A Cottage By The Sea

By Larry Tyler - Image by Larry Tyler

It has been a while since I have been to my cottage by the sea.

The cottage is warm and welcoming with a breeze blowing the curtains. In my favorite leather chair by the window lays a book that I didn’t finish, a story of the sea and of great adventures of old. The book, a companion, a friend, a door to walk through, or a page to turn. It lays there waiting just where I left it, waiting for my return. The bookmark still there between the pages where the story was interrupted.

The sun casts shadows on a painting I have been working on. It depicts an old man sitting by a window with his dog sprawled out on his lap. It is painted in browns and sepia. Both dog and man are old and gray, yet the painting reflects a joy, peace, a great friendship, and love, a long life spent together.

This cottage by the sea is a place of refuge and peace, a place of reflection and inspiration. On my journey of life, this place has been a safe haven, a place to rest for a moment. It is a place where there are no goals to meet, no directives to execute and no problems to solve. In my cottage, you will not find any books on success or any books on leadership. This cottage by the sea is my success.

It has been said that it is about the journey, not the destination and perhaps that may be true. But to be here, where there is peace and simplicity, is where life had guided me. Maybe there is a destination to the journey and just maybe it is here in this cottage by the sea. In the end, my quest for success has brought me here.

Success for me is sitting by an open window reading a book, maybe Henry David Thoreau or Emerson. It is a place to take brush in hand and paint the beauty around me or walk along the shore with my dogs.

Perhaps it is holding my wife’s hand as the waves roll in and the joy of growing old together. For me, success is a cottage by the sea.