It’s Hump Day again, y’all!
How are you holding up?! Don’t forget … when you need to, “Just Take 5”! Whenever!! Just Do It!
First of all, I wanted to thank Mr. William M. Blake, aka “Coach Blake”, for replying to my last piece. Now, no … you don’t have to reply … I am just saying that he did … and I appreciated it … it was needed! Coach and I met when I was a sophomore at St. Paul’s School … I wasn’t sure why my parents insisted on me going to a boarding school in New Hampshire … but this was the first “real” person I met. That is not to say that the other people weren’t real, it was that the contact that I had with them was momentary … not sustained as it would become for me, a “new boy”, at an all boys’ private Episcopalian boarding school playing jv football for Coach Blake! He was like my dad away from home … and his reply to my e-mail was like one that a dad would reply to his son … (RIP, Big Ike!).
He said that he understood what I was doing … and as a World War II Veteran who served alongside the “Red Tails” of the Tuskegee Airmen, he had never “met” a finer group of professional African American men! I still have the booklet that he sent to me commemorating the “Red Tails” of the US Air Force during World War II! He, too, wishes that America would live up to its credo of ” … liberty and justice for all!” The thing that was beautiful about Coach Blake is that he, too, grew alongside of us … the new minority students at this exclusive boarding school. I will never forget (though I didn’t completely understand at the time …) when we were at basketball practice one night … and we, the players, were all over the place! So, Coach yelled out, “Hey! You guys stop for a minute … you’re running around like a bunch of wild Indians!” Kevin “Billy” Gover and Gary George, both native Americans from out West, looked at each other … perhaps first … then around the gym … but nobody said anything. I knew Coach wasn’t prejudiced and was just saying what he had heard said probably most of his life. He fought for our freedoms long before we had a chance to meet him. Thanks, Coach Blake!
So, here in Puerto Viejo, I am “riding slow”, as the saying goes! No, I haven’t gotten a bicycle yet … but it’s in my plans when I return after a week from Sunday and am able to complete my application for retirement residency here in Costa Rica. It’s a slow moving place with a slow moving pace … though you can speed up if you want to … there is not a problem if you slow down. “Pura Vida” no stress life style …. “smile your face off” atmosphere around here … everyday … rain or shine … the “boys and girls” are out surfing the shores of “Playa Negra”, “Punta Uva” …. even at Cocles up the road a bit more towards Playa Chiquita! I fit in well … the young boys (25+) respectfully call me “Daddy” while the older folks call me “Papa”! Nobody rushes me and I am becoming well known at the local establishments like super markets and a few restaurants that I go to when I can eat out. I walk with my hand-made “baston” that I got in Valencia down to the water to Puerta Pirata where many of the “ex-Pats” meet up including Barry and Nancy, Marsha, Cleo and me … and a few regular Canadians who come here 6 months out of the year. In fact, Nancy and Barry are throwing a little “Valentine’s Day” get-together for the “ex-Pats” and friends at a local gathering spot called “The Point” later tonight around 6 or so …
I have been studying up on the parts of the hip and the multiplicity of networks there … I am sure that my motorcycle accident years ago added to the trauma that I am now experiencing. While I have resigned myself to embracing that there is no “quick fix” for this type of thing, and … that there is no emotional trauma in my psyche causing a blockage which is “manifested” by pain in my hips!!! I have been told that before …. Thanks for sharing, but I know “me” better than “you” do. Yet, I accept all forms of help and suggestion as I employ my own “gestaldt”-style healing which inculcates all that I have learned …. and continue to learn. Yesterday, I was reading up on all of the different textures of cartilage in the hip – both soft and hard – as well as the bones including the femur around which the cartilage and muscles are wrapped to provide a 360 degree range of movement in the human hips! I don’t think that acupuncture nor teas nor anti-inflammatories of a natural type (ginger/kale/tumeric) will “heal” my traumatized hip bones and joints! When I am massaging myself, I can feel places deep in the interior of the complex array of muscles, tendons and cartilage that are wrapped with tissue where the trauma and sensitiveness is located. It will probably require a hip replacement …. when I can afford it …. but I will labor on taking care of myself in the mean time. I will take a “Take Five” from all of hub bub and concern and simply love myself …. the deepest spiritual and happiest part of me that wakes up each morning in a natural paradise that can heal a broken spirit …. itself!
Happy Valentines Day!
Love … and Peace,
John I. Cook, Director
Educational Excellence 