Last week, I and my family set out to spend a few days reconnecting, sleeping, eating, sunning, and swimming (This trip was a privilege; flight was a privilege; the ability to be welcomed in another country, a privilege. I want to acknowledge the privilege because I recognize that for so many reasons, many people cannot simply vacate). It was pouring rain.
To be clear: being forced to weather storms invokes in me all the repose of a doused kitten. I ain’t graceful. I still remember the genesis of my fear: while driving down single-lane Texas roads in 2011, horizontal torrents of water pelted my car. I was canopied by charcoal-colored, lightning-flecked clouds on the way to a retreat. A clenched fist of fear, I squinted to make out the spectres of headlights and taillights, and my brown knuckles transformed into a shade of white as I gripped the wheel for miles and miles. Rest came, finally, in the form of rustic cabins and smiling faces haloed by umbrellas.
Then three years ago, as we set out to visit a coffee farm nestled atop a mountain in Costa Rica, drops of rain began to bounce on our guide’s car windshield. The showers mixed with the tawny dirt road as we ascended, and created a soupy mud that slid us back, back, back, and slipped us toward the mountain’s edge.
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