Battle Studies and the Radio Lottery

 On the flight from Newark to Liberia, in my anti-nausea/ sleep deprived state the urge to listen to John Mayer’s album Battle Studies struck me. This is especially peculiar and contentious, because I more or less loathe(d) John Mayer, much to my friend Charles chagrin. We had had many discussions where Charlie would extol on the virtues of Mr. Mayer, and I could never get past how in love with himself he was with his silly guitar solos (I mean, c’mon, he’s John Mayer, not Jimi Hendrix or even Jack White).  Nevertheless, for some reason beyond me, I listened to Battle Studies on repeat for an hour or so while I flew over volcanoes and realized I was not in Kansas (okay, Canada) anymore. 

            The story gets more strange when every night after I checked my bed for scorpions and before I fell asleep, I compulsively listened to Mayer’s “Heartbreak Warfare”. Admittedly, this year has held a fair share of heartbreak for me, but I’m quite sure it has for most of us. Sorrow is miserable feeling, but its also beautiful because its part of the human experience. What a glorious thing to be able to feel devastated, and to hold on to the hope of feeling the exhilarating high of the opposite extreme. And so it was that the unexpected John Mayer continued to serenade me to sleep every night in Costa Rica. 





The odds kept getting weird when the next day, my newfound soul friends all poured ourselves into a pile of cuddles on a swinging couch after a long day of teacher training and had acoustic guitar jam sessions. We were lucky enough to find a guitar and even more fortunate that some of us were talented enough to play it (thanks Jason, Greta and Mykayla!) One of our favourite songs to sing was another John Mayer song from Battle Studies, called “Who Says”. I promise you, I had not mentioned my growing preoccupation with this album to any of my friends, and I was not even the one who started to sing it. I just allowed myself to lay there in my friends arms, with my arms around my friends, and let the feeling of being totally enveloped in love be permanently associated with this song. The best part is that we made it our own, slowing the tempo down entirely, pausing where we needed to, adding lots of giggles, repeating parts whenever we felt we needed to. I recorded it on my phone, and I still listen to it whenever I feel sad, or happy, or miss my friends, or just want to smile. 

  A couple of days later, my friend Brittany from back home tagged me in a facebook post listing her favourite albums. Brittany is a music aficionado in the best sense. If I were to print you a transcript of our facebook conversations, at least 50% would be of her sending me links to fantastic music. I’m sure you can see where this is going, but of course she had Battle Studies on her list. During my time at yoga teacher training, Brittany was my personal antidote to homesickness. Anytime I felt unsure of myself, or like I was missing out on anything back home, I just had to check my inbox and there would be an update from her. This little hint that Battle Studies meant to her what it was growing to mean to me was just a small symbol at how much I appreciated her constant support buoying me up. 

             Are you still with me? Because this is where it starts to get real. Our last morning at teacher training arrived, and the people who I had spent every minute of every day with (seriously, we mostly even slept in the same room), who I had laughed with, cried with, who taught me, who changed me, who invested themselves in me, and who I gave pieces of myself to, those people that I love packed their things in a shuttle that would take them back to the airport and away from me. In the background, the radio played. 
             
             I am pretty certain it was a satellite radio, but even still, there are so many variables with radio. There is the timing of radio hosts talking, of commercials, there are an infinite number of artists, and exponentially compacting that is the number songs in the catalogue of any particular artist. Sometimes when you listen to the radio, you hear that Katy Perry song for the four millionth time and want to steer your car into oncoming traffic. That makes it even more special when there is a song that you are craving, that would entirely make your day, that makes you feel like you really ARE the lead in your own movie, and yes, this is the soundtrack to your life. 

             On the radio that day, at precisely the moment I looked at my friend Taylor’s eyes spill over, and as she told me my eyes were pretty when I cried,  “Heartbreak Warfare” came on the radio.  I broke open. It was like listening to this song before I even knew these people, and every night as I fell asleep was priming me for this moment, of one of the hardest parts of my life, of having to say goodbye to people that I love. 

             I have no idea what I believe about the divinity, about the universe, about probability. But I do believe that this moment was magic. At teacher training, one of our favourite things to do was chant. We would sing seemingly random sounds, finish our practices with long and resounding “om”s . We didn’t know what we were saying, and while this can be a dangerous thing (words are powerful things), our focus was more about the vibration of the sounds that we were making, and how that made us feel, and what that meant to us. We made our own meaning with chanting together, and with singing together nightly. I made my own meaning to Battle Studies with the events I associate with those particular vibrations. 

