travel lux

I leave tonight for nine days in Costa Rica. It will be a very different trip from my usual style, as we will be travelling with Erik's parents. Although I got to suggest and ultimately choose our three destinations, a travel agent put our itinerary together. I don't think I've ever been on trip planned by a travel agent, and it is rare for me to stay in nice hotels.

One effect of this luxury is that I haven't given the trip much thought. It's been relaxing to not stress about coordination and details, but I miss the excitement of anticipation derived from researching the myriad options of things to do and places to see in a new country.

Because I will not be travelling with my usual pack-everything-in speed, I hope to focus more on reading, writing, drawing, photography, and meditation. I'm also bringing my laptop, and it'll be my first trip (not including a couple of business trips between San Francisco and NYC) with a computer. HDR, here I come-- especially now that Eric has shamed me by purchasing a camera and creating an HDR image during the lag time of me only contemplating the HDR process.

On another hand (no, not "the" other, since the deity of ideas and opportunities certainly has more than a mere two hands) I'm sad to leave Portland for even two weekends. For each day of free time that passes here, I feel doors and windows opening to me. There are always new places to explore just within Portland city limits, new garments or accessories to repurpose or create, new disciplines to explore that blend science and art in wonderful ways.

I wonder if the same blossoming would occur wherever I found myself. But I do not myself contain BEAM robotics, nor primeval forests condensing moisture from the clouds with mossy beards, nor rust and bricks and beetles. So I wonder-- where do I fit in? Where do I stick out? How does a place shape the mind? How does a language shape a place?

Will the colors reflected through my eyes in Costa Rica stay static in my memory?