The Quaker and the Mime

Ten years ago, I wrote a short story, a historical romance, about a Quaker woman and a mime and the road trip they took together, journeying south to Costa Rica where they would study war no more.  The protagonist, the Quaker, never heard the voice of the mime the entire road trip but she learned to read his body language and eventually married him in the end.  The story was cheesy, but at least its history was pretty accurate. 

I get these flighty times when all I want is to return to Costa Rica.  Sometimes it is because I want my life to be bigger than it is now, other times I think I would look more impressive with distance.  Three years ago I bought a plane ticket to head that way.  Thank money for refunds. I don't think it is particularly good or bad to return to Costa Rica.  I just think it is not Maggie.  It is not what I need to aim for right now or ever and it is expensive and requires malaria medicine that makes me go insane. 

Three and a half months.  That is how long I lived in Monteverde, Costa Rica.  Wow.  That really is not very much.  I spent 18 summer weeks at the beach, 12 months in Washington, DC, a full summer in Celo North Carolina poking seeds in the ground, and 3 years in Berea, Kentucky.  That is just the beginning of a sizable list of "places I've been."

Three and a half months is when held beside the 375.5 additional months I have been in the world.  It is not a funny consequence that this Appalachian region has kept me for so many of these months.  I think my story about the Quaker and the Mime is really not a story about the settlement of Monteverde, Costa Rica so long ago.  It is the story of Maggie, and how place and I chose one another. 

I am a fighter and a person who flees situations and places when they get too tough.  In me, the Quaker turns up her classical music and mashes her foot on the gas, and the mime moves on a stage like a boxer throwing punches.  Home is here, from this old sunken ridge to that rolling valley.  I am grateful I live here in the Appalachian mountain range.  Some say a pilgrim learns to carry their home inside their heart, but I'd say my home is as much encompassing me as it is inside my chest.