             Think about going to a live concert. The vibrations of the music are literally tangible as they course through your body. The same vibrations cause physiological responses in hundreds or thousands of strangers, causing you to instantly be a part of one larger community. 
             Music, sound waves, shared vibration have the power to heal, unify and connect—how is that for magic? 

  
   

Let's Get Involved: Graduation Day in Nosara

I recently gathered the courage to go to Yoga Teacher Training. I did my research, and a particular training in Costa Rica seemed to be calling out to me. Less than a month after I decided to do it, my plane touched down in Liberia, Costa Rica.

Upon arrival in Liberia, I met a group of people who I would eventually share a lifetime bond with. From the get go, we bonded over our wanderlust, and within the hour decided to get our feet wet immediately, so hopped on a local bus into the heart of Liberia. As we stepped off the bus, a girl with a short blonde pixie cut and the sexiest English accent you've ever heard declares, "Right. Let's get involved".

I just thought this was the most perfect phrase for this trip, for travelling, for life in general. This phrase became the official motto of the trip, and was used for such menial things as "I am going to involve myself with that ice cream", to "Let's get involved with our first practise teach".

In the nature of jumping in with two feet, or into the deep end, or getting your feet wet (I am the worst at mixing metaphors), I am starting this blog with the end of my trip. This is largely because for the first two weeks of the trip while I was completing the training, we lived by the sun: we were up at 530 am and only finished at 730 at night, which did not give me lots of time to be a good travel blogger. This diiiiid however make me quite snap happy on our graduation day, when we took a field trip to Nosara.

We were dropped off in town, and walked along a wide, long wavy surfer beach called Playa Guiones. 

After walking a couple of kilometres on the beach, we came to a rocky peak, so we had to cut through a path in the brush to continue to the other side of town. 

On our journey, we stopped to make a friend. 

This little guy escorted us for a full 45 minute hike. What a nice guy. (Maybe his owner that he ditched didn't share that sentiment…)

We also made sure to stop and take time time to adore the local flora. 

After following the path through the brush, we came to an opening to the other section of Nosara's beach, called Playa Pelada. 

The approach to the beach from our path was elevated, and made for quite the view.

Playa Pelada was a smaller, calmer cove like beach, so we had some playtime. 

I think I can speak for the group when I say our favourite feature of Playa Pelada was the blowhole. 

Seriously, who doesn't love an all natural Splash Pad/ water fountain. 

My spunky Brit and I got throughly soaked...

So I made sure to be prepared upon my return…. 

We worked up a good hunger with our beach trek and play time, so settled into what is probably my new favourite restaurant in the world, called La Luna. 

La Luna is conveniently nestled riiiight onto Playa Pelada.

It didn't take us long to make ourselves right at home. 

As if the location wasn't enough of a selling point, just check out the bohemian decor of the restaurant. It helped create a perfect beachside vibe. 

My favourite feature of La Luna were these two gorgeous pups. 

Dear reader, please meet my spirit animal. 

I like to think of her name as Luna-- obviously because of the restaurant, but I also sort of have a thing for the moon as a symbol. 

Her dark fur contrasted with her bright eyes captivated me right from the moment I saw her.

And her playfulness melted my heart. 

I only wish could have taken her home.

Once the gang all caught up, we settled in for some beverages… 

Which, after eating and drinking and living so purely for 2 weeks, we all felt the effects of immediately (in a good way!)

Don't get me wrong, the food was AWESOME at our training. I love vegetables, I really do… 

But NOTHING can replace the taste of a good pizza. 

We snacked away the rest of the afternoon munching on calamari, plantains with guacamole, and different mediterranean dips (its turns out La Luna is owned by a Greek family). 

Enough about the food...Not a bad view from table, right? 

After our wonderful dinner, I decided to try to walk off some pizza by people watching on the beach. 

Is there any better way to people watch than through the lens of a camera? 

The day had been slightly overcast, but when the sun started to set, it was like the most beautiful filter had been put on my eyes. 

After some sunset playtime, La Luna turned on some fairy lights they had strung (seriously, this place was plucked from one of my dreams). 

The fairy lights beckoned us back to our final night with our friends and teachers. 

I have been thinking a lot about wanderlust lately, and about how my heart seems to get split into so many pieces every time I travel. The hard part of being afflicted with wanderlust is that the people that really get you, the people you meet and fall head over heels in love with, those people all have wanderlust too. 

So at present, pieces of my heart are all around the world. Does this sound lonely or tragic? Its not...

I couldn't have it any other way. 

From Bull's Blood to Coconuts in Varadero

I know winter is coming to a close, but when everything in sight seems permanently saturated in salt, I am finding its easier to be nostalgic about the last time the sun warmed my skin than to acknowledge reality. 

