published in Change, Dreams/Goals, Fear, Gardening, Inspiration, Playwriting, Travel by Maryanne | June 18, 2019 | No Comment
To Be Happy At Home
“To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition.”
– Samuel Johnson
Yes but now I don’t want to ever leave my home…
Just kidding. You can’t keep a good Gypsy grounded.
Not for long anyway 🙂
I am pleased to report that I am absolutely loving my new home, garden & community of Qualicum Beach on Vancouver Island. Yay!
Thanks to the previous owners, who obviously had very green thumbs, my garden is an explosion of colour…roses as far as the eye can see. And best of all, I can finally putter, prune, pot and poke around in my garden…without having to wear ear protection!
Instead of the thumping bass of a neighbour’s stereo, the screech of a band saw or the roar of trucks rumbling past, I get to listen to…birds chirping. And for this exquisite peace and quiet that I have so longed for – hoped for, waited for, prayed for – I am beyond thankful.
Not a day goes by that I don’t sit in my backyard and listen to the sweet silence.
I look back now to the seven LONG years of neighbourhood noise at my Sidney home and I want to smack myself upside the head for staying way too long in that situation. But I cannot change the past. What I can do, however, is write a play about the experience…which is exactly what my friend, Lynne, and I have been doing over the past few years.
The play, Bungalow by the Sea, will be a comedy – even though in real life the relentless irritations were anything but funny. That’s one of the great things about writing…we get transform our experiences into something useful (or at least entertaining) for others.
Although the play is about noisy neighbours, what it is really about is the danger of staying in an unhealthy situation – be that a marriage, a job, a home, a way of life – because the fear of the unknown keeps us stuck.
But this much I have learned: I would rather deal with the unknown than tolerate a lousy known.
I often wonder if my less than stellar experience in Sidney is helping me appreciate the peace & quiet I now have in my new garden?
“Sometimes you have to experience the bad, so that you can learn to appreciate the good things that enter your life.”
– Leon Brown
At any rate, here are some glorious garden pics:
And now I’m off to…Equador!
A tremendous last-minute travel opportunity (with a study tour group) recently came up and my friend, Lynne, and I are heading to Equador, including the Galapagos Islands and the Amazon. The Galapagos is pretty much at the top of my travel bucket-list so this gypsy gazelle is taking this opportunity and running with it!
And yes…I strongly suspect this experience IS on my path 🙂
I would love to hear what’s on the top of your travel bucket-list…where on earth do you HAVE to go?
I won’t be taking my laptop with me to Equador, so no blogs until I return in mid-July…and then look out – here come the travel pics!
Till then, take care and enjoy summer!!
“The opportunity of a lifetime needs to be seized during the lifetime of the opportunity.”
―
Maryanne Pope is the author of A Widow’s Awakening, the playwright of Saviour and the screenwriter of God’s Country. Maryanne is CEO of Pink Gazelle Productions and Chair of the John Petropoulos Memorial Fund. If you would like to receive her regular weekly blog, please sign up here.
published in Achieving Your Dreams, Aging, Clutter, Creativity, Dreams/Goals, Home, Productivity, Writing by Maryanne | May 13, 2019 | 8 Comments
Purge, Toss, Recycle, Reflect: Is This What Happens At 50?
“I hope you will remove the clutter that prevents more from coming into your life.”
– Suze Orman
Purge, Toss, Recycle
As I ever so slowly continue to unpack my 200+ boxes from the move, I am purging, tossing and recycling like a mad-woman…not crazy-mad (although some would argue that) but a MAD WOMAN. As in, I am furious with myself for accumulating so much damn stuff over the years, never mind holding on to it for so long.
Upon reflection, here’s what I’m noticing…
The actual decisions as to what to keep and what to toss are easy. As I enter my sixth decade on the planet, I know what I want, need and love. As Marie Kondo would say, I know what “sparks joy.”
