Every so often someone from elsewhere will say "Nosara is just like small towns everywhere" and I'll say that small is the beginning and end of Nosara's resemblance to small towns everywhere. In high season when we're crowded with people from Normalville North America we put on airs lest anyone think we're backward or even untoward. No harm done, it's important to brush up on our social skills lest we lose them entirely. By September our "just like anywhere" facade is crumbling and by October it's in ruins. November gets here none too soon.

Visiting high season conversationalists are adept at dousing burning issues with politically correct platitudes. Local low season conversationalists aren't fluent in PC and our attitudes aren't compatible with any known platitudes. Residents of small towns elsewhere drive on the correct side of the road obeying traffic laws. The residents of Nosara drive on both sides and in the middle of the road dodging potholes. Only drunk drivers attempt to steer a straight course obeying one law while breaking another in a town where laws are largely irrelevant with the exception of one. Murphy's Law, which states that anything that can go wrong will go wrong, is the law of the land in Nosara. Those random interludes when Murphy's Law is not in effect are otherwise known as miracles. Our daily agendas are subject to frequent calamities and occasional accomplishments accompanied by bursts of bliss. By the end of the day our counterparts elsewhere have crossed X number of tasks off of their to do lists. Nosarenos have "to be continued" scribbled all over their lists, each task having morphed into a monster demanding our blood, sweat and tears. Doing battle with the monsters depends on electricity and telecommunications functioning simultaneously, navigable roads and bridges and the erratic availability of goods, services and information.

Living in Nosara can make your head spin. It's predictably unpredictable. When your head stops spinning and comes to a stop it points in a new direction. Your view of the world bears little resemblance to the previous picture in which the dots were all connected. As Nosarenos we have formidable skills at connecting the elusive dots, extraordinary patience waiting for a connection and like tightrope walkers we maintain our balance between the precarious dots. We're a whole lot of dots short of being just like small towns everywhere.

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