COSTA RICA - Meatballs, Meatheads, and Pastafarians

 

We are seated at Victoria’s, a restaurant in Manuel Antonio. The owner begins chatting with our large group and doing what I think every restaurant owner should do:  giving us various dishes to try on the house.

There was an excellent savory dish of meatballs, tuna with a reduction sauce that everyone wanted details of, and one of my personal favourites, a thin-crust pizza made with chicken and walnuts. 

My stomach is arguably the way to my heart.  However, be forewarned: my innocent heart murmur means that I have some heart seepage and leakage.  Everything about my life should make perfect sense because of this but it never does.

I am an enigma. The door to the bathroom of Victoria’s is not an enigma.  The ladies room is the 2^nd door on the right. 

When one of the guys got up to use the restroom, John casually said, “It’s the 2^nd door on the right.” John is someone to watch out for and I say that with pure delight.

I am blurry eyed from having had one too many cocktails and thoroughly enjoying the company of my friends.  A man named Jack has ventured out with our amazing group of friends and the often warped sense of humor that goes along with it.   His voice is distinct and it seems to crawl like hunger growling along the length of the table as I’m helping myself to another bite of something delicious. I am taking such great pains to refrain from taking more than my fair share of the food that it takes me a few extra moments to notice the family at the next table – a young man and his parents.  The young man has noticed Jack at the far end of our table.  He remembers Jack from some recent encounter such as on a plane.  The young man is beautiful in the kind of way I can’t put my finger on.  In between my moments of self-imposed food rationing, all I can think is BEAUTIFUL, BEAUTIFUL, BEAUTIFUL.  Is it appropriate to take another bite now?

BEAUTIFUL.  The word suddenly shatters into segments in my mind: BE U TIL FULL.

I am not full yet.

Something isn’t right.  I know I have had a lot of cocktails but the beautiful young man’s words sound off.  It takes several seconds for me to realize his words ARE off. 

He is autistic.  He has recognized Jack and, in a moment of raw beauty, he points to Jack and says something that is partially garbled like the words have been forced out of his mouth and yet comes out clear in my memory such as, “I remember you; I know you.” 

Overjoyed at seeing Jack again, he takes his fist and beats it against his chest exactly where his heart is.

I know where my heart is.  I saw it an echocardiogram once.  I had to have it done to verify the risks of getting my wisdom teeth pulled.  There was a small chance that I could get an infection in my heart and die because my heart does not beat as others do.  I could have told you that without an expensive echocardiogram but whatever.  I saw my own heart beating close to Valentine’s Day, and the image never left my mind, nor how ridiculous the Valentine’s Day heart icon is once you have seen the real thing.

This beautiful young man, pounded his fist over and over right where his heart was.

I knew it on so many levels.  I know where my own heart beats.

A couple of years ago in Costa Rica, I had a conversation in broken Spanish about the word “amigo”. The difference between when you are someone’s “amigo” the way it can be so casually spoken in Costa Rica and when you are their AMIGO was explained to me.  When saying AMIGO, the person I was speaking with pounded his fist on his heart.

I knew what he meant and have used that gesture at times to convey what I feel my words cannot, as though that simple heart pounding expresses the depth of feeling towards certain people.  I truly believe that across every continent, through every culture and language barrier, that simple gesture conveys something critical the way the words, “I love you”, fail to express.  I am many things but I am not autistic, and yet this young beautiful man echoes the simplicity of the heart pounding gesture that most humans lack in their repertoire of self-expression.

It becomes very apparent with every passing moment that this young, beautiful man is autistic from his manner of speaking to his jerky and slightly uncontrolled movements, and yet he is one up on most of the rest of the world.

There is something happening over the length of the dinner table.  It suddenly shatters into segments in my mind: Jack at one end, the young autistic man at the other end at a different table, and I am in the middle, my heart leaking with every beat unbeknownst to all that dine on the delicious fare set before us like a gift.  Jack’s easy responses flow with graceful effortlessness and kindness.  He remembers the young man too. 

Sometimes while traveling, you get these incredible glimpses into other people’s souls and hearts.  Jack has a good heart, I thought to myself as my own heart beat shadows and leaked inside of me.  As though my eyes suddenly held echocardiogram powers, I could see Jack’s heart beating, could see the young man’s heart beating, and could feel my own.

Overwhelmed by the exchange between Jack and the young man, tears begin to well up in my eyes.  I excused myself to the ladies room - the 2^nd door on the right.  I am too close to breaking down and crying at the dinner table and simply must compose myself.  I am finally FULL, and it has little to do with the delicious food of Victoria’s.

