Hi.  I've changed.  This blog has become old news. I have started a blog about "homeschooling single" over here. http://homeschoolsingle.blogspot.com/

Becoming a Swallowtail Butterfly (in pictures)

This is where it all started. An aquarium planted with fennel.
We located fennel in a community garden that had little golden
eggs of the Swallowtail.

A day or two before hatching the egg turns black.

little hatchling. (images photographed through jewelers loop)

Three days old.

About 5 days old.

9 days old, third skin.

12 days old. 4th skin.

spinning the rope that keeps it in place as it metamorphoses.

Still working. Day 15?

About day 16, comatose.

after sitting around a few days,the last skin falls away...

Its moving

And now a full chrysalis, good morning.

After nearly two weeks of no change, the wing patterns
appear through skin

Emergence

stretching the wings

Stayed with us about 24 hours before taking its new wings to air.

A Costa Rican Family

I have had a hard time writing about Costa Rica. I have no wise words to say about it.  I traveled and related open, without my own agenda nor expectations, just listening to cues from within and without and all worked out.  This is just the beginning of something much more enduring that will take many years to unfold. 

I am spent my last days in Costa Rica back in San Ramon.  The first day felt strained between Jonathan (R’s dad) and I, but by the next day everything was easy again.

Ramona and I again stayed in Uncle Javier’s house.  Javier comes in holding a dead turkey by the feet.  He recounts catching a glimpse of his dog attacking the bird through his rear-view mirror as he turned the corner at the end of his driveway.  He couldn’t get to them before it was dead.   He had bought two turkeys, and this was the second to be killed by this particular dog.  He had bought the pair as pets and to make more baby turkeys, but soon found out the dogs were not going to allow for that. I didn’t care to see the defeathering or the chopping up of the turkey, but Ramona went back and watched for a couple of minutes.  I never saw anything like that when I was a kid.  She’s not squeamish like me.  I wish I were more like her in some respects.  I did take a few pictures of the birds head sticking out of a little box full of feathers and bones (I will spare you).  Then Jonathan chopped some up some turkey and put it in the white sauce for our pasta.  

It was so great (and daunting) going to Costa Rica.  Its good to create connections.  Our lives have been broadened, expanding our world through our relationships. Ramona and her dad foster a new relationship, she gets to meet other family members.  She gets to be welcomed by her Costa Rican roots. But, she had her own idea of the meeting, with high expectations and I think was let down a little.  She pictured a man with grayish long hair and a long beard.  Jonathan likes to shave his head and face.  He was also way to grabby and touchy with her, which made her feel uncomfortable.  I tried to explain how we in the US are more particular with bodies, and that Ramona connects through talking/stories, before touching.  However, though Ramona understands Spanish very well, she can’t tell stories is Spanish, so a lot was lost. She talked and talked in English and no one understood what she was saying but me.

Jonathan and I seem to have begun anew some sort of romance, we are just too attracted to try to control it all.  And I’ve changed so much in six years.  I am able to just let my relationships be what they are for the most part. We have a loving, friendly connection, we accept each other at face value.  Walking around as father daughter and mother felt so strange.  It was a first for me. He asked me if I would like to come live in Costa Rica, I said "Maybe someday." He asked me if I wanted to have another baby with him.  I said no.  He said we should get married for visa purposes, I said "It wouldn't help."

We are sooooo different is so many ways, but there seems to be this fundamental connection, this strange way that we are actually the basically the same. But the truth is that the vast distance between us may be the thing that keeps the good energy and peace between us. 


My friend says I am lucky because when the USA gets really shitty in a few years I will be happy to have somewhere to go.  I am working on establishing paternity for her as well as Costa Rican citizenship in the near future, then I work on my stuff. 

Waiting for the bus...

Check out the size of this big ass hummingbird!  

I am waiting for a bus down to San Ramon, so decided to update.   Ramona and I got to spend the last two and a half days with Ramona;s dad and her little brother.   Sometimes I wish we were able to spend more time here, playing with the same kids for more than just a couple days.  The first day there was a lot of calling and craziness.  We spent the day on the side of a hill at Ramona’s sort of Uncle’s house, which is right next door to the lot that R’s dad says he is going to build a house for Taylor (Rmaona’s brother) and Ramona.  Check out the view of Golfo de Nicoya.

The View, ahhhh.  Of course pictures do it no justice. 

The day was interrupted with many many phone calls from Erika, the other mother.  Angry that Jonathan had Taylor out so long (though arguments are rarely about what they pretend to be about) cumulating in her threatening to call the police if he wasn’t home right away as we waited for our pizza.   So the second day she was invited.  It was all a little weird, but at least we spent some time together. She drank a couple beers. She was no longer so scary to me. Though she did exhibit slight insanity a couple times.  I do think though, were I to be in a situation like hers, I may be slightly crazy myself.  But it is all relative. Relationships are so strange, especially upon the landscape of social restraints.

Gotta go.  To be continued…

Saludos

I keep thinking about blogging, but have had a hard time organizing my thoughts.  I don’t know how much I am comfortable sharing and what my feelings are about a lot of this stuff.  So I just I decided to post, without the process.  Just set the scene.

