Christmas – how fraught it is with the expectations of others, listening to people describe their perfect family get-togethers complete with charades and great-uncle George’s Christmas cracker hat catching fire. The truth is that this is a difficult time of year for many people. Memories of how life has changed, political arguments, straitened circumstances, children who can’t or won’t join in the gathering, empty spaces where loved ones used to be. 

Divorce is a brutal harbinger of change, like a knife it severs the joy and satisfaction of annual traditions, and any attempt to instil something new always feel a little, well, thin. 

The attempt to hang on to some of our traditions was perhaps the reason we decided to have, yet again, another Christmas together. The five of us still call ourselves a family, although that may be a slightly desperate attempt to provide a firm bedrock to entwined lives that started in Canada and France, then spread from Costa Rica to Cayman to England, then the girls on their own went further afield to the Antarctic and Chicago, back to Costa Rica, over to Hawaii and a return to England. And now my own wanderings through North and Central America. The girls and I continue to discuss the concept of home which perhaps many people take for granted. I spent years trying, mostly successfully, to create homes for my girls in the assortment of places that we lived in London. But the transplanting and the rooting of a home can’t be completed if the family doesn’t embrace it as a whole.

I loved having the three girls together, always somewhat amazed at how different they are. As I was staying with them in their rooms, it was very relaxed and easy. We swapped opinions as we brushed teeth together, told stories of pets long gone as we cuddled on the bed with Fiona’s dog Squid and teased each other about past exploits. Watching my girls grow into such interesting and articulate young women gives me a sense of pride that is unmeasurable, and working with Justine on her various law school applications just underscores what a variety of fascinating endeavours she’s undertaken. Exactly what one should be doing at that age. 

Highlights? An impromptu musical evening involving guitar and piano, with Fiona singing. A Dungeons and Dragons game with Mads narrating the plot. A collapsing gingerbread pyramid. Tree decorating. Christmas morning beach breakfast. Dips in the sea. Champagne. Surfing (not me). Thoughtful presents. Crazy storms. Port and cribbage (ouch). Traditions again, with a bittersweet tinge as I ponder when I will have the three of them together again.

But this Christmas, the third out of the last five spent in Cayman, finally put the Caribbean chapter of my life to bed. There’s a piece that always wants to live on, optimistically, thinking if only, or what if, until one day you realise those aren’t the questions. I looked around the island, enjoying the warmth, the ocean, my friends. It was less sad than expected. In fact, it wasn’t sad at all. There is nothing I need from Cayman other than for my daughters to have a good relationship with their father. And that’s not in my remit. 

In this time of resolutions and veganuary, I turn my face into the oncoming wind, knowing that I am strong enough to steer my ship on my own. My girls are somewhat nearby, writing their own, endlessly fascinating stories and I’m moving into my new place in Santa Ana next week. This seems an excellent start to 2023.

Happy New Year, my friends. Thank you for being part of my journey.

I climbed into bed recently and a gecko scuttled out from under the pillow and threw itself onto the floor, where it froze motionless, as if I couldn’t see it. I quite like geckos, they eat bugs and tend to stay hidden, but they’re a little unsettling when they choose to hide under my pillow. 

I had a crazy just-fell-asleep-dream a couple of nights ago, the kind which you wake up from with a wrench and wonder if you’ll ever fall asleep again. In it I was driving a car but the steering was out of control, I had to grip the wheel and hold it hard to the left in order not to careen into a long row of adobe houses. It felt apt given the chaos surrounding my charming home, although I don’t yet know whether I will crash and burn or manage to steer it to safety. 

I sit on my lovely terrace, the massive hanging ferns blowing in the strong breeze that likely heralds afternoon rain, and wonder whether I am wearing rose-tinted glasses when I look at Costa Rica. I have lived some beautiful years of my life here, I have returned for holidays and enjoyed the lifestyle, the weather and, most importantly, my friends. But can I manage re-entry? What would I do here?

But before I get distracted with all that, let’s raise a glass to my friends here - they have opened their hearts and their homes in a way that bowls me over. Within days of realising that my gorgeous, charming 300-year old adobe house was untenable because of the noisy intersection just the other side of the wall, I had offers from four friends to move into their homes, or their neighbour’s homes, or to use their house when they would be away. 

I think this comes from expat living. We are all living in a foreign country, we may speak the lingo, have Tico friends, worked a full time job, raised children and perhaps been here for decades, but once upon a time we were all new. At some point, everyone received support from others to learn, to cope, to figure out the cultural differences and the ways of the country. There is an acquired awareness.

