About two months ago, I woke up in a pavilion with towering glass walls on three sides.

Dusty green and yellow palm fronds, from dozens of tall and graceful palm trees, framed the views. The sound of their swishing became the soundtrack of my days, as a cooling breeze blew almost constantly.

In front of me, a gleaming white sand beach fell into the deeper water behind the house. Everything else I could see looking West was either sky or ocean. They were nearly identical shades of incandescent blue, broken only by the purplish water of the Gulf Stream, which flowed silently, to the north. 

On my right, a crystal clear pool stretched 120 feet across the width of the compound. Surrounding the pool were six more pavilions. Designed like a Buddhist temple, the interiors were covered in Burmese teak, with 40’ high ceilings and stone gargoyles. In front of the house, past a small access road, was a private marina, with two yachts, and two fishing boats with their captains, mates, and stewards. 

The kitchen and dining room were inside the largest pavilion, in the center of the compound. Here two chefs prepared extraordinary meals each day with the finest ingredients (and wines) flown in from around the world. The boat crews supplied fresh fish and lobster, each day too.

Nandana is the most luxurious property in the Bahamas. The name means ‘Paradise’ in Sanscrit. It was my home for a month last spring. But it is only one of the many beautiful and inspiring places where I live. 

My estate in Miami is just as elegant — a fully refurbished 1920s villa and guest house with thick white-washed stone walls, custom furniture, beautiful paintings, and landscaping to ensure total privacy and quiet, just a few hundred yards from the madness of Collins Avenue.

In the fall, I’ll enjoy one of the finest private estates in Baltimore County, a working farm with fields of sunflowers. Set in a green valley, there’s a cold, spring-fed stream that runs through the heart of the property filling the fields every morning and evening with mystical and inspiring mists and fogs. 

Here again, is a life filled with elegance most people cannot imagine still exists. The grounds include one of the largest and oldest collections of peonies and roses in the world, just behind the main house. In the evening there are joy-filled dinners on the lawn below the garden, looking out across the property. An enormous stone gate with gas lamps guards the long, tree-lined drive at the entrance.

This was not the life I expected. 

My parents prescribed a conventional life for me. My teachers and peers indoctrinated me into that world: a life of fitting in with everyone else and never doing anything that was different or unique… or of my own creation. 

My life was probably just like yours, in fact. A life where I was always the prisoner to someone else’s agenda. 

Specifically, I was a civil engineer working as a consultant. In the mornings, the light from my three monitors illuminated my apartment, along with the sound of click-click-click, as I typed in my corporate username and password. I opened my calendar, each hour of the day blocked into colour-coded sections, broken into tasks with allocated periods of time. There was no mystery around the contents contained in any compartment in my living space, white labels with straight black letters were centered at the top of drawers and storage. The reflective surface of a whiteboard shone on the fridge, smudges of erasable marker laying out the words “work, exercise, eat, clean”. On the opposite wall, this same schedule was stretched out into a monthly version, with minimal white open sections visible and black markers cluttering the slots.

But six months ago, that changed forever. 

I met someone. He changed my heart. And my mind. And allowed me to see what was possible, not just in my life, but for anyone who seeks to live fully, to live an extraordinary life. 

I’ll tell you more about it next time. 

For now, just know: it’s possible. 

Xx,

The Independent Blonde