I do yoga every morning in my bedroom as soon as I get up. It stretches my back and loosens my creaky joints so that I can walk pain free. I’ve been doing it for years and highly recommend it. Until this morning, I’d only had one unpleasant morning yoga surprise and it took place in Baja Mexico where I was living two years ago. The house had cockroaches. Big cockroaches. They frequently made me jump in the middle of the night when they’d jump up at me from the drain in the bathroom sink. But I decided we had …

This morning as I was heading to the southern beaches with Eve Kohlman, we stopped at a corner store in Las Delicias (a neighborhood just south of town). The store was adorable, starting with the bright colors and the fountain out front. Inside there were cakes and flan in the cooler, pepperoni, tonka trucks, birthday candles, placemats and cutting boards. It’s a fully stocked grocery store with a scale for buying bulk rice and beans and a cooler with chicken. I was wandering the aisles with my mouth wide open. At the counter, I recognized Cinthia Membreño who used to …

One thing about being an Expat in San Juan del Sur, and possibly anywhere else, is the constant saying of Hello and Goodbye. My friend Sara McCoy, a close friend from college who was visiting us for two weeks from the States, left, leaving an emptiness behind her. We don’t know when we’ll see each other again. Or where. My friend Lynn, who I met here a year ago this month, packed up her bags and moved back to the States for good. No more yoga classes together. No more lunches and Writer’s Group and book studies and long conversations. …