The Sunset Service

Every Friday and Saturday evening at Playa Carmen in Costa Rica, the town empties out. Restaurants go quiet. Streets thin. And thousands of people walk toward the water. Nobody organized it. No calendar invite. No announcement. The whole community just stops what it's doing and faces the same direction.

It's one of the most natural senses of congregation I've ever experienced.

One morning while surfing, I got to talking with a guy named Tony. He lives in Santa Teresa, originally from Arizona. He catches waves like it's nothing. The kind of surfer who could clean house out there if he wanted to.

But he doesn't. At least not at sunset.

Tony told me he usually likes to leave the sunset to the Ticos, the locals. He'd been here long enough to understand something about the place. A lot of locals can't surf in the morning. If you're doing construction or teaching lessons, you're starting early. Sunset is their window. Tony sees that. He makes room.

There's a difference between traveling somewhere and being in relationship with a place. Tourists extract. They take the photo, ride the wave, check the box. Tony's doing something different. He knows Playa Carmen's rhythms. He knows who needs what and when. And he adjusts. Not because someone told him to. Because that's what care looks like when you've been paying attention.

I think about that in the context of this adventure. The difference between fear, which grabs, and love, which makes room.

Read the full piece on Substack.

Learn more about the adventure at www.heart-strong.org