12 days in Costa Rica helped me prepare for this late spring heat wave. 12 days in Costa Rica taught me a lot about cloud forests, rainforests, and tropical birds. 12 days in Costa Rica cleared my mind of past ghosts and made room for new thoughts and experiences. 12 days in Costa Rica made me realize how bad I can smell, and that it’s ok because everybody does. Except Brian. He is suspiciously sans body odor, even in the hottest and most humid conditions. Either I married up, or I married an alien.
12 days in Costa Rica yielded scores of little sketches and studies, but not much in the way of finished art. Drawing wild birds in a wild place makes for wild strokes. My favorite drawings from the trip are the least finished. They resemble life drawings from my days in college, where you had 10 seconds to get the gesture of the nude model on paper before they changed poses. Birds give you one second, if that. They don’t stop moving. Even when roosting for the night they fidget and preen until they can’t stay awake any longer. And then it is dark.
I’ve been lugging a lot around in my head since we got back from our honeymoon last Sunday. I’ve been mentally writing this blog post over and over. It’s not coming out the way I had planned. It almost feels somber. Not at all as deep and colorful as the trip. Why?
Maybe it’s best to just post the pictures. The gestures of birds. Scribbled notes and brain maps. A verbal summary feels impossible. My photos appear too dull and small. I felt so much more than can be squeezed into a viewfinder or expressed in adjectives.
I have some scanning to do. I’ll be back.
