Pura Vida

Metanoia— the journey of changing 

one’s mind, heart, self, or way of life

It’s Christmastime in the tropics and the twinkling lights over el supermercado in the tiny village of Montezuma are lit up like starry multicolored fireworks, their hues to rival the corals and cichlids and clownfish underwater. All day long, we’d marveled over colors far asea. Butterflies on wing circled the boat we’d charted — a boon to the week already replete with pools and palm trees, coconuts and local coaches teaching us to surf. 

We wondered where the fragile flit-flying things had come from, closest airstrip seeming to be the one runway just beyond our personal horizons.

Have you ever studied an iguana’s gait? Or paused to contemplate

how howler monkeys’ calls resemble distant thunder? A sound like brontide,

it will put you under its spell, this jungle rhythm, thrumming waves and rustling breezes. Did you come to ease dis-eases, seek time outside of time,

to keep a promise made over a decade ago, to find

sanctuaries for your soul, where you and your life, your dreams and the people you carry with you in your heart, can float peaceful as bright fishies in a cove? If you are lucky enough to make new friends with whom you can share your burdens as well your sunset beers, you are lucky enough. . . . And then, there you are, moored on a boat, breathless from snorkeling, and up paddles a fisherman with raw scallops on the half shell. Well, all I can tell you is Just Say Yes.

When the last baby sea turtle swims hell for leather out to surf, root for that little runt like he’s your home team, your first child, your most precious aspiration and the planet’s penultimate hope. Root and cheer when he makes it, after a few flips and flops. Cheer yourself hoarse then bathe your vocal chords in the healing saltwater of the sea. Did you know your tears contain the perfect salinity to actually, literally cure sadness? the drops of the ocean are the same. And you contain them, as well as moonlight, papaya, carbon. . .

You are as metamorphic as the rocks you cradle in your palm on a walk down the afternoon shoreline. You are daybreak and surf break and whale song and spotted dolphins surfacing to breathe. Like them, you are mammal and prehistoric. Borne in water, borne in air too, you magnificent mariposa. Territorial howler monkey, claiming its place in the jungle Ferocious boar, hungry beast, combing the beach for lunch, feasting where the glorious food is laid out before you—every menu a cornucopia of garden, earth, brine, labor and love.

This peninsula harbors wildness—where the jungle meets the sand and the roads are paved with pura vida, pure life finding its way to stay that way. Though the potholes be deep, though beyond here may lie dragons, this is God’s country. 

So go ahead, throw your watermelon to the wildlife swinging through the trees. They too must feed the monkeys on their backs. Share your bounty, that which you won’t find at Costco. 

It’s Christmastime in the tropics, though it feels more like Easter. A resurrection, metanoia, renaissance. A birth anew and anew, each wave cresting, each revolution of the earth bloodless as this place’s own. Make no mistake though, playa de los muertos and playa de los vivos can be one and the same. Yes/ And. Where there is death, there is life. Death, life. All of it. The whole nine yards.

After the rainy season, lushness so green it’s silly. No artist, no brush could paint this. Science and Spirit, unfathomable contractions of atoms and sparks and then——— brown brown dry and dust. It’s the mandala, the perfect chambered nautilus, ouroboros, eternal return. It’s the turtle sanctuaries we all wish so desperately to protect and then predators come anyway, despite our vigilant prayers. And yet— I for one, will still place my two hands together at heart center and beg, Have mercy upon us. And then clap those same hands up at the bow of the boat like a figurehead for gratitude. How can I keep from singing??

I told you, you too, are whale song.

It’s Christmastime in the tropics, which means back home there is snow on the ground, stockings to be filled. Don’t forget the mailman, the lawn guys, the horseback riding instructor. Pay year-end bills, plan family dinners and holiday celebrations. Bake the cookies for the office party where Mike will get drunk and Dawn and Eric become next year’s scuttlebutt. How quick and easily this paradise could go back to the stuff of dreams from whence it came. How like white water too deep to push through, too capsizing to turtle-roll under, life might come and sweep all this away. 

But then, on a random Tuesday when you finally score the reservation to Bluebird, your favorite French restaurant, they’ll offer scallops, and there you are again, transported back to the boat, watching Annie with her flippers on and her smile as big as sunrise. And you’ll have that snakeskin on your altar, next to the deer skull and the turkey feather and the rocks and the beach glass, reminding you of metamorphosis, reminding you you don’t have to tame what you were once afraid of to be at peace. Maybe you’ll get a tortuga tattooed on your anklebone, not a full grown Olive Ridley, abundant though vulnerable nonetheless, but a newly hatched one, freshly released and ambling towards the endless blue, the unknown depths, of home. And each time you look at it, you’ll utter your silent encouragement — you got this, little buddy. Swim. Swim. Go and sing with the whales. Swim.

Dedicated to the friends and staff at Peaks and Swells Surf Camp, 

Montezuma Costa Rica, December 5-12, 2025:  

Hillary, Ryan, Coco; Conan, Chris, Annie, Lee, John; 

Ellie, Rosie, Lily, Mari; Randall, Nano, Paquera, Bodhi, Pia, Darwin, Capitán 

and all the beautiful people and animals that made our week in 

this magical place so special and unforgettable.