“If you knew that you only had one year to live, how would you live it?”
– Jennifer Barclay, Falling in Honey; Life and love on a Greek island

Have you ever dreamed of packing your bags and moving to a Greek island? Author Jennifer Barclay did just that and shared her experience in her book, Falling in Honey, Life and Love on a Greek Island. A delight to read, Falling in Honey traces Jennifer’s journey of following her dream and moving to the small Greek island of Tilos.

Now for me, I find that whatever book I’m reading at any given time will often shape what I’m experiencing in my own life, usually changing my perspective in some way. So it was with Falling in Honey, which I was reading during my never-so-dreamy Christmas vacation at home on not-so-small Vancouver Island a couple of years ago. My elderly mom had come to visit and needed a lot of help, and then my elderly dog ​​collapsed and needed even more help.

So when it came time to collapse into bed (more like my couch) at night and read a chapter or two of Falling in Honey, I was able to temporarily put the fact that my seriously ill dog was in the ER on the backburner. and my motionless. , demanding and strangely hungry mother was in my bed. But escaping one’s reality can only go so far.

As I read about tzatziki and spanikopita, the warm sandy beaches and refreshing dips in the sea soothed my soul during a very tiring time, it also made me think about…well, thoughts, and how important a role they play in the determination whether or not we are in a dream or a nightmare at a given moment in our lives.

If I haven’t learned anything else in this life so far, I have learned this: happiness is a choice, a state of mind, versus a guaranteed outcome that comes from making a change in one’s external circumstances. And yet, many people, myself included, are known to fantasize about how much happier they would be if they lived somewhere else, with someone else, doing something else.

And fair enough: maybe they would be.

But it’s also fair to say that regardless of where we live, the trials and tribulations of life still happen. They do it for me, here in my little bungalow by the sea…and they certainly did it for Jennifer on her rather rocky road to serenity. As such, I wouldn’t call Falling in Honey an escape from reality for a reader. Rather, I think the book contains a deeper and more universally relevant message: Home is where your heart is, and if you can’t find the real treasure you’re looking for in your own backyard, you probably can’t find it anywhere else.

What you may need to change first is how you live your life versus where you live it.

As it turned out, Jennifer’s heart was on the island of Tilos, without or without a special guy in her life. And so Falling in Honey manages to provide exquisite examples of how to experience the joyful simplicities that the slower pace of island life can offer: shopping for local food, preparing delicious meals, taking long walks, reading in the sun, watching the sunset. …basically slowing down enough to savor the simple pleasures of daily life instead of rushing through the day at breakneck speed.

In fact, the more I read of Falling in Honey, the more I began to salivate, both at the enticing descriptions of fresh tomatoes, basil and feta drizzled with olive oil, or the warm pita bread drenched in homemade tzatziki, and at the delicious sensation of serenity evoking Jennifer’s writing about life on the island.

But then one night, I put the book down, sat down and looked around my living room, and shook my head. Now wait a minute here, I thought to myself: I live on an island. A simpler life at a slower pace was my reason for moving here in the first place. I too had dreamed of being a writer by the sea, even if it was the Pacific facing the Mediterranean.

But the sea is the sea and writing is writing… and since they are both tremendous teachers, obviously I was not a very astute student. Externally, he had all the necessary conditions for inner peace. Internally, my stress level indicated that I might as well be an investment banker in Manhattan.

As a guide, I once again turned to another author and pulled out my worn copy of Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s classic Gift from the Sea.

“Simplification of outer life is not enough,” Anne reminded me. “It’s just the outside…a path to grace. The final answer is always on the inside.”

Ahhh yes. Although my heart was in Sydney by the Sea, my mind was obviously still struggling to understand the slower-paced show. And that’s okay: awareness is an important first step. Changing, or accepting, oneself, I am learning, does not happen overnight.

“Patience, patience, patience is what the sea teaches.”

Anne Morrow Lindbergh, gift of the sea

For me, the most beautiful falling in honey That was how Jennifer made the change in her life that she knew she needed to make, and finding the courage to do it, she fell in love with life all over again. And that’s what I did too, moving to Sydney.

But falling in love with life is like falling in love with honey: As sweet as it can be, sometimes you get so bogged down in the details that you lose sight of the big picture.

Reading Falling in Honey, and writing about it, helped shift my perspective away from focusing solely on the present, rather complicated situation, by reminding me to see it for what it really was: a small but stressful bump in life’s longest road ahead. I have chosen to take.

Perhaps it’s no surprise that Jennifer and I have an interesting history together. She was my first editor on my book, A widow’s awakening. Jennifer patiently taught me how to write creative nonfiction. Although we never met in person in all the years we worked together, she painstakingly helped me transform my manuscript from the shattered ramblings of a heartbroken widow into a compelling story.

So I now return to Jennifer’s poignant question in the opening quote of this article: If you knew that you only had one year to live, how would you live it?

Well, since I finally discovered that the way we spend our days is the way we spend our lives, my answer is simple, but not easy: with tremendous gratitude for all that I already have.