I didn’t make a conscious decision to leave Sweden and not return, but
when I bought a ticket to Costa Rica for the very first time, nineteen and
anxious to see the world, my mom said to me with tears in her eyes, “I
have a feeling you’re never coming back.” She was not exactly right, but
she wasn’t wrong either.
I knew I wanted to go somewhere far, far away and I knew I wanted to
work on my Spanish, but I didn’t know exactly where I wanted to go. I
decided to take a big trip with two of my friends. At first we were going to
Colombia but then changed our itinerary to Costa Rica at the very last
second. e moment we landed, I felt I’d arrived someplace special, and
even though we had planned to see many different parts of Central
America, we ended up never leaving Costa Rica. After ten days of travel
we made it down to Dominical, a small village that according to the
guidebook was supposed to be “a laid-back surf town with a Snoop Dogg
vibe.” I fell in love right away—first with the place, then with a guy (of
course). For the first time in my life I started to feel as if I belonged
somewhere. is was my place to be. Slowly, one day at a time, I started
changing. I took the meditation techniques I had learned at the meditation
center in Sweden and started applying them to my life. I would wake up
really early, before sunrise, and take a long walk on the beach. I’d find a
beautiful spot to sit down and then would do my best to meditate. In the
beginning it was hard; I’d have to keep reminding myself to focus on the
breath. After a while it became really easy, like breathing. I would sit
down and close my eyes, and meditation would just come. I didn’t have to
work for it. After a few weeks I was meditating mornings and evenings for
at least thirty minutes each time, sometimes longer. I remember a friend of
mine saying to me: “I saw you meditating on the beach and I needed to
ask you something, but I didn’t want to disturb you. After a while the spot
you were sitting in filled up with people and children, but you didn’t seem
to notice. An hour later, when the sun set, it got really dark and the
mosquitoes came out, but you were still sitting there.”
I was in such a good space that meditation seemed entirely natural. I