As the New Year arrives, I reflect on my annual theme. I usually make a theme that is broad enough to be a guide and is not a goal. In 2016, I acknowledged my theme was a disguised goal or, really, a New Year's resolution (which I didn't accomplish), thus the reason I don't do resolutions. They just don't work for me. My 2016 theme of '500 hours of joyful writing' manifested as '50 hours of far-from-joyful writing'. Ah, but, it is often the themes that don't work...

"I'm happy to be here, but still a little sad to be here too. Sometimes it's better to travel than to arrive." - Robert Pirsig And to arrive and be so far from home during Christmas is always hard for me. Ah, but sometimes being home at Christmas is also hard with no family living near us. I've been listening to Firestarter Sessions from Danielle LaPorte and I'm taking some advice from her. Easy is not always lazy or undisciplined; sometimes it is you intuitiv...

My intention for this trip is less about travel and sightseeing and more about exploring and establishing my spiritual practice and creativity, nurturing my health and doing my writing - not just travel writing but also writing a book. It scares the **** out of me to put this out there but it is time for me to declare it. It's easy to keep it to myself, which allows me to do whatever I darn well feel like doing. And that usually means procrastinating on writing; ...

We set out on our adventure, dreaming of exotic culture, food and warm weather. That, of course, was after we did the usual frenetic run to the finish line of house cleaning, preparations and packing. As we had cancelled our internet connection and didn't check to see if our flight was delayed and sure enough, it was...from an 11:30pm departure to 2:00am, making for a strained beginning to our travel.And so it began...a rush through Heathrow airport to catch our ...