Making the decision is simple. Executing the decision is fast (put the item in the recycling bin, the thrift store box, the garbage or place it where it needs to go in the house). Where I am struggling is dealing with the psychological fall-out of purging all the old files in my office.
For it’s not just papers I’m getting rid of. I am also having to let go of an awful lot of goals, hopes and expectations I had set for myself as a writer. Not that I’m dying…I’m sure I still have plenty of time left to write. But I AM having to face the fact fact that despite my best intentions, I have not achieved anywhere near what I had hoped to, in the writing-department, by this point in my life.
Perhaps even more disconcerting is the fact that it’s not like I’ve been sitting around for the past 20 years, thinking about writing instead of actually writing (like the old days, before John’s death when I was 32 and got the wake-up call of all wake-up calls about the importance of working towards our dreams instead of just talking about them).
No. I have been writing…like a mad-woman. And yet I have not accomplished anywhere near what I had set out to. This is an extremely uncomfortable conclusion to arrive at.
And yet, I think it’s healthy. As such, I am trying to embrace this discomfort (rather like hugging a cactus) instead of denying it or running from it.
The fact of the matter is: time IS passing very quickly. And I’m hoping that the sooner I can shed that which I no longer want or need (or is no longer serving me), the more time and energy I will have to focus on what really matters to me – the relationships, projects, causes & activities – in the years that remains.
Is this what happens in our 50’s? We reach some sort of…point of reckoning?
I would love to hear your perspective!
In the meantime, here are some photos from the past few weeks of purging, tossing & recycling:
Boxes of stuff headed to the thrift store 🙂
My wood nymph dress from ballet, complete with adorable cat pin (this did NOT get tossed)
My Nan Nan’s telephone table fits perfectly in the foyer
A cozy nook by the fire a.k.a. the reflection chair
My assistant on yet another backyard break
And here comes the new…
Of course, now that I am shedding stuff left, right & center, this is creating a vacuum in which to receive new stuff – but believe me, I am being VERY selective as to what new items make their way into my home and life.
Case in point is a BBQ.
I had left my old, rusted, beast of a BBQ behind in Sidney so was going to have to get a new one. But I looked out my living room window a few weeks ago and low and behold, right across the street a BBQ had appeared on the curb overnight – with with a big FREE sign stuck to it.
I raced out my front door lickity-split, dashed across the street and pounced on that BBQ like a fat kid on a Smartie. I had just opened the lid to inspect inside when the home owner came out her front door and greeted me with a big smile.
“It’s older but it’s barely been used,” she said. “Can you use it?”
Beaming, I rolled that puppy back across the street, parked it in my backyard and have been using it almost daily every since 🙂
Slow Motion Multi-Tasking
Interestingly, shortly after beating myself up about not getting enough writing projects completed yet, I heard on the radio about a concept called “Slow Motion Multi-Tasking.” Apparently it is a creative process that many geniuses (such as Einstein) have utilized to their advantage over the years.
Basically slow motion multi-tasking refers to the practice of working for a significant period of time on a single project then putting it aside, working on another large project then putting that aside and returning to the first project with a fresh perspective. I have been doing this for years with multiple projects and I DO see the benefit. I just get freaked out sometimes that nothing will ever get finished and sent out into the world.
Apparently, however, I am in good company with this practice of slow motion multi tasking, so I shall continue to persevere with patience and passion!
But I reckon a little self-reflection now and then is not a bad thing.
Maryanne Pope is the author of A Widow’s Awakening, the playwright of Saviour and the screenwriter of God’s Country. Maryanne is CEO of Pink Gazelle Productions and Chair of the John Petropoulos Memorial Fund. If you would like to receive her regular weekly blog, please sign up here. As a thank you, you’ll receive a short but saucy e-book entitled, Dive into this Chicago Deep Dish – Ten Bite-Sized Steps for a Yummier Slice of Life.
published in Achieving Your Dreams, Clarity, Collaboration, Creativity, Dreams/Goals, Playwriting, Saviour Play, Writing by Maryanne | January 8, 2019 | 10 Comments
Shaping Our Lives – Lessons Learned from Eyebrows & Play Scripts
“The first step in crafting the life you want is to get rid of everything you don’t.”
