I was able to catch another gorgeous sunset the other evening. It was one of those sunsets that words just can't describe. Color lit up, and then faded from the bases of clouds. The clouds were so thick and marvelously shaped I couldn't tell what was clouds and what was mountains. I waited, watching, and enjoying the constantly changing beauty, recording the images in my mind and wishing I'd grabbed my camera.
One of my favorite times of day is when there's still enough light to see, but the color is gone and all the trees and everything around me become silhouettes. It's not quite night, but it's no longer day. There's something wonderful and mysterious about it I can't quite explain.
And a random memory from theater camp a few weeks after we first moved to Maine, but that's beside the point.
Well, sort of. Long story short, this girl goes to marry the guy she loves, but the dad told her she can't come hungry or full, dressed or naked, not on horse nor on foot, not at day nor at night, etc. So, she comes at dawn, wrapped in some thick veil, riding on a donkey, having eaten grapes along the way, etc. And though the dad didn't want the girl to marry his son, he had to fulfill his word since she outsmarted him. The End. I was about to start 6th grade and it was awkward.
But my point here is the tension. This clever somehow in between way of not being totally one thing or another. I've always grown up being a very black or white kind of person. Yes or no. One way or the other. I like life to be simple, for there to be good and bad, right and wrong, cut and dry answers, and no silly weasely sort of, kind of, in a way kind of stuff. But I'm learning that life is complicated, and oversimplifying in order to make things fit into + and - isn't always such a good idea. It can actually do a lot of damage and really distort things.
In some ways, this is hard for me to swallow. I like to categorize things into their nice little boxes. It can be frustrating not to know how to think about something. But, the fact that things won't always fit into my little schemas isn't really all bad news. Life is messy. That's just reality. And I'm starting to learn and accept the wonderful freedoms that accompany this. It's ok for a lot of things to be in some nebulous state instead of my beloved concrete. It's ok for there to be uncertainty.
I'm currently applying and wrestling about this in 2 areas in my own life.
1. Last year, my NT prof at Gordon-Conwell was an eccentric guy. He grew up in South Africa and I think had spent some time in England or something like that, and when he started reading things, he would slip back into his British accent. It was kind of funny, but to hear him talk about his life and how he's just a mix of different cultures was really encouraging for me to hear. I've long hated the questions, "Where are you from? Where's home for you? Where did you grow up?" Now, I didn't spend my life growing up on 3 different continents, but my family did move within the States every 3-4 years until we plopped down in Maine for 7 years. When I tell people it's complicated, they usually ask if I was a military brat. No, it was for other reasons. But I still have a hard time identifying, especially since my parents now live in Southern AZ, and I've never lived there. I've started telling people I'm just from the northeast, or that culturally I'm a New England girl. (How 'bout them Sox?) And this is where point 2 comes in. But the point of point 1 is that, there is uncertainty about where I'm from.
I don't have to be able to distinguish between the clouds and the mountains. That's what makes the scene so incredible.
I'm from a few different places. I don't have to say a specific one. And that's ok. I can say "the northeast" and be vague. That's most correct though, since everywhere I lived from 0-21 can mostly fall into that category, relatively speaking. And that's a lot easier than those people who really did grow up on multiple continents in drastically different cultures. So, I'll stop complaining. And right now, home on earth is San José de la Montaña,
x meters from the plaza,
y meters northwest. And I'm happy with that.
But on to point 2. Years ago, even before I came to Costa Rica, people started calling me "La gringa más latina" (the most Latin girl from the US) they had ever known. Hence, the name of my blog. When I served in Grand Teton National Park, I spent way more time hanging out with the
latinos there than the
gringos (or Europeans). The gringos tended to eat on one side of the cafeteria, the European kids in the middle, and the latinos + white lil me on the other side. It was fascinating.
Even after being here just over a year, I started referring to Costa Rica and things about the country, culture and history using the first person. Here in Costa Rica we... Most of us here tend to... The gringos called me on it, but also kind of thought it was cool since I was identifying with the country so much. When I go back to the States, I always get kind of nervous because I'm afraid I'm going to greet someone the tico way (with a kiss on the cheek) and freak him/her out.
Is it still day, or is it night now? Is there really any color left in anything or are they really just silhouettes now?
Am I tica? No, not really. Though yesterday for the first time ever, a tico thought I was tica! (In the past gringos had thought I was tica or that Spanish was my first language, but this was the first time for a tico to do so! Normally they hear me, pause, ask if I'm from somewhere else, and get really surprised when they learn I really am a gringa). I have learned and internalized a lot of Costa Rican culture and ways though.
Am I gringa? Well, in terms of citizenship, yes. And in my heart of hearts, in many ways, yes. But not in everything.
So, my answers aren't so cut and dry, because, knowing both ticos and gringos, I can see that I am some kind of gringuitica, or tiquigringa, however you want to put it. It's weird. But that's ok.
The silhouettes of trees can be best enjoyed when there is natural light to see them and it's neither night nor day. The beauty is in the uncertainty.
