The intensity of leaving is equal to the intensity of arriving. After 3 months of living in Costa Rica, I am moving on. My last day anywhere always has me feeling hollow, not fully earthbound. Some final images from my last day:
unfortunately, i won’t see this piece completed. this is part 3 of progress shots.an image that will remain: the jewelry handcrafts lined up on the main calle every day.
out of so many prolific graff writers, D U N K was the most prolific for me. i’ll always think of him when i think of san jose graffiti.
jesussan jose is peppered with beautiful old colonial-style buildings teatro nacional
a D U N K sticker on the sidewalkjesus againa panaderia on avenida 2
statue facing the post office – he was the president of costa rica from 1849-1859
Chifrijo: bowl of rice and beans topped with fried pork meat and avocado, pico de gallo, chimichurri, and lime. Mine was served with plantain chips. Tortilla chips are also an option.Gallo Pinto: traditionally served with breakfast, it is a slowly blended dish of rice, beans, onions, red peppers, and cilantro.Pork CasadoArepa con pollo, queso, y huevos.Pancakes, eggs, and papaya with coffee.Arroz con mixto y puréIce Cold Imperial at Rayuela’s on Avenida 2popular chocolate brand
All companionship can consist only in the strengthening of two neighboring solitudes, whereas everything that one is wont to call giving oneself is by nature harmful to companionship: for when a person abandons himself, he is no longer anything, and when two people both give themselves up in order to come close to each other, there is no longer any ground beneath them and their being together is a continual falling… Once there is disunity between them, the confusion grows with every day; neither of the two has anything unbroken, pure, and unspoiled about him any longer… They who wanted to do each other good are now handling one another in an imperious and intolerant manner, and in the struggle somehow to get out of their untenable and unbearable state of confusion, they commit the greatest fault that can happen to human relationships: they become impatient. They hurry to a conclusion; to come, as they believe, to a final decision, they try once and for all to establish their relationship, whose surprising changes have frightened them, in order to remain the same now and forever (as they say). ~Rainer Maria Rilke
this may be the most beautiful building in the city. it’s a school.
a soda this church is perpetually embraced by the clouds.
There were things that burned away at me, not only as a private individual, but also as a citizen of our century, our pixelated age. What does it mean to be lonely? How do we live, if we’re not intimately engaged with another human being? How do we connect with other people, particularly if we don’t find speaking easy? Is sex a cure for loneliness, and if it is, what happens if our body or sexuality is considered deviant or damaged, if we are ill or unblessed with beauty? And is technology helping with these things? Does it draw us closer together, or trap us behind screens? ~Olivia Laing
i wonder what kind of conversation they would be having if she wasn’t glued to her phone.busses are the central nervous system of the cityhe waits alone
You can be lonely anywhere, but there is a particular flavour to the loneliness that comes from living in a city, surrounded by millions of people. One might think this state was antithetical to urban living, to the massed presence of other human beings, and yet mere physical proximity is not enough to dispel a sense of internal isolation. It’s possible – easy, even – to feel desolate and unfrequented in oneself while living cheek by jowl with others. Cities can be lonely places, and in admitting this we see that loneliness doesn’t necessarily require physical solitude, but rather an absence or paucity of connection, closeness, kinship: an inability, for one reason or another, to find as much intimacy as is desired. Unhappy, as the dictionary has it, as a result of being without the companionship of others. Hardly any wonder, then, that it can reach its apotheosis in a crowd. ~ Laing
he must be a good storyteller.this street vendor’s day is just starting. wonder where the bus takes him…
Loneliness is personal, and it is also political. Loneliness is collective; it is a city. As to how to inhabit it, there are no rules and nor is there any need to feel shame, only to remember that the pursuit of individual happiness does not trump or excuse our obligations to each another. We are in this together, this accumulation of scars, this world of objects, this physical and temporary heaven that so often takes on the countenance of hell. What matters is kindness; what matters is solidarity. What matters is staying alert, staying open, because if we know anything from what has gone before us, it is that the time for feeling will not last. ~ Laing