Don’t Stop Now

Before you die, you must allow your genius to
walk the wildest unknown way.

Bryce Courtenay, author of The Power of One

 

"You will be sleeping in the Ernest Hemingway room, ” the desk clerk told me. I cast open the wooden door and found a bedroom decorated exactly as Ernest Hemingway’s might have been. The wrought-iron bed, hurricane lamp, and wooden treasure chest were accented by several of Hemingway’s hardcover texts and some of his actual handwritten correspondence. I peered down the hall to catch glimpses of rooms decorated a la Robert Louis Stephenson, Louisa May Alcott, and my favorite, Dr. Seuss. The Sylvia Beach Hotel3, perched over the rugged beach of Newport, Oregon, is the fruition of a long-time dream by owner Gudrun Cable.

“I yearned to create a space that would honor the great writers and nourish lovers of inspiring words, ” Gudi told me over tea in the library late one night. “When this old hotel came up for sale, I went through two years and forty rejected loans before I got funding. I told my friends that if they each decorated a room according to the style of their favorite author, I would trade them a week’s vacation here for five years. When we were ready to open, I put the tiniest ad in the local classifieds, and I expected a few dozen people for the grand opening. Fourteen hundred people showed up that day, along with a triple rainbow. Since that time, business has been amazing, and I have sat in our library and sipped tea and rich conversation with some of the great authors of our time. ”

What dream is calling you? Do you believe in your idea enough to let it come true? In retrospect, Gudi’s rejections seem like a wispy dream in comparison to the joy and success she has found. I can’t wait to get back to Sylvia Beach; perhaps, if my dreams come true, this time I can get the Dr. Seuss room.
 

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Excerpt from Alan Cohen's meditation book, A Deep Breath of Life