I want to take a moment to be grateful today, for this day, my 39th birthday which I am spending in a beautiful yoga spa in the Costa Rican jungle and on a white sand beach at the edge of the Pacific Ocean.
I have spent most this week working on my book, which will be on the shelves this time next year. I came here eleven days ago with a rough structure and an inch-high stack of notes. I now have nearly 30,000 words of a first draft to send to my editor. It’s still a long way off the final version, but it’s in a completely different place to the day I landed, and I am so grateful for this time.
I couldn’t have done it without the incredible care of the staff here at the Costa Rica Yoga Spa. They couldn’t have done more to make me feel at home, and give me space to write and write.
By that I mean like when you develop a cough, the next time you go to the kitchen there’s a pot of ginger and turmeric tea bubbling on the stove.
Like when your back goes into spasm after too many hours sat writing and someone gives you a 1-1 yoga class with massage that completely fixes you up.
Like when you ask for a coffee and someone bakes passion fruit syrup biscuits to go with it, just because.
Not only did I get to write in what is probably the world’s most beautiful yoga rancho (set up just for me with a writing desk complete with a jar of flowers), this place gave me lightning storms over the ocean, howler monkeys in the trees and the best Tuesday tacos, and made me actually want to get up at 5am every day so I didn’t miss anything.
I have never written so much for so long, and thought so deep and hard as I have these past few days, but instead of feeling tired I feel energised and revitalised.
The staff somehow knew exactly when to make me laugh and when to leave me to my thoughts. I love it here and I will carry this place and the people in it into the pages of my book and beyond.
It’s funny being away from home and Mr K and my girls on my birthday, but today has been a blessing, and I now have an excuse to carry on the celebrations when I get back.
Thank you to everyone who has sent birthday wishes. There’s a special kind of magic in thinking that, even for a tiny second, people in every corner of the world have sent you a kind thought. It means a lot.
BethXx
