When I became a mother, from the very beginning I was not excited about a ‘conventional’ life as a parent. Rather, I always pictured a bohemian style existence. I always had a scene in my mind from the movie Chocolate. In it, the heroine, played by Juliette Binoche, blows into town in a red cape with a small girl, also in a red cape. Mysterious, outsiders, standing out against the dark…

The night I got pregnant in Ireland, unaware I had become pregnant, I had a vivid, long, detailed dream. When I woke, it was as clear as if I had lived it. It was so oddly compelling that I wrote it down.

*

In the dream I was walking through a city; long grey streets, walled-in by block upon block of tall oppressive, red buildings. I was surrounded by concrete and bricks. It was tiring, and I felt lost and heavy. Eventually I came to a clearing where blue skies appeared and an edge of the city came into sight. I saw a little dirt road and followed it. It arrived above a glorious sea of blues and greens, the beach of rocks just below me. It was beautiful. Being an ocean lover, I had an urgent desire to walk down to the sea. I was so excited, my heart was beating. I could barely believe my eyes- I was totally overjoyed.

In the bay below, a huge wooden ship was docked. Massive, with a great big sail, and within a few seconds of my arrival it began to head out to sea. I tore down the beach to try to catch it, but I couldn’t. I felt devastated as I watched it slowly drift off into the distance. I turned back to the road towards the city.

*

The next scene of my dream was a vintage-like timpe-lapse of images of a couple and a little girl that they twirled around and who slowly grew older in the photos. She was unusually pretty. I had the recall the impression of ‘family and child’ from the dream - one at the time I couldn’t understand.

The dream stayed written down in my journal.

*

A year and a half after my daughter Sienna Rose was born in Ireland, we left to live near my father in Belgium. There, I hoped to learn French and eventually move to Paris. Being a single mother was a new world I wasn’t quite prepared for. I found it a lot harder to be a creative entrepreneur in the un-artistic-driven Belgium business environment. Brussels culture was built on corporate political institutions. I curbed my photographic services to fit into this arena, but it was not the type of work or environment I had thought of when I became a photographer.

I was not creating or experiencing anything creative, beautiful or interesting. Rather, I was just professionally fitting in and documenting the speeches and conferences of world leaders and aspiring politicians and organizations.

I felt like an outsider.

*

The area we lived in was structured with the two-high-income, conventional family in mind. And it was Belgium, which is to say, very ‘square’ and ordered. Unlike my childhood, children did not ride their bikes or play on the streets. The winters were long and the world seemed grey and cold. I felt like I was dying inside.

The place lacked colour, horizons and spontaneity. The park was the only place of nature near me, though I’m not sure this pruned version, full of people at all times, is really ‘nature.’ I did enjoy listening to the birds in the trees, but found myself always frustrated by the interruption of the roar of a jet plane, or screaming ambulance siren.

Routine and order dictated the lives and actions of the people. The latest international News was the god of the day and also the main topic of my family conversations. I felt no closer to my family after moving closer to them than when our relationship was long distance.

*

I made a few friends in Belgium, who were EU office workers, women friends. A lot of them were discontented, trying to decide whether to divorce, how it would affect the kids, whether to stay or go. I saw them wish they could switch careers, only to decide the salary loss was not worth it. Burnout was a common affliction recognized by the government- workers who experienced it were advised to take a year off to recover.

I saw the children being raised basically inside buildings. Running around in fields, mountains, beaches and sunshine was replaced by a different digital narrative on their screens. Screen given to them by their parents who needed to have quiet time to themselves, or who couldn’t stop the addiction for the digital fix.

I saw their mothers make the decisions to quiet the wild voice inside them that said ‘leave him’ or ‘leave this job, you are slowly dying.’ I saw them suffer, rationalize and stay, stay with all of it. Because having a lot of space to call home, in a nice neighborhood, and a lot of nice things, and expensive holidays and meals in restaurants was scary to leave, and the thought of starting over was terrifying. I watched their kids with so many nice toys, tablets and huge screened televisions and beautifully decorated rooms, classes, events, sleepovers and birthday parties.

I was repulsed and bored with all of it.

But even I had become stuck in my own way. I knew Belgium was not the place I wanted to call home. But I didn’t know how to break out without some miraculous job offer somewhere- I had no savings, and no specific place to go. And so I was in quite a dark place for this period, dreaming of getting out and not knowing how. I drank too much red wine each night, skipped more and more gym sessions and stopped making new friends.