BE U TIL FULL.

My friends wouldn’t let me pay for that dinner after I had ordered all of the appetizers at Claro Que Seafood.  Their hearts beat clearly to me as well.  Somehow, I still ended up taking leftover food home with me, including a slice of the chicken walnut pizza. 

It was even incredible the next day.  I ate it in the cottage standing up emitting orgasmic mumblings knowing that I had to have that pizza one more time. 

We made it back to Victoria’s another night, salivating at the thought of the meatballs, tuna, and chicken and walnut pizza we were formally introduced to earlier. 

Meatballs was one of the first things we ordered.

 “We are running out of meatballs”, the waiter apologized.  This is a classic example of things lost in translation.

Brief glances were exchanged between us in nanoseconds as the words, “We are running out of…” reverberated in our minds.

“Well, can we order just ONE meatball?” was asked with a surprising amount of sincerity.

I’m pretty sure the waiter repeated that they were “running” out of meatballs which only stoked the fire of meatball desire and hope in our hearts making us cling to the thought there might be one little meatball left for us rolling around in the kitchen.

Later, after the waiter had moved to the other end of the table and went through the list of specials, he asked, “Do you have any questions?”

“Yes, do you have any meatballs?” I asked unable to help myself.

John’s groan was audible.  He had wanted to ask that very thing and I had stolen his thunder. 

“I’ve got your number”, I said as I laughed, bemused by the twinkle in John’s blue eyes.

We ended up ordering the chicken and walnut pizza, a spicy meat pizza with jalapenos that set my esophagus on fire, and the tuna.

My friend, Keith, had casually asked me to have a Piña Colada for him while I was in Costa Rica.  I had two that night and toasted them to Keith.

At the first nips and nibbling of mosquitos on my flesh, I excused myself to change my clothes in the ladies room.  Shortly after I got back, Todd had to use the restroom and I called out, “It’s the 2^nd door to the right.” 

John has no idea what he has started.

 

 

Oh, the perfect timing of a Facebook post with the above picture!

Anybody who knows me or who has been reading my blogs knows that every time I go to Costa Rica, I have to go on the Sunset Sailing Tour.  Last year I went several times, mostly due to the generosity of Lourdes and Minor and their family. 

This year I went twice. I plan on writing about it twice, because frankly, I have to obtain special permissions from friends for certain um….photographs to be posted publicly.  Even if they say no, I’ll at least have narrowed down the best to bribe them with in the future to get everyone reunited in Costa Rica.  You might call this evil; I call it resourceful.

Don’t worry…the caveat here is that THEY have pictures of ME, and I’m certain there are a few I would rather laugh at in private or burn as the case may be.

On one of the Sunset Sails cruises, the “bad kids” had gathered in the back of the boat.  Kathryn expressed how she hadn’t wanted to be – and was glad she wasn’t – on a boat with a bunch of “meatheads”.  Looking at the larger two-level boats anchored nearby, the people looked unquestionably boring.  Looking around at our group of wonderful people, we were undeniably having more fun than anyone else on the ocean and yes, I have the pictures to prove it!  Kathryn and her group of friends had definitely chosen the better family run tour, unwittingly landing on the particular boat that held some of the most amazing people I have met in my life, and I told her as much.

Each cruise is a different flavor of wonderful.  On the previous cruise, Tim mentioned a story about Pastafarians.  PastaWHO?  Is that for real?!

“They are the church of the flying spaghetti monster,” Tim tells me.  The name Pastafarian makes me laugh yet I feel a question brewing with every noodle of information he throws my way. 

As it turns out, it is a real thing. 

Well….Wikipedia says, “Although adherents maintain publicly that Pastafarianism is a genuine religion, it is generally recognized by the media as a parody religion.”

An article on the NY Daily News talks about a Pastafarian politician who took the oath of office while wearing a colander on his head to make a point about religious freedom.  Onlookers said nothing, perhaps too shocked or confused by what was happening before their very eyes.

The NY Daily News article states, “According to the church's statement of belief, ‘the only dogma allowed in the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is the rejection of dogma.’

‘That is, there are no strict rules and regulations, there are no rote rituals and prayers and other nonsense,’ the church website states.”

With my newfound love of meatballs, my like-mindedness with Kathryn in regards to “meatheads”, and a similar feeling towards the “rejection of dogma”, I think I am already on my way to becoming a Pastafarian with or without a colander on my head.