When Longing Become Belonging
Today was one for the books.
I stopped drinking coffee again—I do it sometimes. I’m always experimenting with how to maximize my body’s natural efficiency.
Though I love it, I’ve found that when I continuously abstain from the jitter juice for a few days, I don’t wake up agitated with a jolt in my stomach. Instead, I feel my muscles coming online slowly and gently—stretching, relishing in having been fully rested.
To think, two days before, I’d spent hours staring at the screen, troubleshooting website woes and feeling a heaviness behind my eyes. Today, however, I found myself moving with a gentle ease and a wide open schedule.
With the wave forecast dismal, I decided I would use the day to repay my debts and get a good walk in. My creditor? An older woman with a mane of fire and a kind face had graciously lent me money to pay for my ecstatic dance entry the night before. I hadn’t brought my wallet with me or realized my credit card details had only sufficed as a booking reservation. I was to pay up or get out.
That’s when a woman I’d never seen around before raised a $20 bill in the air—no words spoken.
“I really appreciate it,” I’d said. “I’ll get your contact details later and repay you.”
She nodded. She didn’t seem worried the way others worry when money goes—the way their bodies tense and their eyebrows furrow.
And so I was permitted to dance blindfolded on a wooden platform facing the ocean with twenty other wild women. Suddenly a warm sensation filled my body and a sweet thought popped into my mind: Of all the places in the world I could be, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else but right here, right now.
Maybe it was the ceremonial-grade cacao coursing through my veins, or maybe it was the frequency of gratitude that Thanksgiving invokes. Either way, I wondered where else this frequency would take me.
My creditor left as soon as the event was over, and I’d had no chance to get her contact details. I’d been careful to remember her name—Abby—when she’d introduced herself in the circle, so I asked the organizer for her number before I left.
“Sure, I have Abby’s number, I’ll send it to you.”
Community: The Feeling I’d Been Longing For
As I sauntered up the road to Abby’s to repay the loan, I said hello to familiar faces—Nicaraguan locals I’d crossed paths with before, including a woman whose birthday party I’d once danced at. She’d moved recently, and I hadn’t seen her new place yet. We hugged, I asked for directions, and then continued down the winding, jungly road until I reached Abby’s house.
When I arrived, Abby mentioned that she also sold cheese and fresh bread, and that the farm she sourced meat from was fully vetted—she knew exactly how the animals were treated. Funny enough, I’d been wondering lately where to find ethical meat. The whole frozen chickens at the secondhand shop were cheap, sure, but something felt off about digging through a freezer of mystery meat while surrounded by gently used sheets and Hawaiian shirts.
I told her how happy I was to learn that others in the community cared about where their food came from. Unfortunately, though, they were fresh out of chickens.
As I was about to head out (I still had a frozen chicken to adopt), a sweet elderly Nicaraguan woman with more gaps than teeth stepped through Abby’s gate. She was selling fresh tortillas, three for roughly 50 cents. My heart skipped a beat. Could this day get any better?
The answer was yes—it could. Because a few seconds later, another smiling face walked through the gate: a woman who had lived in Berlin at the same time I did, though our paths never crossed in all nine years I was there. Here, though, our lives had become tightly intertwined. Every Tuesday she and a few others gathered for women’s circle, and in just a few short months I’d gained so many insights in the company of these wise women.
We walked together for a while, brainstorming ways to help the emaciated animals that are so much a part of life here. We vowed to touch base and discuss ways we could fundraise for sterilizations, like hosting community events. We hugged, and I continued on my journey.
After digging around the freezer at the shop for a decent bird, I continued down the main road. I still needed to buy a papaya from the market—a fruit I’d never cared for until I tasted it straight from the source. Here, it tastes faintly like Fruity Pebbles: tropical, bright, and good for the gut.
On my way home from the store, I snickered as I saw a group of wild horses huddling under the car wash. Were they clients or vehicles?
The heat, combined with the extra weight of the bird and papaya, began to creep up on me. I regretted my decision to walk so far, but turning back would have been the same as moving forward. And then an angel appeared out of thin air, a Nicaraguan woman on her way to work at one of the resorts by the beach.
“¿Dónde vas?” she asked. She offered me a ride on the back of her moto, and off we went down a dusty, bumpy road. She even took me a bit further than her workplace.
I couldn’t help but smile on my last stretch through the jungle. What a difference it is to move through a day here compared to cold Berlin, where hardly anyone acknowledged your existence, let alone greeted you. Or the U.S., where getting anywhere required at least a twenty-minute drive and nature was something you had to intentionally seek out.
Bouncing along that dusty road, it hit me: every lonely night, every solo adventure, every moment of doubt was worth it, because it all led me here. I didn’t just live here—I belonged here.