As age 50 drew closer and closer, I was wondering what the hell happened to my life. In my head, 50 was fatal, 50 meant ‘old.’

During this period, I started to dream of California, where I lived in my 20’s. Sometimes it takes a few decades of traveling to make you realize the things and places that made you feel the most alive. I also had another dream during this time I was surfing in a green barrel, even though I don’t surf. I wrote this dream down too. I also had a dream where someone took me to a place, somewhere foreign, ‘like Africa…’ I wrote in my journal. In the dream, I stood in the sun above a sea and said to my guide ‘It’s warm, there’s sun and sea, I can surf. I think I’ll stay.”

I mentioned these dreams to an old friend from California that I had started to talk to online from time to time - usually about surfing. Then, one December, about four months later, he asked if I wanted to join on a trip to Morocco.

A most unusual and astonishing invitation for a single, depressed mom, who had been sitting in Brussels for six years with no prospects.

After dreaming about it for two years, I took a few days of surf lessons. For the first time in a long time I was gloriously happy.

So after not having a holiday since my daughter was born, I took three days to escape my life and go on an adventure. I arrived in a funky little surf town called Taghazout. We stayed at a bohemian-style hotel on the edge of the sea, called Amouage, which means ‘wave’ in Arabic. I loved the laid-back California feel, and it had a cool hipster vibe, decorated in an arty bohemian Moroccan-style decor. The surf art on the walls intrigued my artistic sensibilities. I inspected all of the art hanging on the walls throughout and thought ‘wow, I could make art like this too.’ I spent some afternoons in an adorable cafe above the sea, Cafe Mouja, drinking cappuccinos. I felt like I was back in Venice 20 years ago and I was content.

The romance from that Moroccan trip ended as quickly as it started, but also started a serious romantic vision. This vision gave me the courage and power to create a creative idea. Which gave me the incentive to march right out of those concrete lined streets and walk down that dirt path to the ocean, like my dream so many years before. Now, I call the ocean home.

*

One year later I returned to Taghazout on a girls retreat with Surf Maroc. It gave me something to work towards, and something to look forward to. I started my gym workouts again and started getting into better shape. I worked really hard at the surf classes, but found to my dismay I was extremely and embarrassingly afraid of waves. Although committed to learning, I was not comfortable in the ocean at all. I was a terrible swimmer.

But, those ten days were the longest I had been away from my daughter. The holiday vibe was good for my soul. While I was on the way to surf class one day, I overheard there was a position of social media manager for a well-known surf retreat and hotel brand in Morocco. I thought it over quickly, and with a little bit of doubt and a lot of encouragement from my roommate, I hastily revised my cv and marched in to ask the ‘boss’ for an interview.

The interview was granted and went pretty well… until the part where I mentioned my daughter. Then, the ‘boss’ kind of looked up to the right for a few seconds and said:

“Mmm… that’s kind of complicated. You would need a car… So are you definitely bringing your daughter?

Well, duh, what else does a single mom do with their kid?

I knew I wasn’t going to be hired. In fairness, I did not do surf photography to provide them with content, and I had a terrible Instagram. Photos of high-ranking politicians was not really the beach vibe reflection of what was in my head.

Also, having a kid in Morocco would be complicated. What kind of employer wants a complicated employee. They are more of a risk than a single person who has no serious home responsibilities.

The truth was, I needed to work for it. I would need to put in the work to get what I wanted. And so I did, for about two years. It involved a series of small steps that all interlinked to bring me where I am today. Where am I today? Currently writing this from the cute local cafe above the sea - my local.

I believe I had to suffer first, because I didn’t know how to break out of old routines and habits. I was terrified to take the corporate photography out of my portfolio. A friend, a yoga teacher, convinced me that the photography I liked to do was going to be my future.

*

I did what I could while still living in the city of concrete. I joined an Apnea Freediving group to help me get comfortable with being in water. I cut back on the drinking and developed good morning routines. I followed surf lifestyle photographers and retreats, and surf brands and surfers on Instagram to develop my visual style- even though I was far away from such subject matter. I learned what camera equipment to buy for shooting in water.

Most importantly I learnt through my yoga friend to start a meditation in the morning. A visualisation where I imagined what it would be like and how I would feel if I lived next to the sea, could surf, and enjoy the life I envisioned with my daughter. I started to hold that feeling throughout the day and created a sort of warm, beach-feeling cushion of energy that protected me from the dismal, boring, Belgium city landscape.