Quepos, Costa Rica
This is an El Niño year. The Pacific Ocean warms up along the equator, and the trade winds die down. Back in the 1600s, fishers in Peru recognized a pattern. Every few years, their nets came up light. The fish were sparse. The trend seemed to peak around December, when cooler waters usually bring plankton and hordes of hungry fish. But every so often, December brought next to nothing. They named those years El Niño de Navidad, the Christ Child.
Maybe they were being ironic. It’s impossible to know now. El Niño could have just as easily been “the boy,” indifferent to hunger and suffering alike.
They expect this year’s El Niño to be a strong one. Costa Rica’s rainy season will trickle into hot, dry days. Atlantic hurricanes will weaken or veer away. Some places will parch under drought; others will flood. A few will be just right. Regardless, change is coming.
November, December; that’s when we will know for sure. El Niño, yes. And also the elections back home. Will the midterms cast the United States, my home, further into autocracy or even dictatorship? Or, will democracy hold up? Is our constitution worth the parchment it’s written on?
Fish or famine. Who wins or who loses? The forecast is hard to read. Which of us will suffer the floods and droughts? Who dodges the storms over and over again? Do you fight or flee? Can you really curse the rain?
We are in Costa Rica, Tim and I, because this is where we might seek refuge. Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Thomas Mann, and Billy Wilder all ran from the Nazis, all of them just in time. I hear how extreme that sounds, even as I write it. That was so long ago. I’m American. Nothing like that could happen in the United States.
But it can. I wonder if it already has. Change is the nature of things. Call it horrific or beautiful. Either way, here I am in our home down a dirt road in the rainforest. The rainy season will run dry this year. The sun will burn hotter. Impish child.
Note: we are currently visiting Costa Rica. We have not moved here.