Today I find myself sitting outside with a heavy heart and a tightness in my chest. I can’t quite put my finger on where it came from. Maybe the moon and Venus have aligned. Maybe it’s some special full moon stirring things beneath the surface. Or maybe it’s none of those things at all. Whatever the reason, the feeling is real. It sits with weight.
I find myself staring up into my favorite tree in the backyard, hoping a pair of macaws or a couple of toucans might drop in and distract me for a while. My eyes wander through the thick branches searching for an iguana stretched across a limb or a black squirrel darting through the leaves. Instead, there is only the steady buzz of cicadas and the gentle sound of water spilling into the pool.
I know this feeling. I’ve met it before.
But I refuse to give it ground. I refuse to feed it. Let it pass like the clouds drifting overhead. Still, days like this are part of being human. They arrive uninvited and bring questions with them. Questions about decisions made and roads not taken. Glimpses into an uncertain future. Thoughts of a world increasingly shaped by greed, power, and men willing to gamble with lives they will never know.
The idea that nuclear weapons still exist—that civilization hangs, in some small way, on the judgment of a handful of leaders—feels absurd when you stop long enough to think about it. Yet here we are. An entire planet carrying a quiet undercurrent of fear, whether we admit it or not.
Costa Rica does a remarkable job of buffering me from all of that. Nature has a way of softening the sharp edges of the world. The jungle, the rain, the endless shades of green—they remind me that life continues despite our chaos.
But some days the world still finds a way in.
It seeps through the cracks and settles in my mind, bringing with it a deep ache and a fear not for myself, but for all living things trying to make their way through this brief existence.
So I sit here beneath my tree, my eyes tracing its sprawling branches and endless palette of greens. Once again, I wait for a visitor—a macaw, a toucan, an iguana, anything at all. Some small reminder that the world is still beautiful.
And as I sit and wait, even the cicadas have fallen silent.
Two Travelin' Chicas... 