Scaled skin of green, grey, yellow, red and black. It's mid section about the same size as the pregnant cat living at the restaurant near my place. A tail like a whip, slow steady movements with claws resembling the curved talons of an eagle. Seemingly ancient, this sun worshiper sat on the rocks, basking in the sun, warming his amphibious blood. A minute later I was talking to Dani who tells me this impressive creature is a local here whom he sees daily. Dani has scars on his leg from the whip of this beast's tail in frightened moments of fight over flight. Incredible.

Now, day six, I have fallen into little routines that all involve extreme relaxation and/or extreme sport. I have come to know how to turn the trick light switch on in my room with three flicks and holding down the bottom until it fires on. I recognize the guy in town slurring his words by noon and the man from Northern California ironically involved in selling the best extra curriculars. I know that at about 5:30 the caballero with the horses brings them up the beach to water and feed them. I know each vendor's face and the intricacy of their handmade crafts, as well as where to get the best smoothie and cheapest bottled beer in town. I know the guys down at CocoColores restaurant start food prepping around 4:00 and singing 90s rock music loud enough for me to sing along with them. I know a hidden bench formed into the rocks just up from the main beach and where the live music will be playing at happy hour. On the other hand, I know I will never be able to slice a mango like a local or walk around barefoot without wincing at the really sharp rocks. I know I will not be able to ride a dirt bike nearly as well around the unknown turns in the gravel road or catch all the slang terms in their conversations but I do know this, I have fallen in love with this place. I will return one day to experience it again but no place is quite the same as you left it, now is it. Until then it will live in my memory on a pedestal. The small town that sucked me in, held on tight and stole my heart. Thank you Montezuma, you have been too kind.

Attached are a few pictures in and around Montezuma. I have but a few, preferring to take mental pictures to live in an album in my heart rather than pause to tap a shutter. There is a saying about that somewhere that I love and can't remember exactly.