"We are our choices"

Although Jean Paul Sartre has been accredited as saying "We are our choices", as far as I can tell the only person who said that was Dumbledore. 

"It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."

These words have surfaced again and again these last several months, insisting that I pay closer attention.

They seem to hold both purpose and power, leading me to review the choices I have made on my journey in this lifetime. 

Dating a popular boy at aged 16, feeling lucky that I had been chosen.

Marrying this young man at 20 and moving to Vancouver, far away from my Montreal family.

Divorcing as I turned 30 and caring for my two very young daughters, aged three and five.

And then, the following year, opening an antique store with my friend Nora.

WHAT?@!

Neither of us had any experience running a business, so there was a steep learning curve, although, truthfully, it was the buying trips that sustained our excitement. 

Four years later, I swerved again, as I made choices that were to change the trajectory of my young life.

I moved to Duncan, on Vancouver Island, purchasing 30 acres of forest land on the Cowichan River.

WHAT!?@!

Our home, hidden in the forest

While renting a house in town, I worked to prepare a large garden on our new property, while the construction of the house I had designed hadn't yet begun. 

An experience I had at this time still makes me both laugh and shudder.  

As I worked alone on this isolated piece of land, mixing manure into the soil, I heard a huge roar and two burly guys pulled to a stop near me on their motorcycles.

I was young and blonde and wearing a bikini top and cut-off jeans.  

Without thinking, I raised my arms and my voice telling them to leave as this was private property!!

And they did. VROOM!

It was after they had disappeared down our half-mile gravel driveway that I began to shake.

Six weeks after moving into our new home with my daughters, then aged 9 and 11, I met Brian, now my husband of 41 years.

Several months later Brian and I went to the immigration office in Nanaimo so that he could renew his visitor visa.

It was then that we found that it could not be renewed and that Brian would need to return to his home in Britain.

I kinda proposed to him at the immigration office and we were given three months to get married!

Another choice. 

Gardening, painting, canning and home-brewing filled the hours that I wasn't cooking or caring for my kids.

Gumboots were my footwear and life was good.

My dad visited many times, working in the garden and often sitting on a large tree stump smoking, while overlooking the Cowichan River

dad in our herb garden

On one of these visits he told me that he and my mum had assumed that I would return to Montreal 

after my divorce.

WHAT!?@!

It had never occurred to me.  I hadn't lived "at home" since I had gone to college in Boston, just as I turned 17.

My life's choices had guided me to other vistas and to other areas of exploration and discovery.

How very different my life would have been, back in Montreal, within the radius of my sister and parents. 

Expectations. Conformity. Comparisons and norms.

Instead, my choices have guided me to live the fulfilling life I have now.

A home surrounded by enough space to grow a beautiful garden.

A working studio and gallery planned and built during our first year in Victoria.

The ocean 21/2 blocks away.

  A salute to Dumbledore!

a painting by Brian showing the camas meadow on our Cowichan Valley property

                             

 another painting by Brian of the fawn lilies, also on our property    

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