Tag: quiet

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Sneaked People Photos

Its legal here to photograph people in public, but for some reason I never want them to know I’m photographing them and actually seldom do – BUT on a public beach it is just too inviting. My “People Shots” are now a gallery within my developing trip gallery (above link) with 3 sub-galleries, each linked from the title of its sample photo below . . .

Sunrise People Shots Gallery

Young love at a beach sunrise — Sample shot from gallery.

Day Beach People Shots Gallery

Games on the beach — Sample shot from the gallery.

Beach Road People Shots Gallery

Family walk down Beach Road — Sample shot from gallery.

Maybe in a few more days I’ll have the whole trip gallery finished. A lot of photos made this time! 🙂

¡Pura Vida!

“To escape and sit quietly on the beach – that’s my idea of paradise.”

 – Emilia Wickstead
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“TRANQUILO” – My Favorite Spanish Word!

Tranquilo – calm, quiet, peaceful, relaxed, laid-back, unfazed – are some of the English words the online Spanish Dictionary (spanishdict.com) lists as equivalents.

Above: Tranquilo Sunrise at Macaw Lodge, Carara NP
Feature photo at top: Tranquilo Sunset on Calle Barroeta, Atenas

At first I wrote a lengthy essay on my need for “tranquilo” and how it has changed me, then decided it was “too much.” 🙂 So I’ll just let the photos speak for . . .

A “TRANQUILO” life of “Retired in Costa Rica.”

¡Pura Vida!

Blog, Website, Gallery, Bookstore

Or Just the Photos

🙂

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Tropical Kingbird

Tropical Kingbird is one of the more common birds in Costa Rica and I have seen him in my gardens several times before this photo. Yes, there are two other birds with similar coloring but clear distinctions can be seen between this and the Western Kingbird and Gray-capped Flycatcher. Click above name link for more information on the Tropical Kingbird.

Seeing and sometimes photographing birds like this in my garden is just one of the many joys I have in living here. Tranquilo is a favorite Spanish word used here to describe Atenas and translated to English that means “calm, quiet or peaceful.” Fellow residents like this Tropical Kingbird help make it so as do  other birds in my Costa Rica Birds Gallery.

“A happy life consists in tranquility of mind.”

—Cicero

¡Pura Vida!

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Good Friday Silence

As I walked to town, the streets were empty!
 Atenas, Costa Rica 

Even around Central Park
 Atenas, Costa Rica 

Every store is closed except Supermarkets & the Gasolinera that will close early.
 Atenas, Costa Rica 

Many homes had added new, bigger decorations.
 Atenas, Costa Rica 

Even the Catholic Church added a similar new decoration.
 Atenas, Costa Rica 

And people will be coming and going from the catholic church all day (all week!). The only activity.
 Atenas, Costa Rica 

And you might ask, “What about the non-religious?” Well, they are the ones filling the public beaches this week and fishing on the lakes and other “vacation” activities. One family I know is spending the whole week at the nearest beach. Semana Santa or “Holy Week” or “Easter Week” is not the best beach time for tourists, though most locals try to use different beaches and try to avoid tourists, but not totally possible, especially at Jaco, the closest big beach town to San Jose.

The smaller number of evangelicals and protestants in Costa Rica have a less dramatic emphasis on Easter and some expats, like the “new community” here at Iglesia Biblical have special activities they did back home. Ours did a Maundy Thursday Lord’s Supper or Communion Service Thursday night and some will meet at a member’s house at Sunrise Easter Morning for a Sunrise Service – which will be a good excuse for not attending the Spanish Language Easter Service at the church later. 
Hotel restaurants have to be open on Easter, but not many others will and even the supermarkets will have very limited hours on Easter. But this year will not have the usual Easter pageantry in the streets by law, since the first Sunday of April is Election Day and no public activities are allowed to compete with voting (only worship inside a church building). Meaning that many people will leave their church of whatever variety and go straight to the voting places where the unqualified, anti-Gay presidential candidate (an evangelical gospel singer) is expected to narrowly win the election in this conservative Catholic country.

Read the article  Holy Week the Costa Rican way

Felices Pascuas

Poner toda la carne en el asador.

¡Pura Vida!

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A Morning Cup of Coffee & Quiet

In yesterday’s effort to be descriptive, this is the coffee shop mentioned.
That’s my empty cup next to the coffee-maker on my table.
La Cafetería (The Coffee Shop)
Atenas, Costa Rica

And my sidewalk cafe view of Central Park across the street.
Atenas, Costa Rica

Just another quiet Saturday morning in a little coffee-farming town in central Costa Rica.

“Quiet is peace. Tranquility. 
Quiet is turning down the volume knob on life. 
Silence is pushing the off button. Shutting it down. All of it.” 

― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner


My idea of Retired in Costa Rica, THIS BLOG

and 
Charlie Doggett’s Costa Rica, THE PHOTO GALLERY

quiet

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A Quiet Introvert

One of the books I’m reading now is turning out to be a bit biographical at times. It is  Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain. As a child all the way through high school and into college, I was definitely an introvert, just check my old Myers-Briggs personality test scores! And it was considered something like a disease by some people who wanted to help me come out of my shell. 

But in college I was remade by Southern Baptists into an outgoing, extroverted personality. After all, that was the only way to be a dynamic or witnessing Christian and unfortunately is still the expectation of most evangelical Christians, their churches, and of course their leaders. So, I really wanted to become a good Christian and serve, and that meant being an extrovert. And I was for most of my adult life. It was necessary to keep my jobs working for Baptists! (Some who knew me as a youth minister or leadership consultant will have trouble believing this!) But as I neared and entered retirement I began to move back to how I was born, an introvert, and moving to Costa Rica has given me the opportunity to be myself maybe more than ever before. I’m very happy here as an introvert!

Now, don’t worry. I have friends and socialize, just not as much as some here who can’t stand spending a half a day alone, while in contrast I have to schedule such! And prefer to travel alone! I’m only a fourth of the way through this book, but enjoying it! Then I will be ready for another adventure or mystery story! I’m reading more here than in many years before. Guess why?


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Rainforest Beauty

View from my bedroom window (between the power lines) during the afternoon rain today.

The fact that there are power lines, houses, and a street below this scene doesn’t diminish its beauty for me, even though an uncluttered view like this would be nice! This is looking west at end of today’s rain. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” said Oliver Pratt, and that is why I like this kind of selective photography. And yes, it’s a compilation of 4 shots merged into a panorama. Fun!

“People often say that ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder,’ and I say that the most liberating thing about beauty is realizing that you are the beholder. This empowers us to find beauty in places where others have not dared to look, including inside ourselves.”

-Salma Hayek (emphasis mine)

“Your beauty . . .  should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.”  

1 Peter 3:3-4 NIV

God help me to have a gentle and quiet spirit that people might see your beauty in me!  -Charlie