My current exploration, though, is less about the geography and more about purpose, less about environment and more about using this time to ponder those existential questions. I do realise that most people don’t wrestle with these questions, and perhaps I am a little envious of that. I also know that raising existential issues is a little like people recounting their dreams. There is a limit. Yet I’ve managed to do both in this one post! Maybe I will attempt to dial it down so as not to stir things up for otherwise content people, but probably not.

My plans seem to change on a daily basis, so this blog post feels as though it’s already edging past its sell-by date. Let me launch it into the world, and then soon I can bring you up to date again with new adventures. All I know at this point is that  they will involve house-hunting, shrimp, the beach, a home amongst the trees and flight to Grand Cayman.

I will miss this beautiful terrace...

...but not the chaos surrounding it.

                                             

Man, is that another truck? What the hell is a truck doing coming up the hill, its gears grinding and the exhaust obviously punctured, at 5:45 am? I roll over in my admittedly very comfortable bed with four (four!) pillows, until I hear a motorcycle tooting its horn. What is it announcing? Newspaper delivery?

The icing on the cake was a loud speaker I heard not long after, the kind affixed to the back of a truck, selling tamales, before 7 am. Does no one sleep in here? Mind you, this is the country that thinks it a good idea to set off firecrackers at 5 am on Mother’s Day. 

I chose the urban tropics, though, with my eyes wide open. After all, I lived here for almost a decade. And I’m a morning person, so when I hike away from my charming if noisy abode, I am soon on quieter streets with bougainvillea trailing over the electrical wires and orioles flitting in the trees. I arrived at the tail end of the rainy season - the country is lush, the flowers emerging, the mountains are topped with fluffy clouds and the sun is warm.

Yesterday morning I walked up to the Saturday market. One of the best parts of my new place – along with the delightful 300-year old adobe house with two large bedrooms, an expansive kitchen, a river running the length of the exotic garden and a generous terrace – is having that market on my doorstep. People come from all around to buy the produce. It’s all local and includes the foods that I always pooh-poohed at English markets. Like bananas. Why do they sell bananas and avocados and lemons at the market in Chiswick? They do not, cannot, grow in the UK.

Here, however, the stalls are overflowing with bananas, avocados and limes (no lemons in this country), plus plantains, tomatoes, peppers, mangos, papaya, coconut, lettuces and herbs, pineapples, melons, zucchini, various types of potato, plus the unknowns – chayote, camote, hierba buena, yuca, pejibayes, guanabana and mora, and in addition the prepared foods such as pupusas (stuffed tortilla), plátano relleno (cooked plantain stuffed with beans and cheese), and the rather sickly granizados that my children used to beg for. Shaved ice with a flavoured syrup drizzled over and then topped with condensed milk. Have I mentioned that Costa Ricans have quite the sweet tooth!

As I settle into this next chapter of my adventure, I think about the fact that our unconscious selves take in every smell, sight, sound and taste around us, ensuring that we stay away from danger, lifting things to the conscious level if a reaction is required. We are not aware of this, our brains are used to our routines and have learned to filter the known from the unknown.

I have stepped away, though, from that comfortable routine that I created in Montreal and have turned every one of my senses on its head. Which gives me a slightly raised level of constant anxiety. Gone is the usual cold and wind, the dryness of heaters, the bakery smells along Blvd St. Laurent, the seasonal scent of Christmas trees being sold in the parks, the sights of massive murals, and the constant sound of French as I move around my quartier, eavesdropping shamelessly. All that vanished with the closing of the airplane door on Friday. 

When the door opened again, my senses went into overdrive.

So my brain is reacting, overreacting even, as it struggles to verify the unknown scents, sights, sounds and smells from the backfiring trucks, the delicious aroma of mangos, the slight mustiness from the shelves filled with books and the thick adobe walls, and the constant thrum of activity surrounding me. Birdsong fills the garden, even the nearby river is loud, louder than the traffic. There are dogs barking, motorcycles honking, a squirrel chatters at me.

The over-stimulation is making me a little overwrought. I’m thinking too much, wondering what I’m doing.

And then this morning, a perfectly-timed note from a friend who reminded me that I have moved out of my comfort zone, I have plunged into a new adventure. And he added that it would be odd if I wasn’t questioning everything a little, he would be concerned if I didn't. So I cooked up gallo pinto for my breakfast (rice and beans fried up with some peppers, onion and culantro), shopped for basics at the supermarket and hiked up to the top of the nearest hill, gently reminding myself all the while just to be present.

I will allow my senses to take it all in, I have faith that my brain can accommodate the sensual changes, and I will search for new routines while also reaching out to the great number of old and interesting friends that I have here. That is how a new home can be constructed. Home, after all, is not really the geography, it is a feeling.

                                     

My old, adobe house and the view from the rocking chair