April, 2026

4:30 AM | Feels Like Home

4:30 AM

A couple of months ago, I wrote that I was finally able to pitch and sell my work for the first time as a freelance writer. Both articles, “We’re Packing Our Bags for Panama”, and “What Nobody Tells You About Retiring Abroad,” have been published in the Sisters Newsletter from AARP. People often asked me about my journey to get here, and these two pieces sums it up. When you get a moment, I’d love for you to check them out.

I will continue to look for opportunities to share my work, but in the meantime, I am back working on the novel. I have been working to commit to a writing routine, although that’s not ever been easy for me. Moments like this one, in the middle of the night, when I find it hard to sleep, I usually end up on the sofa watching videos on YouTube or Seinfeld re-runs.

This time I found myself at my desk, where I should be, at 4:30 AM— the hour of God. And here, in the middle of a jungle, at the edge of the ocean, it is eerie, but beautifully quiet. It is not lost on me that, not very far away, many are awakening and preparing to get through unnerving veins of traffic, and to the city for a day’s work.

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Feels Like Home

You may remember my previous piece about having to give away and say goodbye to the many books I’d collected over the years. Well, I did manage to salvage some—way more books than I had expected. Over the past week our belongings that we had shipped finally arrived, quashing the echo of our empty apartment. So, what books made the cut, and are continuing with us on our journey? Well, there are a couple of bibles, coffee table books on African art, African Spirituality, the Atlas, some diet and wellness books, a couple of cookbooks, and an assortment of novels that were given to me that I had not yet read. I’m so happy they are here—they make the place feel like home.

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“Whatever you can do, or dream you can-begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.”
~Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe