omissions from the jungle
When I was young, I was filled with the regrets of adults. Regrets they probably had over their own lives and regrets they imagined I would one day have for myself—for instance my tattoos. Which, admittedly, I do regret a few. But sometimes I wonder how much I would if someone hadn’t first inserted that notion into my little mind. And hey I get it. I imagine when you’re raising your child in a weird, steep hell world that’s continually moving and evolving, regret seems like a good motivator—you want them to adapt, to fit in, to survive. Don’t do that or you’re going to be sorry you did, pumpkin. And you don’t want to be sorry now do you?
Personally, I think it’s the wrong way to go about it. For one, to instill regret in someone is to encourage them to build a foundation of avoidance rather than freedom and curiosity—autonomy. Second, it doesn’t work. Teaching regret just makes people regretful, not good nor wise. And lastly, the spirit of regret is lackluster and dull like many of the things we do in the name of “safety”. And sure there’s nothing wrong with lackluster and dull… but we don’t have mid life crisis’ because we are “living genuinely in our fallible freedom” now do we? If anything I think we should tell the youth to neither seek nor avoid regret, that it’s semi-inevitable and only they can decide what is worthy of theirs. And that nonetheless, to live well is to learn to live with it, kiddo.
I’m in the jungle with my mother and this is what’s on my mind. I haven’t written in my journal since arriving five days ago. There’s been a lot to write, but I haven’t felt moved to do so until now. We’re here because my muse of a friend1 invited me on their very first group trip they’re hosting—this one in particular is for women/women identifying only. Back when I was putting the deposit down like half a year ago, I had the whim to pass the invitation along to some of the women in my family. My mom is the only one who took the bait and I’m so glad she did—though there were moments between her agreeing and us arriving that I wondered what I had gotten myself into. Somewhere within I must’ve sensed I might learn a thing or two about our mother/daughter dynamic upon traveling to the remote jungle where we’d be sharing a bunk bed on a porch with nothing but a bug net, 10 other young women, and only compost toilets for pooping in.
Maybe not so surprisingly, I end up learning more than just about myself or my mother for that matter. What I do learn about her is that she’s more badass than I once believed.
Today we rise before the sun, journeying by car then boat to the Corcovado jungle for a tour to see wild animals. No feeding them or touching them, just passive witnesses—as it should be. We aren’t even allowed to bring any food or plastic onto the grounds. Costa Rica takes it’s nature rather seriously, at least in certain areas but I think generally as a nation. The guide orients us by letting us smell and identify some plants. We’re all hopeful to see at least something, so we’re all elated when only a few steps onto the path we hear motion in the tree tops. There (and throughout the day) we see a mix of howler, spider, and capuchin monkeys, and a sloth and her baby all vibing.
The day goes on like this, walking, listening, learning and spotting. There is a very strange looking creature called a tapir which reminds me of a horse pig. At one point, one walks right past us. I resist the urge to lightly slap its butt just to hear what sound it makes (like the moral human I am). This creature is probably like a “deer” to the guide, but to me it is a horse pig like I said. It is WILD. All of the animals are incredibly strange and wild, albeit probably semi-tamed because of the proximity of all the humans constantly staring at them. Still, it’s nice to know some animals can just live on their land, protected by us from us.
There is one species that really stands out to me that I gaze at, jaw dropped for a while even as the tour moves ahead—the leaf cutter ants. A thin glimmering trail of green flecks marches across the trail, uncaring of our giant feet. The guide tells us these ants grow a mushroom in their underground colony which feeds them the energy to cut the leaves to feed the mushroom they grow, which in turn feeds them to be able to cut the leaves to feed the mushroom. This is pure, utter symbiosis.
I attempt to joke with the guide, Roy, and say “Do they ever have time to kick back and crack open a cold one?” “No.” he says. “All they do is work 24/7.”2 “Damn,” I mutter, thinking about my own capitalist work culture in the U.S. The more you learn about nature the more you consider that maybe things aren’t as out of place as you once thought.3 “Bummer.” I say. “I don’t think so, they are playing a longer game.” he laughs and motions for us to move along.
