if i can keep one skill

for the rest of my life, let me hang on to the ability to fall asleep on a dime, wherever and whenever...

today i took a half-hour bus from montezuma to paquera, then an hour ferry from paquera to puntarenas, a 40 minute bus from puntarenas to la cruce de barranca, then waited two hours for a bus to liberia, then stood for three hours on that bus, waited two more hours in the rain for the bus to peñas blancas, two hours standing on that bus, got off, walked through the border crossing, caught a 40 minute school bus to rivas, walked a mile or so to the highway, caught a little pickup truck going to nandaime, rode in the back for an hour until my hair became one giant blond dreadlock, got off, hired a taxi to granada. it was, obviously, not the most straightforward way to get to granada. but i really didn´t want to go all the way back to san josé to catch the direct bus. would have added 5 hours to the trip anyway.

today, i slept standing up on a bus, supporting my eye socket with the heel of my hand and bracing my elbow on the back of the seat next to me with the other hand.

i slept sitting crosslegged in a foot-wide bus aisle, elbows on my knees, head in both hands like mourning.

i slept facing the side of the bus, hanging from the luggage rack above with both hands, head supported in the crook of one arm.

i slept with my cheek on the tailgate of a little white nissan, hands providing a little shock absorption.

i went in and out of sleep in the back of a taxi as flo rida, shakira, rihanna scratched in and out of the radio and my headlamp blinked slowly in my pack.

my dreams today were all bumpy and muddled.