The first week here, I didn’t even have enough time on the internet to read my email.  Which is a good thing.  I can’t remember the last time I didn’t check my email in a week.  I think I should do that more often.  When I finally did check there wasn’t all that much there.  Made we wonder if I really need to check my email 8 times a day when I do have access.

So the first four nights I stayed at Jonathan’s (Ramona’s Dad) uncle’s house.  He is staying there for a while building an apartment for his uncle.  I was sort of immediately dropped into drama.  His other kid’s mom was calling constantly.  He told me that she was jealous of me.  That she has always been jealous of me.  All these years. Which struck me odd, as I didn’t even know that we knew each other until my second day here.   I didn’t even know he had another child until about two weeks before I came.  I had a conversation with the other mother once.  I haven’t figured out their relationship.  They haven’t lived in the same town for a year.  But he admitted that they had been together “once in a long while.”

Ramona’s grandma and aunt came to see her.  Ramona ran away from them.  Really she walked. I was surprised to see that Ramona was overwhelmed with being the center of attention.  

Then we went to the beach with J for three days.  It was pretty nice, swimming, eating, smoking, and then again, ending each night with a bottle of wine once Ramona was asleep. It was a strange feeling to be all daddy, mommy, and kid.  Never had that experience before.  He told me he was going to build a house for Ramona and he brother.  He also said some outrageous things I have yet to process. The other mom called more.  So uncomfortable and irritating.

Then he needed to work, and it is rather boring hanging out while he works, so Ramona and I came up here to Santa Elena.  This is where I met J.  This is where the other mother and child lives (in a house owned and built by J).  I haven’t seen them.

But a couple days ago I took an overnight trip to La Fortuna, and spent a day in the Hot Springs.  That was great, beautiful and the foot of a volcano, which has been dormant for 3 months.  All the better; Ramona’s greatest fear is hot lava.  The trip itself was fun cause we got to take a boat for part of the way.  On the way back we traveled with a cowboy from Arizona, a Leo like me.  He had a crazy story.  He had been planning to buy a horse here in Costa Rica and then ride it to Sonoma County coincidentally.  But the airline lost his saddle and then he lost some money and found out that horses are more expensive here than in the US.  Here they eat grass.  In the states they eat $20 a bale hay.  In the sates the horse rescues are full cause no one can afford horses (and there is no where to ride them anyway).  So now he doesn’t know what he’s gonna do.  But he bought us dinner on returning to Santa Elena.  We talked about how important it is to live life, cause it might be all we have.

Today I meet with Ramona’s dad.  We are also supposed to meet he brother and the other mother.  It should be interesting.  

On my way...

I am sitting on the airplane, headed towards Costa Rica.  Ramona is trying to nap beside me.   She only slept 6 hours last night, after several nights of not quite getting enough sleep.  I wonder if, when it will catch up with her.  I got 3 hours sleep if I was lucky (damned insomnia).  We are dropping in on Ramona’s Dad.  He wasn’t communicating with me, so I just decided to go.  Ramona wanted to.  But now, he becomes a part of our life.  I wonder what part he will play in our lives?  Suddenly there will be a dad where there once was none.  Years ago I had mysteriously lost all the photos from my trip to Costa Rica, so Ramona was never even able to see what he looked like.  A few weeks ago he got a facebook account as a way to stay in touch.  She got to see a picture of him.  She seemed surprised and said he didn’t look like how she thought.  She said she thought he had white hair and a beard.  “Like Santa?” I asked, she said no.  Perhaps it was more resembled a child’s idea of what God looks like.  

Another person we get to meet is the brother Ramona that we just found out that she has.  He is only four months younger than Ramona.  I don’t know what to think about it.  Good for him to have been involved in raising a child, though he isn’t with the mother anymore.  Why did he cut off communication with me?  I ponder various scenarios in my head. For me, this is a truth-seeking journey.  Why did things play out the way they did?  Why was it all so great and yet so bad?

So he is excited and nervous to meet her, and is coming to meet us at the airport and has found us a place to stay and paid three nights, so that's nice.  Good way to begin again.

…Now I am in Dallas, my flight is over an hour late.  I should be flying towards Costa Rica right now.

desmotivaciones

I am baffled at my complete lack of motivation right now. I have so much time, at home, to do stuff and I don’t feel like doing anything. The me from a few months ago would have freaked if she could see all the time I would be "wasting" in the near future. All I do is think about going to Costa Rica, and that is still a month away. Am I going to be like this for a month? I can now see why I never liked to have much of anything in my life. Because I always end up feeling like this. Like I want to just get up and go. I don’t know how not to compulsively and/or obsessively think about my next trip. And now I have a this and a that, those things that go alone with stability. But really, I want to pick up and go. Put a few things away somewhere safe until I get back and just go. Everything seems so dull.

And then there is this overwhelming feeling of loneliness. Not sure where it came from. I'm tired of taking care of everything.

So I just sit around. Not being creative. Keeping my house a mess. Not working in the yard. Fuck it. I’m gonna make myself go do something.

Or maybe just sit here and do nothing for the next month.