elbow room

i’ve been thinking about travelling and about living abroad, and about isolation, and connection.


when i was 20, i lived in costa rica for 5 months. it was life changing. when i went, i had short hair and skinny legs and spoke no spanish- well almost no spanish. i got off the plane with my dictionary in hand and the name of the family i was living with . ines flores de castillo. it was january 1991.

over those months i experienced being different and awkward and saying things incorrectly, wearing things incorrectly and feeling out of place. i was too tall, and my hair was too short. i was too skinny and my clothes were too “gringo”. my doc martin shoes and t-shirts which were cute in new england- were not attractive in central america. and i wanted to be heavier- to have long hair- to wear jeans that were tighter and had ankle zippers with flats- i wanted to speak spanish fluently so i could understand my world- i wanted to communicate.

when i got there, i didn’t like rice and beans for dinner and i really didn’t like rice and beans from the night before – re-fried in oil for breakfast. i longed for bakery items and chocolate. i missed my boyfriend (mike reid :)   i missed connection. touch.  you don't know how important physical human contact is until you don't have it for a while.

i remember being on the bus one afternoon coming home from class.  i'd been there for about a month.  i still struggled to speak the language, to understand and to be understood.  it was tiring. the bus was crowded and i was sitting next to a guy a bit older than me- he was wearing a red plaid shirt.  i sat there feeling gawky and awkward and stared at and different as people continued to push onto the bus.  soon we were smooshed together and my elbow rested on his upper arm.  in a most situations i wouldn't even have noticed this small quarter sized part of my body touching slightly this other person.  but in this setting, in this moment- i became acutely aware of my elbow.  that small piece of my skin that gently rested on his arm became all of me.

it was an awareness- a connection, a desperately needed void was being filled by a useless part of my body. it was  the power of touch.  i could have ridden that bus forever just to hold onto that small electric connection. just sitting there and feeling the warmth of his arm reminded me of my humanness. of our commonality despite the lack of verbal communication.

being in  another culture and another place is kind of like time travel. you are so far from home- that it feels like time and space are involved.  that's how it was for me in central america in the '90s.  it was also during a war. a time when the US was glorified by most of costa rica.  the news was full of pomp and circumstance.  but i was learning in my classes about central american history and culture- what we'd done to this region.  how our choices- our self interest had affected these countries and contributed to their poverty, their disintegration. i was wrestling with identity and with my own culture.  it was a time of finding myself- outside of my family- outside of my country and with out my language. 

soon i began to love rice and beans.  to crave it in the morning all crispy in oil with salsa inglese.  the language became real and beautiful and i began to understand the people around me- to feel connected. and my hair grew and i gained 10 pounds and i bought myself some 'tican' jeans and mike came to visit.  finally, i began to dream in spanish and that connection with this place- and these people, arrived. so when i rode the bus most of the time - my elbow was just my elbow, and not the center of my being as it had been in those early days when time and space left me too alone and disconnected.