The MudMoon Studio is opening its doors! You know the place – the earthen studio on Redrooffs at the Broken Blue Canoe adjacent to Sargeant Bay – and they’ve got lots going on. From 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on March 9 and 10, Chris, Amanda-Rae Hergesheimer and family invite you to drop in to a pop-up cafe – have a coffee, hang out with neighbours and browse the many artisanal products for sale. On both of those days, from 10 a.m. to noon, SCRD area director Justine Gabias welcomes you to her second 2024 “community chat” – conversation in an inspirational setting. Interested in creating a “nettle salve”? Stella Rose Herb Craft is offering a herbal workshop on March 9 from 2 to 4 p.m. Is music your jam? Join Sarah Noni, Aristazabal Hawkes and Kiki Connelly on Sunday for an intimate musical collaboration (4 and 7 p.m. – tickets are selling fast). Find tickets for the workshop and concert on Eventbrite. Follow @mudmoonstudio on IG and Facebook.
By the time you read this, I will be in Quebec (just across the Ottawa River) to close my apartment. I had moved there in May 2019 after leaving an unhealthy (understatement!) relationship. By November, I clearly needed a bigger change, so I packed a suitcase and flew to Vancouver for a four-month visit (or so I thought!). My journal entry proclaimed “I close the door on my past! I am living for “the now.” BRING IT ON!”
Fast forward to June 2020. After several COVID-related flight cancellations, I found myself looking for a rental on the Sunshine Coast. Like many others, the longer I stayed in B.C., the less inclined I was to leave. By a stroke of serendipity (magic!), the first ad I found featured a studio apartment with a breathtaking view across Sargeant Bay. After a week of (nail-biting) application processing, on June 11, I journaled “yesterday, the door opened wide and beckoned me in…walk down this path to the next stage of your life. ‘You’re in!’, the property manager texted me. A wave of relief washed, no, crashed over me. Can this be true? Is this where I am meant to be, to heal, to find my true self? I feel I have been lost for so, so long.”
The release of my apartment represents closing the door (literally and figuratively) on Ottawa, my hometown of 55 years (only the last few spent in Quebec). Pema Chodron writes “Life is a good teacher and a good friend. To stay with the shakiness, with the broken heart, that is the path…gently and compassionately catching ourselves.” I discovered that the path I was afraid to follow, full of unknowns and pain, was exactly the one I needed. And that path, that open door, led me to the vast ocean, the lush forests, the welcoming community, and a tribe of friends in Halfmoon Bay – my new hometown.
