I’ve made a career battling rose-colored viewpoints.
No place is perfect, I remind you regularly, dear reader. Everywhere has its pluses and its minuses.
So it’s funny to realize at this stage of my life that my favorite place on earth is literally tinted pink.
Not all the time… but for a few moments each evening.
I’m a morning person. When in residence at Los Islotes, as Lief I have been this week, I rise with the sun. Its yellow glow appears above the mountain behind us and leaks through the blinds at our bedroom windows reliably by 6 a.m.
I’m up like a shot.
Lief and I take up our positions at our laptops by 7. We spend five or six hours in virtual meetings with our teams in Panama, France, Ireland, the U.K., and the U.S…. then, after lunch, I turn to writing projects and deadlines.
Our Los Islotes crew reports for duty by 7 a.m., as well. From the windows of our offices as we proceed through our day, we see them coming and going from the yard, the woodshop, the stables, the gardens…
I count down the hours until mid-afternoon, when Lief and I sign off from Live And Invest Overseas and join the Los Islotes team in the field. They’re proud to show us their progress that day—new transformers installed for underground electricity in Mango Village… new bamboo benches completed in the workshop, to be positioned at the beach… more corral fencing painted fresh white…
At 4 p.m., their work day is done. They assemble in the yard, return their tools, and head home.
At just about that time precisely, the light changes.
The midday sun is spent. The softer evening light that follows envelopes the hillsides and the fields… the jungle and the gardens… the beach and even the sea… in hues of rose.
For those few moments, before we return to our laptops to check our emails and catch up on our newsfeeds, Lief and I take a beat.
We’re alone and at peace with the land…
And reminded why we’re out here at Los Islotes in the first place.
Until next time,