My family has started a relatively new tradition the past couple of years of escaping the harsh Canadian winter for warmer pastures over the holidays. This year, we went to Varadero, Cuba. In my opinion, there is no better way to get to Cuba than by starting with an all inclusive trip: you get your flight and meals covered, and you've got somewhere to crash at the end of the night, all for cheaper than it would cost just for independent flights there otherwise. The all inclusive resorts are all more or less the same, so when push came to shove, we chose one that seemed to be calling us by name: 

That being said, going on an all inclusive vacation is no excuse to not venture outside the walls of a resort and experience the culture of a country beyond the prefabricated package. On the first of many rainy days during our trip, we took a cab into the heart of Varadero. 

We started with my favourite part of any city: the park. I love spending time in the park in any city, because I feel that the features of the park are so telling about the city or country as a whole. 

For example, the park in Varadero featured a man made lake, which reminded me a lot of the man made lake in Retiro Park in Madrid. This feature tethered itself to its relationship with Spain, invoking cultural history. Not a bad place to start when feeling out the culture of a country, right? 

Then of course, there is the opportunity to observe the way locals behave and interact in public places of nature. I didn't quite feel comfortable with stealing moments of stranger's for my own consumption on my camera, so instead, here, look at my silly brother Alex yet again stalking animals. This time, it was a family of roosters.

The sky was steadily ominous, so we decided to cut our time in the park short to explore the streets and real estate in the city. 

Some residences were in better conditions than others, but I still feel that regardless of the state of upkeep, the houses were a symbol of the attitude of the Cuban people: there is not a culture of attachment to material things so much as a relaxed, laissez faire, experientially important culture.

Once again, the structure and care taken of religious artefacts and centres like this church invoked for me the beginnings of the country as a Spanish colony, which invites an interesting comparison of the ways in which a satellite country grows independently of its colonizer. 

And then there are things that are not culturally significant, but that Alex makes me take pictures of, like this man wearing a dog as a hat. 

My dad was incredibly eager to show us Al Capone's residence on the peninsula, and how else do you roll up to a famous gangster's house but in style? 

We flagged over this sexy white Cadillac taxi to take us to Casa di Al. The boys were all thoroughly impressed with how the driver kept referring to the car as his wife. 

I find it hard to care even a little about cars, but even I enjoyed the warm wind ruining my hair on our drive.

We pulled up to the house, which was very clearly upheld as a tourist attraction rather than as an authentic site (which is worth noting that it didn't make it any less fun). 

We explored the gorgeous grounds, and found quickly that even though the house was beautiful, the property's biggest draw had nothing to do with the building. 

Just check out the view that the house backs on to! Imagine boatfuls of gangsters pulling up to shore to pick up barrelfuls of rum and stacks of money, in the Gatsby era. So romantic.

I was in a full on Hemingway craze during this trip (Hemingway wrote only lovely things about this island), so this sexy little thing caught my eye. 

And of course I found the time to take a camera face selfie. 

We found the bar, and brought our drinks back out to the patio to enjoy the view. 

The boys all drank Cuba Libres: rum with coke and lemon, but I opted for sangria, because you just have to when you're sitting on a patio by the ocean. I immediately regretted this decision when my dad convinced me that in Spanish countries, the secret ingredient to sangria is actual bull's blood, hence the name "sangria"… I wish I weren't so gullible. 

The "bull's blood" got to me, so I went a little wild on the beach. 

Evidently Al was vulnerable to a touch of bull's blood, too. 

My brother's other (that is, other than finding and befriending all sorts of animals) unfortunate travel habit is acquiring various sorts of weapons. This time, he chose what I like to think of as a shiv, which seemed to be fashioned prison style. 

We took an extremely touristy double decker tour bus back up the peninsula to Xanadu, the mansion (previously) owned by the DuPont family, before the revolution. 

Once again, although the house was incredible, I had a hard time appreciating it when faced with its view of the ocean atop a cliff. 

We couldn't access the dining room part of Xanadu which was cordoned off for an event, but that didn't stop us from appreciating the details. 

Eventually we made our way upstairs to the bar, which had a 360 view of the peninsula. 

The estate is now used as a club house for this golf course.

I don't golf, but looking out on the greens made me a little tempted to take it up. (Just kidding, my dad makes me try every year, and then we both remember that I suck and give it up until the next year once we've adequately forgotten my deficiencies). 

I finished off our long day with the world's best pina colada. Seriously, if you've been searching, you can stop now. Stop messing around with your blender, and take a trip to Varadero instead. 

You can thank me later.