What really is the goal?
Editing the plan-for?
My plan is like a script for life, and like all scripts require several edits before successfully publishing.
Often with an agenda, locations are carefully considered and committed, flights arranged, then something happens making the plan, risky, expensive or no longer of interest. It’s time to set back, reassess and rewrite the script.
Since 2023, I’ve spent the first four to six months in Costa Rice at the same condo. Awesome value, view, great setting, good landlord and friends. I’ve indicated to the landlord I planned to settle in for the year, someday. Which may have contributed to his saving the same condo for me, my preferred one. No commitment just, I’ll be back next year.
When I first saw the unit in Costa Rica, in 2023. Quiet, secluded two bedroom one and a half bath at a very reasonable price. Perfect. That was when I made the comment of a possible commitment. All my life I’ve been antsy, It’s in my heritage. One other condo in the same complex has always interested me for its perceived views. I never went up to it, as it was occupied for several years by a casual acquaintance, and why look at something you can’t have. Then he left and it was re-rented to another, while I was away. Oh well, such is life. Then the new tenant, left to go to the states for a procedure. And will never return. I let my wishes be known to the landlord and last week, he said it was mine to have.
When he was showing it to me he let me know that holding wasn’t going to work for this unit, yet he agreed on an way to accommodate my travel plans, for this year, at price still very acceptable to me.
I’ve always been of the mind, let others know your wishes. More often than not it works out. I was in Real Estate for a sizable portion of my life and often clients didn’t want to disclose their true feelings and desires as if it were a bargaining chip. It may be, but then an un-played chip may cost the deal.
This first night I started to watch the first episode of “The winds of war” a show I love and not just for the pretty actress, Ali McGraw. It’s well done and in a period that’s always been of interest to me.
I was preparing dinner when I heard her typing, a sound I love and miss. It’s the way you can hear the pauses, as the typist thinks. I missed it back when the IBM Selectrics came in vouge. The sound of the wiring ball, lacked character. No intensity how hard the typist hit the key, or the carriage return, as well as the pauses for thought. The sound drew me into the movie and it soon came to a favorite segment of mine, where they were in Sienna, Italy watching a chaotic horse race around the city square.
One beautiful October day in 2024 I took a train from Montelupo, Italy to Sienna, roughly an hour away. The train arrives at the station, then its a series of roughly seven, enclosed from the weather, escalators each climbing, a couple or more stories in distance. You’re finally deposited at the town at the top of a mountain, for many a large mound. A very defensible location in historic times. Within in a few blocks you enter the walled city. I loved it from that moment.
Early on I chose to view a famous church, to enter you had to pay around ten euros, get in a line that took a good half hour or more to enter the door. A first for me to pay to enter a church. On exiting, I heard drummers. Having the desired effect on me, I was drawn to watch the procession of people following the Medieval costumed drummers and flag bearers. The Pied Piper of Hamelin, came to mind. Soon I was in the square eating my lunch, soaking up the rays while watching the flag throwing competition. harking back to the movie. It was a great day as were the days spent in Florence, Vinci and Rome.
Great to see, yet not realistically for me to reside.
After sleeping in my new unit, I knew risking losing it wasn’t going to happen, even with a very trustworthy landlord . Why go traveling off for six months staying in nice but far less desirable Airbnb’s for considerably more, than what I now have.
This unit speaks to my heart, I love the views the endless sky that seem to fill my soul. So I let the owner know, I’m here to stay. I’ll travel a month or so here and there but I have a new home base here. A place to call and be at home.
In the beginning, looking for countries to call home may have been on my mind, but not seriously. There’s a lot I love about Ireland but it’s not really in my price range of comfort.
Sometimes what you desire is right in front of you, especially when viewed from a different perspective. In it.