The Windy Season

November, December, January, now February… We’ll call it the “windy season.”

It’s not the “wet season” of torrential afternoon thunderstorms. We experienced those when we first arrived here in the fall. And it’s not the dusty “dry season” that we hear is just around the corner.

This feels like an unsettled period between the two. At night, the wind howls, trees pound against the walls of the house, and the upstairs floorboards shake. We remind ourselves we’re not on a boat tossed in a storm at sea.

The windy season is a good time to feel connected to nature and reminded of our smallness. You never know when you’ll find your path blocked by a giant tree, as our visiting friend Lisa did.

The windy season brings impressive Christmas celebrations. The carolers started at 3pm and ended after midnight, when every house in town had heard two songs. The cookie exchange included nearly 200 participants, each bringing 12 cookies. (Sorry we were too happily stunned to take photos.) Alia’s class performed one Spanish and one English carol to a crowd of clapping parents.

The gift exchange involves picking a name and creating something to give. Alia made Liam a handmade bug house.

We had many visitors over the holiday break. Viola brought her ukulele and made music with Alia’s kindergarten class.

And we had 17 at breakfast in our living room when my great-aunt Sue, her kids and their families came to visit.

We also took a trip ourselves — to Playa Samara with Ed’s sister Jenny and brother-in-law Jeff, then on to Nicaragua on our own.

Then a new president blew into the White House. Here in Monteverde, over 250 (= huge % of the population) joined the Women’s March.

Somehow amidst the windy days, the holidays, the visitors, the unsettling transitions, we still find time for hikes and vistas, for flowers and seedpods.

For mushrooms, snakes and moths.

And there’s no time like the windy season for rainbows.