COSTA RICA DIARIES v1n8
Where’s Waldo?
Greetings from Conchal, just another area in this beautiful nation that I’m experiencing and learning about much to my wonder and excitement more every day.
I woke up here to a crisp, pounding jungly rain, the likes of which I have never seen or heard. It was musical to me and it smelled like heaven raining down. It also shut up the howler monkeys all morning long. (Bonus. It gets loud, man! ❤️).
I’ll talk more about Conchal — and everything else — another time but today got really deep personally and I would like to share it with some thoughts.
When one is a chatty, travelogue writing-obsessed and over-sharing person who goes silent on a trip like this all of a sudden, one starts hearing from people. I got the sweetest and in some cases, most beautifully jackassed notes wondering why I’ve gone cold that started coming in about mid-morning. Right when I was being examined and nearly on the floor, and right before I ended up admitted to the hospital, hooked up to mostly familiar devices, being plodded poked and injected for much of the day. All from some of the kindest and most concerned professionals you’d ever want to meet, by the way…but that makes it no more fun.
I’m sorry to report to some of my similarly awful-humored people that there was no Donkey show gone awry. And no, my name is not Hunter, you prick (you know who you are!). I did not break another shoulder whilst abroad (see Mexico). I also wasn’t kidnapped (doesn’t happen here, unless you are really looking for trouble — and you gotta look hard)…
No, it’s just my little quirky heart again. Doing its thing. It started to go a little nutty a few nights ago requiring quick medical attention and then really went off the chain early this morning. I could barely walk. Gasping for breath. It’s happening more frequently and AFib, which can be hard to notice around its onset, becomes more obvious and tends to present more as time goes on, especially when one deviates from a very specific life and health routine and, liiiike…goes to live in a jungle to record an album?
I’m trying to be tongue in cheek, but it’s nothing funny. For the first time since I first was hospitalized for it in 2018 and in cardiac arrest, I honestly believed I was back in cardiac arrest today and that I was toast. I love Costa Rica, but I do not particularly want to die here. At least not until I finish the songs.
I share my heart stories beacause a lot of people I love are no longer spring chickens. Like me. Especially some of my jazz musician collaborators, several of whom I have lost over the last few years. Almost all to heart failure.
I fell almost irreparably apart because I took my eye off the ball that is my my own self-care. One of the reasons I first quit music is because when I delve in, I bury my head in it. I fail to eat, I dont sleep, I just work. And I did it again. Another hospital discharge now spent looking in a bathroom mirror for EKG patches to rip off my skin in strange places. That shit gets old. Though I must admit the glue stuff is much harder to handle in the US. So I guess thank you Costa Rica.
All I had to do was stop and eat a few times a day and not leave my heart meds tucked in a bag. Idiotic. What’s worse, people were actually checking me on it. But I ignored. Don’t be like that. That’s bullshit behavior for a 14 year old, much less a 54 year old with a fuckin’ entourage.
I’m sitting here in my bed in Conchal — not a hospital one, like earlier today, but a really cool condo one — because people here knew something was amiss and I found the right place to go and we remedied it. For now. Thank God. I’m home. I’m going back to work in the studio here Monday and I have to prep. I will try hard not to repeat my mistakes of the last several days and take care of myself.
So this was why I missed a lot of calls and emails today and got a little behind with work.
The moral of the story is we are getting older. Hearts grow weaker, especially when they’ve been broken a few times. Health grows into something you’ve got to pay attention to like taking out the garbage — I took out the damn garbage but I didn’t take my heart meds and loook what happened.
So think about it. A lot of my friends are hard drivers — literally and figuratively — and it would be cool to have you around while longer (and to be around). Love, C.
