Getting Away From it All

It's a way to clear my head, allow me to laser focus on what's most important. And a gift from my travels to you, a Zen moment at the end.

January 2025 started out a little chaotic on this end. Maybe it was the stars, or maybe it was the longest stretch of “dead week” that I can remember. I recently learned that term and love the implications of it. If you don’t know, dead week is the week between the holidays where no one really does anything, and no one expects much anyway with all the revelry going on.

So after the longest dead week, everything piled up and I was a pretty scatterbrained jumping from task to task trying to get it all done. We had a family health crisis which added to the confusion and chaos. Needless to say, I needed a break, a moment to reset and refocus my goals for the year.

So we went to Puerto Vallarta with friends and got lucky with the weather, whales and worldview.

Scenes from Mexico: Our Lady of Guadelupe church, the Malacon, Sailboat, Whale watching, Aztec dancers, Catrina figurines, a gravestone in the botanic gardens, a pirate ship.

It had been decades since I was there. A million moons ago, my dad rented a house in PV. Back then it was just a burgeoning, blooming attraction not the tourist mecca that it is now. Not my first choice for a vacation. But we were able to find plenty of quiet moments in nature, walk on the beach and visit the botanic gardens in the mountains.

We spent a day in the botanic gardens, too. It gave me many ideas for embellishing my Wisconsin garden. Ideas I’ll create this spring and shar later this year.

Did I mention the whales? We did a whale watching tour one day that far exceeded our expectations.

What does all this have to do with my #writerslife?

So many things. Travel is a gift to yourself, for one, but has so many benefits.

• Space from your work, allowing you to reset and refocus.

• Experiences to add to your arsenal of creativity including sights and sounds of the uniqueness of others around the world.

• Perspective of yourself/how you see yourself in the world.

• Perspective of others/ how others navigate the world.

• Stress relief-

Well the act of getting there and back does stress me out, planes, trains, and automobiles, but once I’ve arrived, I settle in. I seek out quiet time and nature. I particularly seek out water, beaches, lakes, rivers and places where energy flows. I think the draw to water is a universal human trait, so I hope you can relate.

Moments like this make it so worthwhile. Enjoy this minute of Zen. and turn the volume up to fully experience it. 😊