If You Give A Mouse A Cookie just about sums it up! Children’s books from beginner readers to young adult fiction should really be read by adults! If you enjoy one cookie, isn’t it human nature to want more? Or even a glass of milk to go with the cookie.? Well I’ve been enjoying the cookie and sure would like another! And I know the milk is coming as well.
Our lives are like a cookie recipe. We are a collection of our experiences or ingredients, right?" They get stirred together and blended like this oatmeal, coconut & raisin cookie, so the individual ingredients or experiences might be hard to decipher, but you know when it tastes delicious! I’ve seen the cookie display at Organico Market every year and this year thought, “Bucket List” item and enjoyed it as my lunch walking home. Oats, raisins, coconut and probably eggs reminds me of the comedy skit “Chocolate Cake for Breakfast”.
I digress so let’s get back to my point. I shared in my previous musings about Golf Carts some of the things I love about being in Playa Guiones, Nosara, Costa Rica. We’re soon to be concluding our second week and I’ve settled into a pattern (can’t call it a routine because days are similar without being the same). Being in our AirBnB is a return to childhood and what must be in my DNA. It’s hot as I write and Scott is working shirtless. Our doors and windows are open and I’m “glowing” in my yoga clothes after taking a class. We have AC, but only in the bedroom. There are occasional ants on the bathroom floor and sometimes in the kitchen. I can hear birds and howler monkeys and am surrounded by the jungle green.
My summers as a child were spent in what we now call, “The Old Edge Hill”, a dining hall converted to a cottage overlooking the Severn River in Sherwood Forest. It’s the “Old” because before the structure bit the dust, my mother tore it down to build her lovely home. My mother was raised here as a child as was I and my 3 kids. It was hot. It was buggy at times. It was perfect and the first ingredient in my “cookie” much like our spot in Nosara.
our porch view where I read, do yoga, write & work on retreat logistics)
Being in our Air BnB without the amenities of home feels natural to me. The second ingredient in my “cookie” would be the ocean. I wrote in my Storyworth book #1 about the best day I remember . It wasn’t about one day, but the days spent at the ocean (again in my DNA from childhood). Here at Playa Guiones I go around the corner to the beach several times everyday. Ocean morning beach walks where my mind can ramble & process, afternoon dips with Scott and evening sunsets where I can pause and be thankful for another perfect day here cannot be matched.
My Nosara Cookie Recipe becomes complete when I add in yoga. I’ve been practicing 32+ years and discover more about it every year. Nosara is a town for Surfing and Yoga. Our Air BnB host a 60+ surfer, Patrick, said one year, “I wonder about the people who come here and they don’t surf or do yoga” in a suspicious tone. There are classes to walk to from my front door that are 5 to 25 minutes away. In the past 11 days I’ve taken yoga classes from a restorative flow to yin to vinyasa from teachers who “teach asana”, meaning they are strong in cueing a pose without interjecting a lot of yoga speak fluff. My kind of yoga! As a teacher some of the best teaching (and translates into life advice too) advice I’ve received was Roger Cole in a workshop training quoting his mentor/teacher, BKS Iyengar, “just teach asana & let the rest show up for the student”. I get that here as a student.
The Baltimore yoga scene got wonky after 2020 with studios closing. There’s a beautiful new studio that I could walk to or drive 5 minutes, but it’s primarily hot yoga. My style is to make a muscle (create heat), so the opposing muscle will release. I want to do the work to build heat and not sweat because of an excessively hot environment. There’s another studio that is close, but teachers started “sharing” more ideas than cueing yoga, so that wasn’t a good fit after I tried (really tried hard to ignore) for 4-6 months.
Despite not finding a place to be a yoga student, I love my life in Baltimore. Our home backs to a nature trail and I can walk to our community pool on summer days or to The Cathedral of Mary Our Queen to sit in the Mary Chapel to meditate, pray, or just be with the smells and feelings I remember from childhood. I can walk to Eddie’s if I need a grocery item, the post office, or bank. There are also several restaurants and our dear friends, Mac & Kim, are around the corner for a winter evening by their fire or to borrow something from Kim’s well equipped kitchen.
And still I want just one more “cookie” in Nosara. I want to walk the beach and be with my morning thoughts and take a yoga class at any time of day with a full menu of styles from well trained teachers. And as the story goes, there is MILK. It’s being served up next week as we shift gears and move to Bodhi Tree Yoga Resort for my annual yoga retreat. We will be enjoying high thread count sheets, spa cuisine and the most lovely yoga shalas (studios). So next week is not just milk, but cold, full fat, organic, raw MILK! As much as I love to practice yoga, I love to teach and here on retreats is my absolute favorite. Every year we have the most lovely group. Many return or take a year off and come back, and there are always those new who join! The body is an amazing gift and sharing how to stay healthy, well and fit is what I love to share. There will also be sunsets and time to take a yoga class or two. So if you give a mouse a cookie she’s going to ask for a glass of milk. I’m blessed and grateful for it all - to be in my jungle AirBnB and the experience of sharing yoga with the retreat group at Bodhi. But as I said, it is human nature when you love where you are to want more. Just one more week…its been the best!
P.S. and thankful Scott puts up with the challenges of working remote in the jungle. Internet goes out and calls aren’t as easy.
Beth Graham
