It’s Groundhog Day. I’m sitting in the same spot where I was sitting yesterday, writing my blog post, in a café right across from my gate. It’s wonderful to be back to travel, but it’s not so wonderful to be back to the snafus and complications and mess-ups that often come with traveling. You take the good with the bad, I suppose. I promise to get a little more wordy towards the end of the week. See you tomorrow where I hope to be writing this from my cozy little writing nook at home!
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
****Happy Birthday to my beautiful first child!!! You are the one who inspired our family and made it our biggest desire to have even more children! (And don’t remind me that you are closer to age 30 than 20 ever again.) 😉
I am travelling right now. It is the first time that I have travelled in a while. It’s such an interesting experience to be out of your usual routine and element. I think that you become more self aware when you travel. You see contrasts to how your live, contrasts to your own environment, and climate, and schedule, and you delight in the novelty of new places, experiences and customs. You get ideas and inspirations for change, and you get a focused insight on what you miss the most in your own everyday life. Travelling is always beneficial for mind clearing, personal expansion and for getting a newfound appreciation for what makes your own life special to you. Tomorrow, I will be home and back to my normal routine. I feel refreshed, affirmed and a little tired. I feel expanded, enriched and grateful. See you tomorrow, friends!
“Travel is the only thing you buy that makes you richer” – Anonymous.
This is Water’s Soul, an eighty foot sculpture unveiled in Jersey City, NJ back in October. She was designed by the artist, Jaume Plensa. When you look from a distance she appears to be shushing New York City.
It has been suggested that the sculpture is not just telling New York to quiet down, but more a message to all of us to remember to relax, quiet down and stop being in such a flurry of activity all of the time. I love the visual of a mothering spirit telling us to find our calm.
Here are some more wisdoms that I found as I explored shops and towns that are new to me: (Wisdoms are all around us if we are looking for them.)
It is so true, isn’t it? We all recognize style, but to describe it, is a very difficult thing to do. Style is just so innate, intrinsic and unique to each individual soul.
And my dear friend was at a Van Gogh exhibit yesterday and texted this:
It’s true! Beauty and wisdom abound. This world is a wondrous place. If we listen to Water’s Soul and we find our calm, we are more likely to notice the beauty and wisdom in everything. Have a wondrous weekend, friends! Find the beauty and the wisdom within and in the external! Soak it in.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Fortune for the day – “In every human being, there is a special heaven whole and unbroken.” – Paracelsus
Happy Friday!! Happy Favorite Things Friday!! I am away from my normal routine, surroundings, resources. Last night we went to a wonderful restaurant that served Spanish tapas. Everything we ate last night was so wonderful. Spanish tapas is definitely my new favorite. Please don’t ask me to pronounce anything we ate last night. I group it all in one word . . . . delicious.
Today, since I am away on a trip, far from my pile of thoughts and research, I am not going to write my traditional blog post, listing three favorite things, songs, books, products, etc. New readers, please check out previous Friday posts for more favorites.
Recently, I read an article about the best small towns to visit in each state. Based on the fact that some of the towns that were listed that I have visited, and they are some of my favorite places that I have ever visited, I have put some of the other towns which I have never visited on my bucket list. Here are some of the towns on the list. At the very least, they are worth a little research if you are looking for a great, quaint, weekend getaway. The first eight I have visited and can vouch for, they are definitely “Favorites” worthy. The rest are recent additions to my bucket list.
