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.”

― Leonard Ravenhill

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.