Between fixing up our haunted house located in the woods of North Carolina and visiting its pristine waterfalls, we’ve been trying to get a legal water letter to our building pad in Costa Rica.  This piece of property is where we started our journey.  It’s not the location where we built The Happier House but ironically in a defunct development adjacent to it.  Take two steps to the left, and we would have had legal water.  It’s taking us over sixteen years to sort this out.  It may take another sixteen, but we are optimistic.

This is why I started my consulting business.  Because not everything is as it appears and results may vary when investing in Costa Rica.

I’ve provided consulting for all sorts of people—some long to retire in Costa Rica, while others are preparing to open a business.  And then I met people like me, who impulsively jumped aboard the magical carpet ride and hiked the Osa Peninsula, stood on top of volcanos, and wasted glorious afternoons watching sloths climb trees.  (Pack breakfast, lunch, and dinner for this event.)

But nobody is quite like my latest client, Bridget.  A New Yorker, shaman,  innkeeper, journalist, and a person who once had Stevie Wonder run his fingers across her face.

Her voice has that quick New York cadence that makes me sit at the edge of my chair.  She’s like watching a lit bottle rocket, unsure which direction it may blast off.

She recently graduated from the Jaguar Path School of Yoga and Shamanism and plans to offer retreats, energy clearing ceremonies, and private coaching/energy work.  Bridget enthusiastically peppers me with questions about the property she is purchasing.  She tosses a log on the fire while listening to me explain Costa Rica tax implications and the current COVID situation. She is determined to make this experience everything she dreams it can be.

Bridget has lived a thousand different lives in many different places.  Her father was the owner of The Russian Tea Room and Tavern on the Green.  The latter is where a teenaged Bridget introduced herself to Stevie Wonder.  She kneeled next to him while he gently ran his fingers across her nose and cheeks.  I swoon a bit just imaging that encounter.

Her stepfather is Tony Walton, the celebrated Broadway and film production designer, her mother a renowned children’s book author.  Bridget is a cultural zeitgeist, full of facts and anecdotes that would surprise even the most learned New Yorker.  I want to share a pastrami sandwich with her at the Carnegie Deli and amaze her with my story of asking tired commuters, “Where’s Penn Station?” while standing in front of Penn Station.  (I not only learned where to catch my train but thirty magnificent synonyms for moron.)

She co-founded The East Hampton Independent in 1993, where she interviewed Steven Spielberg, Martha Stewart, Julie Andrews, Linda Ronstadt, and Jane Fonda.  She currently co-hosts “Sundays on the East End” with Oscar-nominated screenwriter Alec Sokolow on 88.3 WLIW FM.

One day I hope she interviews me.  “I see that you started your first book with a fart joke.  Any second thoughts on that creative choice?” she’d ask.

“Well, Bridget,” I’ll return, “it needed to be addressed.” We’d then laugh together before I ask if Julie Andrews smells like sugar cookies.

I’m going to need a shaman to get this water letter.  I want the complete package, every ceremony designed to rid this property of bad energy and give hope to a project that fell flat many years ago.  I want to turn it around and feel like a bottle rocket again, unsure which direction to take off.

I love what I do, helping people navigate the choppy waters of moving to a foreign country and building a different life from scratch.  I still think about that moment I almost backed out, wondering if I was making the biggest mistake of my life.  But I was brave and determined and jumped in feet first.  Qualities I didn’t know I possessed, but so happy they appeared.

When I submitted my first book to literary agents, one sharply replied that no one cares about a woman who moves to Costa Rica.  “Nobody will read it,” he stated in Arial font.  In type so small, I had to squint to read the rejection.

But people did read my book, from Australia to Saudi Arabia.  On islands off Portugal and in Ghana, Africa.  People full of energy and light and searching for something unexplainable.  People like myself who weren’t scared to jump in feet first.

Never underestimate your abilities and surround yourself with encouraging people.  And when given the opportunity, pause to watch a sloth climb a tree.  It’s not high octane excitement, but it taught me that time is fabulously subjective.

With purpose, we’ll get to where we’re going, one sleepy step at a time.

Follow Bridget’s journey at www.BridgetLeRoy.com

Read all about my adventures here.