Fortune for the day – “We are not separate from Being. We are in it.” – Plotinus
Is it just me or has January 2020 just flown by? I literally looked at my calendar this morning and counted the weeks to make sure that I got my fair share of January days. Apparently, I did. This was a recent post from Think Smarter that resonated with me:
This weekend I am headed out for my annual reunion with my best friends from college. It is always such a mind-clearing, restful, loving experience. Sometimes the reunion is just crazy and funny and all about letting it all hang out. Sometimes the reunion is serious and feels like a continual group hug from start to finish. A lot of the times, it is a mix of both of these things. It also helps to get a break from our every day lives. All of us friends are moms. As moms, we have to manage our own lives and calendars, as well a few others’ lives and calendars. (And truthfully, even though we are technically not supposed to, we secretly worry about the calendars and the care of the kids who we have (kind of) cut loose, as well) So, honestly, sometimes one of the best aspects of going on this annual ladies’ reunion, is to get a little break from all of that planning and plotting that we all do on a daily, weekly, yearly basis. We, on this weekend, as individual ladies, get to choose what one person wants to eat, what one person wants to drink, what time one person goes to bed and what time one person wants to wake up in the morning. We are always hang loose on these happy reunions, because we understand that we all need a breath-releasing break from each of our every day responsibilities and concerns.
Readers, I always bring my computer on every trip that I take during the year, and I typically do a daily blog post. I sometimes contemplate giving myself a vacation from the blog when I am away on trips, but then I say to myself, “That feels like a punishment. I love writing and connecting with my readers. Why would I do that to myself?”
So, I plan to bring my computer with me this weekend. I most likely will do a blog post every day, but if I don’t, just realize that I am doing what is best for me that day. I will be doing what is best to keep my creative juices flowing. I am going to just take each moment, one at a time, and savor it. I plan to just see where the flow takes me, because Plotinus is right, Being knows what It is doing and I am happy to be part of that Knowing. My trip is “going with the Flow.”
This is travel day, friends. So I am going to call it a “light write” day, so that I don’t miss my flight. I feel very lulled, refreshed, revitalized, yet relaxed. I like how I feel right now. I like my energy. I hope that I can carry my good vibe into my home life and keep it there for a while. If I like me and how I feel right now, I suppose that my family and friends will appreciate a more chill me, as well. I am filled with peace and gratitude.
Whatever you wanna be, just, at the end of the day, if you’re being a good person, which is not hard to be, and you’re putting positive energy into the world, and you’re appreciative and loving to the people around you that care about you and everybody in general, then it’ll work out. Gnash
I’m heading home now from my magical weekend. The place that I visited was on my bucket list for deeply personal and spiritual reasons. It exceeded my expectations in all regards and has brought a sense of wholeness to that part of my being that has always yearned to experience this spot, from my family history.
I used to hate the term “bucket list” but now I am inspired by it. As I have gotten older and wiser, everything in my life has become more meaningful and pertinent. Everything. The maturity and ripeness that comes with middle age, brings everything to a more full-color appreciation and for that, I am truly grateful.
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain
“You avoid the overcrowding of tourist locations by traveling in off-season. That is now one of the major rules of smart travel – go when the tourists are NOT there, and even though you may have to don an extra layer of clothing, you will enjoy the sights and the experiences at the destination in the way that they were enjoyed before they became so well-known.” – Arthur Frommer
My husband and I have taken a couple of these romantic, long- weekend trips this year and we’ve ended up in major tourist areas, in their off-seasons. I would like to pretend that this is because we are smart travelers like Arthur Frommer, but truth be told, these time periods were just the best for our family schedule. However, we have found that the above statement is the absolute truth. Our trips have allowed us to enjoy long conversations with locals – these conversations are rich with stories and anecdotes, history, and good tips and ideas about the best-kept secret spots, of the locale. We haven’t had to wait in long lines for anything. We have always gotten tables at the restaurants we have wanted to try and rooms in the places that we have wanted to stay in. We have gotten our souvenirs at amazing, discounted prices and we even have gotten access to private beaches and farms that would never have been available to us during the prime season. The best part is that the locals actually seem to like us, because they have forgotten how annoying, brash, and demanding, the tourists can be during the height of the travel season. We have had the space to breathe and the peace of mind that comes from this space, to really soak in and savor our adventures.
So what this tells me, is that there is another perk of aging, and that perk is the freedom to do more travel, and to do it with a little more wisdom and panache. In writing this blog, I’m starting to come to the understanding that there really are a lot of good things that come out of being more seasoned, aged and ripe, in life. The Second Half isn’t half bad!
