Aroha, Jeff, Laurence and Marie-Joelle. Matapalo, 2008

(more photos here)

9-15 May 2008

Costa Rica came down on us like a thunder-clap. The skies, for so long dormant and brooding, opened with the ferocity and mute indifference of a volcano, emptying great sheets of water, walls of thick globulous raindrops so perfectly formed they hit the ground and bounced back, rain so heavy, so lugubrious that we who walked through it had to resist the urge to extend our arms in a swimmer’s stride, pulling ourselves against the air like bathers at a waterfall.

This is Matapalo Beach, Costa Rica, a place as distant and alien from New York City as the desert is from the Arctic. In New York every edifice is drafted then redrafted to give the impression of civilization—civilization defined against nature, civilization constituted by layers and layers of steel and mortar and reinforced concrete, all built atop the rock and dirt of the island. In Costa Rica there is no such edifice. Nor is there the arrogant and fallacious view that human is not animal, that human has evolved past nature, that base human instincts and biological drives can be extinguished with culture. Nature in Costa Rica is inevitable. When one stops, listens, rests in Matapalo creatures all around move, chatter, work. Lying static on the beach, for example, is enough assurance for a mile of burrowing crabs to emerge from their holes and hurl a claw’s worth of sand from the entrance. Sitting stationary on the patio is enough to reveal a pair of geckos at every light fitting, flitting from one crevice to the next. Many animals simply ignore the barriers of human construction; in our house the pathway from the front to the kitchen door is, it seems, a thoroughfare for nocturnal crabs which, when a light is illuminated or the vibrations of a step felt, scuttle on the tiles as they would the silent seas. Birds impertinently and repeatedly tap at the windows, seemingly annoyed at the fetter to their flight (even now, two days after I wrote that line, the same pair of birds are hammering at the pane). At the opening of most crevices are the glowing eyes of insects or arachnids, each as wary of the human as an emperor is of a subject.

Even when the creatures are invisible they create such a cacophony that their presence is irrefutable. And herein lies one of the great shames of travelling. Namely, that the traveller is rarely able to convey the sounds of a place—indeed, it is perhaps true that when one is not expected to hear the sounds, or does not feel they can convey those sounds, one does not hear them, or hears them less—focussing instead on photos, seeing a place as a kind of exhibited abstraction, a lattice of portrait and landscape 6x4 frames. A ‘shame’ because in places like Costa Rica, like New York, sounds contribute—perhaps constitute—the atmosphere. In New York stereos on window ledges and in cars pulse with the quick rhythm and accordions of Latino music. On every street the rattling conversations of drug-dealers and checkers-players stutter like Morse code. And in Costa Rica the noises are even more striking. No one told me, for example, that when the monsoon comes the thousands of locusts that dot the foliage amplify their shrill ensemble so that even intimate conversation is difficult. I knew not that in the thick air of the tropics even distant lightning strikes let forth a roar so mountainous, so primal, that windows shake and the yawning frequency vibrates the blood and bone from foot to head. I had no conception that the combined force of millions of raindrops on millions of leaves and trunks and branches and roofs generates a sound so full, so oppressive that even the thunder is timid by comparison.

The sounds here really are startling. Like someone recently blinded, my sense of hearing has sharpened to that of a canine. Every discordant note of every cricket can be discerned, every heavy tumble of every wave resonant as it peels away to the horizon, every leaf stroking every other leaf a bow against string.

So this is Costa Rica. And what a relief it is to see the horizon, the forest, animals, sand and sunset. With such distance between me and Manhattan I dream of ripping my clothes off and hurtling into the jungle with a machete. Of climbing trees and howling as a feral beast. Of caves and fires and long days spent chasing down game. Of growing lean and wily and tan. Of defecating and procreating and hibernating. Of tearing at my hair and beard with a dull knife or a sharpened rock. So potent an elixir is this place I dream of casting off every fusty vestige of humanity, shedding all that fetters the freedom to live on instinct and instinct alone; to eat when you are hungry, drink when you are thirsty, think of your head as a skull, fuck when you are aroused. To live for once as we are, as animals.

But of course that kind of fancy is naïve. I write on a laptop. I have a fan stirring the sticky air of my room. I have moisturiser to salve the sharp and painful rouge on my back and neck. I have a mattress under me, pillows behind me. I balked at the prospect of six hours flying, then four hours bussing, then one hour taxiing. I continue to be alarmed when a six-legged creature I beat with my shoe suffers the blows and scurries on. I take as a personal affront any inconvenience, any filth, any delay. In my weaker moments I look forward to the first shower back home, where I can scrub the entrenched filth, salve the cuts and bites, and linger under the hot water. And sure enough soon I shall drown myself in humanity. As Baxter said, ‘it is better to lie Dumb in the city than under the mountainous wavering sky.’

***

As I have mentioned before, this particular medium gives rise to a tension between speaking of the mundane or of the abstract. Analogous, perhaps, is that when looking at photos most of us find most captivating the ones of people. Finely composed photos of landscapes, of mirror-lakes or exotic creatures, of sublime nature cannot compete with the stupid smiles of a close-up pair. Humans are trained to recognise faces. We are good at it. Given that writing and photography are both forms of representation, it follows that when reading, what is most interesting for most people is other people. The criticism I have fielded, then—that I talk too much of too little—is a just one.

In response to this criticism I offer two defences. The first is that while I acknowledge that my life is constituted by relationships, I am [still] not qualified to represent them. My pen is too blunt, my fingers too callous, my mind too sluggish. While this is perhaps a sophistry—it is easier, after all, to list hollow inanimate vignettes than to describe the lines of a face—that I am scared of hurting is true. Hurting by misrepresentation or by abject truth, it really doesn’t matter, the potential to alienate is the same. If I was to talk of people, therefore, it would be in a manner so banal that any detail would be impossible to make out.

The second defence is one of audience. Because ‘blogging’ (how I loathe that word) is a medium in its infancy, because I am a novice blogger, and because I am equivocal about the purpose of this blog, the question of who I am writing for is unclear. In the absence of clarity I revert to a default position: that of writing for myself. Thus, herein lies what I find interesting. Returning to the analogy of the photo, perhaps the only image that can trump the stupid-smile close-up is that which is framed by a mirror. And if I am to make any claim, it is that I am neither special nor unique. I am bound my human fancy as much as I am by instinct.