I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, my shopping bag from Auto Mercado hanging over my shoulder and my little Portuguese cork purse slung across my front. The road behind me was chockablock with rush hour traffic while the quieter street leading up to my place was less busy but still buzzing. It was the end of the day, of the week, Friday night, the children still on their summer holidays. There was energy in the air.

It was a sudden stop, that came out of nowhere. A single thought jumping in my head: wow, I am here, I am really here. And there is no other place that I want to be.

I stood there longer than necessary perhaps. Long enough that a passing woman gave me an odd look. But I wanted to fix it in my mind, to ensure that I was aware that I was present. I wanted to register it with every fabric of my being.

The sky was darkening, the pink already become a bruised purple, lights were on in most places but the plants and flowers still showed their colour; it wasn’t quite night. 

This contented feeling is fabulous, and somewhat ever-present at the moment, in spite of the many questions about purpose and home. There are a number of aspects of my life that need effort, I spend far too much time alone, for example, which is problematic but the pandemic left me with an unease about going out on my own. 

It’s something I realised recently, in conversation with a lovely, wise woman. This section, this chapter, call it another volume if you like, of my personal book of life began in 2019, when my divorce went through. In actual fact though, because of the pandemic, it wasn’t really an opening chapter but rather a mere prologue of possibility, of expanding horizons and new ideas which were then shut down by the enforced isolation. 

Sometimes I forget to accommodate the effect of that time. Fiona was with me during the first lockdown in 2020, with Justine floating in at some point in June, but they both left in July. Autumn began with me alone with Wonky, and the country started to agitate in the growing damp darkness as tiers of restriction and laws the government clearly ignored were inflicted on us. Christmas “wouldn’t be cancelled”, according to Boris Johnston, until it was. I remember a lot of quiet, and long evenings on the sofa with Wonky tucked into my side.

That new volume, then, cracked its covers in 2019, but the initial surprisingly energetic and exciting few months were a mere tease. The pandemic changed time, it affected choices and the restrictions created unease within people. Those two years of solitary living, with just my brindled beastie for company, changed me in ways that I don’t like. And yet, here I find myself, standing in the middle of a sidewalk in deepest Santa Ana, Costa Rica, turning in a slow circle to take in the sky, the people, my surroundings, feeling that there was nowhere else that I want to be at that moment.

Life is good.