It gets dark early in the jungle, the sun sets right around 5:30 pm. We share dinner at 7, and after shoveling it’s deliciousness in my mouth, I find myself on the bunk bed porch alone in a hammock, tired and receptive. The others are playing games up at the long house which I don’t have the energy for. I can hear the soft roar of their fun which adds a distinct harmony along the wailing of the bugs and toads. All the lights are off by me and the jungle is dark and awake. If I were to play you the sounds they might unsettle you. I’m feeling a deep discomfort myself as I stare and stare into the darkness. Not looking, not searching, just gazing. This is a different darkness, one not paired with a phone or a lamp or city lights. True dark. The darkness you can only get in nature away from the conglomeration of humans and all their light. I stare and stare until it’s almost too uncomfortable to bear, and then I stare some more. Before long tears are streaming down my face and I’m not sure why. But I don’t seek to find out. I let them fall. And I stare.
Darkness has many shades in varying shapes of pointed leafs and primary forest and twinkling sky. I get the sense that somewhere out there something can kill me. What is it about the light that makes us think we won’t die? About the dark that’s so eerie? It’s not that the dark is actually more dangerous per se, but its immensity is overwhelming—it’s mystery so absolute. Maybe this is because we are not nocturnal creatures, and if we ever were we certainly aren’t anymore. Maybe a bat feels the same way only towards the solar sky. What is it like to be a bat? I feel into the deep pit of having lost touch with this darkness. It called me here. In the dark I blend in and dissolve. In the light I shine. In the end I die. And when I die, I imagine I both shine and dissolve into something new, something else.
Warm tea is resting in my crotch. I’m gently swaying back and forth, my entire body feels cradled. I’m so warm and dewey I almost lose sense of the boundary between my flesh and the ether, I am perfectly temperate. I am not in the atmosphere, I am the atmosphere. The cold must shape a human differently than the warm. Island time might move slower because the people can’t even tell they are people—they may as well be the rain or the sky.
I can hear the bugs, the frogs, and whatever other unnamed species chanting their night songs. They’re so loud I almost can’t hear my own thoughts and I for this I am grateful. Surely our thoughts grew louder as we advanced in shutting nature out. Is this why we did it? So we could hear ourselves more? Believe in ourselves more? We put up walls, doors, and windows. Roads and artificial lights. We hang pictures of nature on the wall and set images of forests as backgrounds on our screens. We proclaim—This is our land now, we bought it. We can put you [nature] in a frame and pretend we’re in control. Pretending can work for a while, but only just a while.
I can’t convey how peaceful it is to be so close with, so fully immersed in nature (while of course maintaining some proximity of safety/boundary). Staring out into the horizon, the sensation isn’t necessarily entertaining but it’s certainly not boring. It’s awe invoking. It’s striking. The brain loves this—it loves seeing the biodiversity of the planet of which it is born. These people have the right idea where I’m staying.4 Building a little farm with extra beds for helping hands and hungry mouths. I needed this break. I needed to know places like this exist. That travel can be affordable and about volunteering and learning as much as playing. That it doesn’t have to be just about me all of the time.
The city is all consuming and I’m beginning to wonder how much time I have left there. I say this with love and tenderness not exhaustion or spite. I’m planning a three month sabbatical and split from the city at the end of this year to further ponder. I was weary about this whim because ya know, you never want to fall behind or become irrelevant or fade into oblivion—especially right as you’ve found a sense of stable footing. But then I meet a woman here who’s taking a year long sabbatical and I realize, actually, maybe that is exactly what I want to do. Would I regret it? Maybe. Are there things that offer stability that could be lost, sure. But if I’ve learned anything it’s that there are some regrets and no mistakes either way. That the path of motion is never free of work, burden, and bliss. That these are the very things that make the world both big and small and happening.
I’ll be writing more about this in the months to come, so please stay tuned. You can support my work by continually reading it, maybe even read it aloud to a friend or partner. That would actually be a dream come true. You can also upgrade to a paid subscription, as you know. When you do that you help actualize my vision of being a paid writer—I’m hoping to have other streams of revenue for my sabbatical.
I have a lot more to write about this last trip and all I learned, but it’s still integrating and burrowing.
Kiss kiss.
I have since googled that they do indeed rest, it’s for 8 minutes in a 12 hour period. Lol.
Which isn’t to insinuate they aren’t worth resisting or changing.
Finca Ganadito in Drake Bay, Costa Rica