Each night here I lay awake with my mind in overdrive. Sometimes it takes me hours to fall asleep. I am on the Pacific side of Costa Rica, in Playa Hermosa. The creatures outside have insomnia too. Birds chortle, whistle and caw, howler monkeys roar like prehistoric dinosaurs, the cicadas rev up their wings like they are starting up a jet engine. Wide-eyed, I marvel at how such a small creature can make such a loud noise.

I am here, in Playa Hermosa, Costa Rica

I am here in Costa Rica to explore the possibility of finding tropical land on which to begin building an artist space of sorts. A place where my friends can be together to make art, play music, and find refuge from New York’s cold weather and rat race energy. In the past few years I’ve watched so many of my best friends move away, no longer resonating with the concrete jungle. Off they’ve gone to Hawaii, California, Detroit, New Orleans… I understand them. Rent is so high in New York that most people need to work such long hours that there’s little time and energy leftover to spend being with the people that you love. In New York, you often meet for a brief coffee or a drink. In more laid back places like Hawaii, for example, you get together and go to the beach, or on a hike, spending hours together… quality time. New York is rushed, stressed…eye on the prize. But what prize? Making a lot of money? Achieving fame? I already know these things don’t bring happiness, they are bottomless pits and the deeper you go, the more you need. 

So what brings happiness? For me, it’s community; friends I relate to, talk to, play music and make art with. Happiness is peace of mind, freedom, family and friends. 

I am in the research and dreaming stage of this process, I am not yet sure if Costa Rica will be the right place for this idea. It’s my first week here and I am starting to feel it out. And with most things that I get really excited about… my mind is working incessantly on this project, doing overtime, New York style, thinking about what I want to build, where I want to build it, and how it can be done. Tomorrow I will explore Playa Hermosa, I am excited to see this ‘beautiful beach.’