Nadine Feldman, Author

celebrating strong female characters and whatever else strikes my fancy

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The Stillness of a Hummingbird

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Trying to write about my volunteer stint in Costa Rica resembles my clumsy attempts at photographing the many varieties of hummingbirds and butterflies that flutter, flit, and hover near the local flora. Snap! Oops, the bird flew away. Snap! The butterfly starts beating its wings as I take the shot. Snap! Another animal turns away and shows me its backside.

It’s that hard to explain the magic of this place, this rainy, humid country filled with snakes and other scary creatures, where I am limited by a level of Spanish that impresses my fellow volunteers but none of the locals.

Still, something draws me here. In my second visit to Costa Rica in five months, I live in a building with nearly 30 other volunteers, trying to sleep amid late-night cacophony and early-morning cold showers. Each day I report to a center for adults with disabilities to work, and I struggle with conversation.

I know they are telling me about how too many trees have been cut here, even in a country where conservation has taken on urgency from the presidency on down. I know they are telling me how hard it is to make a living, and how some that I work with go home to work their small coffee farms at the end of the day. I can hear them, and yet I cannot understand.

Each day I communicate as best I can. With the students who come to my placement, often smiles and hugs are enough. Today a woman I’d never met came to me to hug me and give me the traditional kiss on the right cheek. Some of my students cannot hear, and others cannot speak. Some are bright but physically unable to share their brilliance; others struggle with knowing what day it is. Mostly I just love them, because that’s what I can do.

On the weekend, I discovered Rancho Margot, finding that life off the grid can work incredibly well. I met people who live there as volunteers for 6-12 months, young people already well traveled and concerned about their larger world. I wandered the grounds, studying the gardens and marveling at the handiwork of a man trained in chemistry who had never grown a garden, yet who has created a magnificent farm filled not only with fruits, vegetables, herbs, and animals, but flower gardens, sweet with ginger, brightened with flaming red and gold Bird of Paradise.

Returning from our weekend, back to work at the center, I wonder how I can tell the teachers, in my limited Spanish, how much I admire them. Their dedication, their humor, and their Tico love of life permeates the school. Laughter covers the air like the clouds in the Monteverde forest. I am the privileged American, the roundtrip revolutionary, swooping in for a few weeks while they dedicate their lives to this work. They humble me, the teachers and the students, and when I leave this Saturday for home, a part of me will stay with them forever.

On my visit to Rancho Margot, I spotted a hummingbird sitting on a tree branch, still as the morning. I aimed my camera and began to shoot. It remained still. I stepped a bit closer, a bit closer, a bit more, and it remained. A volunteer stood behind me in awe, watching the tiny bird in its silent stillness. “I’ve been here for two months,” he said, “and I’ve never seen that.”

I don’t know if I captured the hummingbird’s beauty with my camera, but I had several long moments to try. I may never capture with words the beauty of Costa Rica…but perhaps I can try that, too.

The Love of a Lake

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As a teen-aged girl, awkward and shy, unable to find clothes that fit because I was neither a girl nor a woman, I often felt out of place in the strange small town where I lived from seventh grade through high school. Like most teen-aged girls, I saw life through the lens of drama and angst, and I was sure I would never belong anywhere. During that time, I found refuge in a small lake at the edge of town, where I first discovered my love of nature and its power to heal. In the evenings after dinner, I took long walks and almost always ended up there, sometimes with friends but more often alone. There, I poured out my sadness in poetry. Sometimes we made little boats from punkwood and paper towels from the restrooms, complete with a pop top as a rudder, and watched as the little boat edged away from us.

In the winter, people played ice hockey out on the lake, and as I grew older, some of us explored the area in snowmobiles, never getting too close to the Illinois River that met the lake, but close enough to feel a sense of adventure and excitement, of being on the edge.

In late summer, the lake transformed into a three-day carnival as the boat races arrived. We had to get up early to get good seats, as thousands stood at the edge of the lake, caught up in the roar of the boats as they circled around. We hung out, rode the rides, ate cotton candy, and got plenty sunburned. We didn’t care. Back in those days, we didn’t worry about skin cancer or aging. A burn meant a tan would follow–at least we hoped so.

I learned how to skip stones at that lake, though I can’t say I gained any real expertise. I witnessed a spectacular Fourth of July fireworks display there, though it wasn’t intended to be quite that intense–because of an accident, all the fireworks went off at once, creating a memorable, albeit brief, experience of the holiday. And I learned, as I churned out my poetry and reflections, that I loved writing. Here, at Lake DePue, a part of me was born.

Even then, the lake was silting over. We lived every day with the smell of sulfur from the local chemical plant that the town was built around. We took it for granted that some days, you just had to stay inside. We wrote letters to the Illinois government, asking for help to clean up the lake and the community. As often happens, we were caught in the push and pull of commerce versus safety. The plant gave us revenues to keep the town alive, gave people jobs, allowed a tiny town its place in the Illinois Valley.

Today, more than 30 years after I first sat lakeside, the land and lake are decimated. After all this time, the area has not been cleaned up. People I knew, people I cared about, developed odd diseases, most notable of which was a cluster of cases of multiple sclerosis. One of my favorite teachers, Bob Machek, lost his battle at age 61 after decades of the disease. Others died more quickly. We sometimes wonder if my long struggle with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome was somehow influenced by my years there, exposed to the damaging fumes.

One may ask, what does it matter, one little lake in one little town? Yet these people, who I once saw as strangers, are a hardy stock who don’t give up. These are the people who helped teach me a deep-seated work ethic and solid, small-town Midwestern values. They understand, as I do, that the lake is a place of memories and magic, where a confused young girl can find her way, where kites can fly, where kids can play, and, God willing, where people should be able to fish safely. The lake provides life for some of nature’s most beautiful creatures, as well as a shimmering sunset for those who stay to look. It matters because it represents all of our lives, for each of us has a touchstone in our past, a touchstone that connects us to our humanity and to each other, that reminds us how connected we all are.

Why am I writing about this now? The other day, while searching for something else, I ran across a video about the lake, which I am sharing via link with anyone who reads this. I invite you to take a look at it, knowing that you are seeing our heartland at its best. So much of what I am today springs from this place, and perhaps it will awaken in each of you a memory of someplace special, someplace like this, someplace worthy of survival.

http://www.villageofdepue.com/