Sweet Annie is one of my favorite places for so many reasons. Sweet Annie is a gift. This quaint cottage sits in a beautiful quiet beach town off of the North Carolina coast. It’s a place where I find that I can simply be.
The beach is a stone's throw from the front porch. I just love sitting on that porch feeling the ocean breeze and listening to the waves as they come ashore. This is truly a special place. Sweet Annie is good for the soul.
I have no doubt that there is an energy that charts the course of our lives. No doubt at all. I’m convinced that if we take the time to sit with ourselves and identify what will feed our souls and then make ourselves available, that we then breathe life into those things without even knowing it. I’m not talking about planning out the steps to make them happen and definitely not by limiting our thoughts based on perceived obstacles. I'm talking about figuring out what would bring us joy, being open to it, and then letting life take its course. Call it a God thing, an energy thing, but it’s all about putting that idea, that vibration out into the universe and letting it find its way back to you. I know one thing, it doesn’t happen until you sit down with yourself and open up your mind to it. In doing just that it became abundantly clear to me that I needed to write and to get started I needed a sabbatical, a retreat. I didn’t know exactly how to make that happen but I remember a time a few years ago when I just put it out there. I owned the desire and then I then began to look for options. I needed a place and a time to start moving my words from my head to my keyboard. It’s then that I was given the beautiful gift of time at Sweet Annie. Our dear friends opened up their home simply for me to write. I’m not sure if they understood what a gift that was. Not only was I beyond excited for the opportunity, but I was also simply taken aback by their generosity. Have you ever meet someone that makes you think, “when I grow up I want to be just like them”? Well these people are those people. Sweet Annie’s owners have such an unbelievable gift of hospitality that I almost think they find the equivalent joy in sharing their home as the guests that get to spend time there and I want to be like that. I want my kids to be like that. They say that our daughter is their second daughter. I’m grateful because she can learn so much from them. If you are worthy, my Katie will refer to you as kind. I love when she says that because the way that she uses that word makes me realize how much she values that characteristic in people. These people are that very definition of kind and I am thankful. But I digress…
We’ve been told that the hope for this place is that the inside of these walls would constantly be filled with joyful people. Sweet Annie is not meant to sit empty and quiet when her owners are not there. That’s not what they want for this place. They want life to happen within these walls and with help of family and friends that’s exactly what happens here. Every nook and cranny has a beauty that says you are at the beach. Relax, enjoy, get close to God. Each time I am there that is exactly what I do.
I remember the excitement and anticipation of our first visit to Sweet Annie. It was there that I sat each day, putting my thoughts to paper as the waves surrounded me with the most beautiful white noise. Each time we get the chance to return, I’m well aware of the gift that Sweet Annie gives me and I’m equally aware that my time to write is something that comes to me when I open myself up to the possibilities.
My brain stays on and in overdrive every waking hour of the day. To sit with my thoughts and my words and silence everything else is an almost impossible task, but not at Sweet Annie. Katie came home from time at a friend’s house one morning and told me how in the mid-morning hours her friend’s mother was sitting on the couch enjoying a cup of coffee and her thought was that her Mom (me) would never do that. Ouch? Once my feet hit the floor I am in motion and the idea of sitting quietly as the morning passed would simply never happen. She was right. I’m wound that tight, but not here. Not at this special place. Here my body can relax, my mind can find calm, and my words find their way to the surface. Morning walks take me to a place that I can’t find anywhere else. The empty beaches, the crashing of the waves, the sun making its way from the sky to the sand is where I find God’s greatest beauty and where I find the quiet I need. It’s where my words can flow.
I’m certain that we all have desires and dreams deep within that, given the opportunity, given life could be game changers of the future. Take the time to get quiet, to listen, to figure out what you want from this world, from your life, from the future and breathe life into it. Toss it out into the universe without hesitation and then let life happen. One day you’ll look back and you’ll find your Sweet Annie.
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