― Joshua Becker
What do eyebrows have to do with a play script…and more importantly, what do they have to do with you?
I was looking in the mirror the other day and it occurred to me (not for the first time) that I scarcely have any eyebrows left.
I’m not the only who has noticed this. In the summer, a friend (after one too many drinks, mind you) commented that I looked “rather like an egg.” With such candid friends, who need adversaries?
Anyhoo…last week I paid a visit to my hairdresser and she offered to wax my brows.
“NO!” I cried. “I have nothing left to wax. I already look like an EGG!”
“Trust me,” she said.
So I did. A few strips and several plucks later, she leaned back from her handiwork and smiled. “Voila!”
I looked in the mirror and low and behold, I had eyebrows again.
By removing the “peach fuzz” (her words not mine; 14-year-old boys have peach fuzz, not 50-year-old women) from around the actual brow, she’d given shape and clarity to my eyebrows. They were still thin but at least you could SEE them.
Maryanne in Saviour play workshop, Jan 2019
Fast forward a couple of days and I found myself in yet another workshopping of my play script, Saviour, throught the Alberta Playwrights Network. The last time my Big Fat Greek Play Script had been workshopped by professional actors, it was a whopping 143 pages. That bad boy sized script would translate to more than two and a half hours performance-time.
Ugh.
This time around, however, I was heading into the workshop with a 119-page script…better but it still needed a good trim. My goal is to get the script to about 100 pages (which would translate to approximately one hour and forty-five minutes performance time).
Thankfully, this workshop was only 3 hours – versus the 8-hour workshop I had in 2017. This meant that after the actors had read the script out loud, there was limited time left for discussion. So what little discussion we had was very focused and succinct…and therefore extremely helpful to me, the playwright.
L to R: Col Cseke, Kathryn Kerbes & Trevor Rueger in Saviour workshop at APN, Jan 2019
Kathryn Kerbes reading the part of Virginia Woolf
L to R: Trevor Rueger & Val Lieske reading Saviour at APN, Jan 2019
I left the workshop with a very clear idea of what had to be cut and what sections needed clarification. I went home and, while it was still fresh in my mind, immediately made the rough changes on the actual printed copy of the script. The next morning, I sat down at my computer and started making the changes in the word doc.
And voila! My Pleasantly Plump Play began to shrink even further…and low and behold, the essence of the play emerged.
Just like the brow trimming, it was only by removing the extraneous bits in my script (that I had been unable to see) that my play began to take shape.
My challenge to you (and me) for 2019
What extraneous bits could you trim from your life? Are there any habits, behaviours, attitudes, beliefs, thought-patterns, relationships or activities that you could delete (or at least cut back on) that might help give you more clarity about your purpose?
Just as it can be difficult to see the forest for the trees (or the eyebrows for the peach fuzz), so too can it be difficult to live up to our potential when we are being pulled in a dozen different directions…many of which are likely NOT helping get us where we want to go.
If the shape of your life is not quite as you’d like it, I challenge you to trim a component (or two) that is no longer serving you. And I shall do the same 😊
Related blog by Maryanne
Perilous Playwriting – Let’s Air Some Dirty Laundry Shall We?
Maryanne Pope is the author of A Widow’s Awakening, the playwright of Saviour and the screenwriter of God’s Country. Maryanne is CEO of Pink Gazelle Productions and Chair of the John Petropoulos Memorial Fund. If you would like to receive her regular weekly blog, please sign up here. As a thank you, you’ll receive a short but saucy e-book entitled, Dive into this Chicago Deep Dish – Ten Bite-Sized Steps for a Yummier Slice of Life.