Creativity Q&A: What will it take for you to start living your dream?

Posted on Oct 12, 2012

Last Sunday morning my husband and I were walking along the seafront here on the island, and we came upon a little building neither of us had noticed before. With a half dozen tables on the grass around it, the place was painted a lovely shade of pink. All the windows were open, and the cakes on the windowsill were beautiful.

We stopped, ordered coffee and a doughnut and sat down for a while. The longer we sat, the more inviting the little place became. When I returned our empty cups, I asked the woman at the counter how long she’d been there.

So began another spontaneous conversation in creativity.

Living Alfresco

The woman introduced herself as Louise and told me she had taken over the building in April. She said she had worked in mobile catering for 25 years until last year, when she was diagnosed with cancer. At that point she decided she needed to make a change. And that’s when she found the old bicycle shack on Hayling Island. She signed a seven-year lease and set out with her daughter Marley to make it a success.

Her vision was to create a coffee bar serving cappuccino and panini, so she named her little slice of heaven Alfresco’s. She soon discovered that the majority of her customers, many of them advanced in years, didn’t know what a panini is. They just wanted a pot of tea and a cake. So she learned and adapted.

Now in late October, Louise is coming to the end of her first season. Business had been very good for her this summer particularly on weekends and Wednesdays, the day of the weekly car boot sale. “I’ve learned a lot this year,” she tells me, adding with a big smile on her face, “I’m happy to be doing this. And we’re hoping for the best.”

Creativity in Unexpected Places

What impresses me about life is how colorful it really is. Whenever I stop to see what’s around me, I see another unique, bright spark of creativity catching fire in another unexpected place. Even on this small island off the south coast of England, Life is blossoming with possibility. Louise is harvesting her vision on a small slice of seaside just minutes away from our house.