Water's Edge and the Magic of Stillness

Or... "Off Map" - A new type of essay.

I write about the Heroine’s Adventure because I’m living it right now. We all are. And sometimes the most useful thing anyone can offer isn’t a framework or a journal prompt, but proof that someone who ought to have this figured out by now still very much doesn’t. I’m still in my Messy Middle.

So I’m starting something new. Alongside everything I share on my Substack for free (which will still be abundant), I’ll be writing a series called Off Map. This series is more intimate, more personal, and is written in real time as I figure things out rather than trying to look smart after the fact.

These essays will live behind the paywall because it’s the only way I’m brave enough to share them. Intimacy needs a door. If you’re a paid subscriber, you’re already through it. If you’d like to join us on the inside, there’s a lot more than this waiting.

Next week is a free post - The Skills That Cannot Be Automated!

Also - Something else new! I’ve started putting some of our favourite Heroine’s sayings on fun merch. There’s only a few but I am adding them as they are designed. Reccomendations welcome. Check out the store!

The day we arrived at Water’s Edge, the wind was 26mph from the East. That speed and direction creates utter chaos at our house. The water is not pleased about being shoved around so aggressively by that darn wind, and it gets pretty pissy. This pissiness translates into waves repeatedly slamming against our poor, abused seawall, cresting it and crashing over our back patio, leaving salty water on our furniture, streaming down our patio doors and windows, and into our freshwater pool. If you are standing on the patio, you get a cool drenching shower, which isn’t so fun when you are fully clothed.

This weather continued for 4 days, and we watched in dismay, knowing that we were missing out on our patio and our favourite part of being here, because frankly, we’ve been struggling. This is our last visit as owners to this villa, which we have owned for 18 years, and we are grieving. Not only for the home itself, but for the life we live while we are here in this gorgeous country that we have called “home” for so long. We know it’s time (there are a million reasons that I won’t bore you with), but it won’t make the closing date in July any easier.

Even worse? We haven’t been able to agree on what comes next. Mark and I (who have been in lockstep our entire lives, choosing and changing like those waves as the wind speed and direction of life shift constantly, throwing spanner after spanner into the works) have been tepid about every idea, pulling irritated, frowny faces at each other’s suggestions. I want to buy something new in the United States, where my family and our daughter live. Mark, understandably, does not. He feels the pull toward a more permanent base in Italy. I do not.

Listen, I’m annoying myself just writing this. These are first-world problems with first-world answers, but it doesn’t make them any easier. There is still something incredibly frustrating about having so many options that all feel like compromises.

And then the wind died. And the magic happened.

This time, the magic delivered us an idea like a pink-pearled conch shell materializing on the patio. Water’s Edge magic is real. I’ve watched it arrive too many times to call it a coincidence.

There was a morning during a stressful period in my business. I’d been drowning in a spiral of anxiety for weeks and was so on edge during the middle of a meeting that I had to call a stop to it and leave my office. I sat on the seawall and stared out at the rippling blue and green quilt before me, and the ocean said, “This expanse lives inside you, too. There is more than enough space for your breath. Let that breath fill you instead of this anxiety.” And it did.

There was the last visit when we were here in October. I was passionate about the Salon and about bringing midlife women together, but I had somehow drifted back onto a Substack path of revenue targets, admin work, and productivity systems, which was everything I had decided I would “retire” and escape from. The internet went out. I sat outside with the company of the whispering palm leaves and the chattering of the Osprey, and realized it was the first time I had actually stopped in months. Water’s Edge never shouts at you. It waits until you get quiet, and then it hands you exactly what you need.

This time, the magical idea that Water’s Edge handed us arrived in the form of a conversation.