The Pura Vida Omen

Beautiful!

The hike was harder for some…

That’s 22 feet that brave girl just leapt!

Happy Hiking Family :)

Recently, I have reconnected more regularly with perhaps one of my oldest and dearest friends.  In our conversations, he brought up the book, The Alchemist. If you haven’t read it, it's a philosophical story about one's true passion in life and life's journey. Him mentioning it made me think: I needed to re-read it again. Right before we left for Costa Rica, he posted on social media about it again, specifically around the space of failure, and how that leads to success. This prompted me to say: I need to find my copy for our trip to Costa Rica.

The day before leaving is always crazy. I thought many times I needed to look for my copy. At one point, I started looking for it, but then got distracted, and ultimately forgot. I remembered again about 20 minutes into our trip and kicked myself but shrugged it off.  Then more than 24 hours later, when we finally boarded our plane to Costa Rica, I looked down at the seated young college kid in our row and The Alchemist was laying on his lap. I laughed out loud. As I settled into the seat, I explained to him he had the book I meant to bring. He explained, it was a gift from his mom, as it was her favorite book and he was on his own journey to study abroad in Costa Rica for a semester.

The book is about paying attention to omens, and it says when you want something so deeply in your heart that the universe will conspire to make it happen.  It doesn't mean that it will be easy; hence what my friend had written about the relationship between failure and success. It just means, when you set your heart and love and intention to follow your one true passion, that the universe will conspire to make it happen. A caveat: this isn’t to say you can stop paying attention, because the omens are powerful things that tell you messages, the key is you have to be paying attention.

I think about how it relates to me; I have this overwhelming desire to see the world, and I have since I was a child. This is in The Alchemist. He talks about many people want to travel; yet the truth is some only dream about it, and the dream of it is enough. I am not content just dreaming, I feel the need so deep in my being to see the world, and I have made the intention to make it happen. But why?

First off, we make it harder by traveling with children. They are kids: they listen about 60% of the time (Mike and I debated this percentage); they have brotherly/sisterly fights regularly, especially when together so much; they cry; they whine (mostly Nolan these days). At the same time there is a sense of joy that can only come through a child’s eyes: seeing creepy crawlies in the jungle at night; riding that wave again in the Pacific; the joy of seeing sloths (it is amazing how joyful sloths are); and the craziness of sitting in a hot springs river; zip-lining over the jungle; seashell hunting on the most beautiful beaches.

Appreciation for these adventures and a particular amount of joy only come through my children's eyes. So we travel with our kids, challenging, yes, but no more challenging than the rest of our days that are more routine, just in a little different place. After all, they whine at home all the same. 

And when I think about living out my one true passion, I don’t think it is any more than deepening my authentic self to share that with the world. The only thing I can come up with, is traveling deepens my sense of self in such a way that nothing else comes close. When I am traveling, no one knows me, I settle into spaces I didn’t know existed and find that I like who I am more. And while I think my family sometimes grins and bears the extra push I give us to go deeper into ourselves, they seem to have no problem telling the stories on the other side.

Nolan let me know how crazy I am when we hiked 2 miles straight uphill to sleep in a cave, then hiked another mile straight uphill to find the most beautiful waterfalls and pools I have ever seen. The water was cold and the hike was hard, and muddy, and wet. We were in the middle of the jungle. We got to the top, beautiful green moss rocks framed a waterfall into the most beautiful aqua pool.  Oh ya… except the water was frigid cold, it was muddy and damp, our legs hurt from the straight uphill hike and well it was real life, but the photo was still glorious. Right? 

Then Nolan asks, “Mommy when we go back to our pool house, you know the one with the beach?”

I said, “ We checked out of there this morning, and we are sleeping in the cave tonight.”

Nolan said, “Why did we do that, Mommy?” And he looked at me as I might have officially lost my damn mind. 

I laughed and said to him, “I’m not totally sure Nolan.” I thought about it for a moment, as we clearly were not sitting next to the easy swimming pool with a swim up bar overlooking the ocean. We did spend a few days there so don’t worry, my family isn’t totally denied the simple luxuries of vacation.  And I got all their approval to hike to a waterfall and camp in a cave, so they co-signed this expedition. 

The thing about it is, it's just like anything in life, you get out of it what you put into it, and as I seek out my true purpose, a space where I go deeper into myself than I ever have been before, I don’t feel that is going to come out of a virgin Pina Colada by a pool (I’m not saying that doesn’t help too). I do find more often, it comes through adversity and pushing yourself to do things that make you uncomfortable and grow.

So I am calling the book on the plane the pura vida omen;  finding the good life and it doesn’t mean easy, or happy all the time, it means living the best life. If we can create a space where we as a family push through and accomplish something like the crazy hike, waterfall, cliff jumping, sleeping in a cave together adventure, imagine what we can do together when the really tough things in life hit us. We know how to be a team and support each other, and push each other. Furthermore, we can each push forward to help each other find their one true passion.

Frankie has already said Costa Rica is her favorite place, it's because of what it offers for her, outdoor explorations, animals, and nature somewhere in there is her true passion. For me, I prefer travel that is based on people, learning about how they lived, how they worshiped, how they did politics. That is the great thing about these journeys: we can all learn and grow and appreciate each other's passions and then set out to see more of the world together.

The Alchemist says to pay attention to omens, and I would say the physical book itself sitting in the freshman’s lap, was a powerful pura vida omen, that this little trip was on the right path. While the actual moments were ones I will treasure forever, it's the bonds and experiences that plant seeds; allowing each of us to go through life forever changed, yet more connected. Allowing us to face fear, and failure safely together, supporting each other and each of us finding our own true passions. The pura vida way.

***Disclaimer, my copy editor doesn’t travel with me, and anyone who knows me, knows my spelling and grammar went on vacation a long time ago. So this is the raw, authentic me, as I have spent enough of my life trying to be perfect, now I am just trying to be me.”

Cheers— Leah