Are you ready to celebrate tomorrow?
We need it. When have we ever needed it more?
Open air that can’t be trapped, mud that can’t be sanitized, extremes of heat and cold after so many temperate hours. Gasps. Surprises. Spaces we enter not to control, not to be controlled, but just to be. To walk. To remember we are small.
In an era of frustration, we celebrate love, hectare upon hectare of it. How many marriages passed through these places: meetings, decisions, honey moons? I decided to get married as I gazed into the depths of the Río Celeste; a former first lady made the same decision as she stared down the turbulent crater of Volcán Irazú; so many people found love, confirmed it, tested it along forest paths and mountain climbs.
And then there’s love for the places themselves. Anyone in the world who lives within reach of a national park is a lucky soul. Costa Ricans are luckier than most. During these past 18 months, our national parks have buoyed us like never before. Tomorrow is a thank you.
And tomorrow is a question. Many, in fact. When will we return? To which one, first? How will we show we didn’t forget, during those months when no one’s entrance fee clanked into the coffers, when public budgets drained away? How will we show that, in realizing how much we needed them, we also realized how much they need us?
Are you ready? They’re calling.
Inspired by the 2021 celebrations of Costa Rica’s National Parks Day, tomorrow, Aug. 24th. Our weekly Media Naranja column tells short love stories with a Costa Rican twist. During our August edition, “Symbiosis,” it has focused on love of many kinds related to Costa Rica’s national parks and other protected areas.
