Dusting off the old keyboard

Good morning friends and lovers.

     It's been almost a year since I posted a musing here, and what a year it has been. I realized I never wrote a final entry after I got home from my trip last year, I suppose I was pretty caught up with emotion at the time and then life ran away with me, funny how it has a way of doing that. I will try to go back in my journals and do a recap of my adventures in Barcelona as well as the emotional roller-coaster that was my trip home and the unpacking of two months on the road. For now though, I bring you something a little different.

     So two weeks shy of a year to my last post and the wanderlust I was left with at the end of my adventure has not abated. This year has been full of amazing adventures and I traveled to the far off distant places that reside within me. I have experience so much love and vulnerability, so much joy and play and tackling of new skills and empowerment I almost don't know where to start. I have also had the pleasure of experiencing some truly heartbreaking moments. And I do mean pleasure, in those moments (which I still have with some frequency) it can be hard to be grateful and I certainly have been angry, but when I step back and try to gain perspective on the events of the last year I could not have experienced the transformation I did without them. The moments of heartbreak and sadness are what makes the moments of pure bliss possible. Without one the other could never be as powerful. And even in those saddest moments, even when I felt like my heart was on fire, I could recognize that I had woken up from a very very long sleep, and I was grateful to be awake.

     All this is to say, while this has been a powerful year of transformation, the time is here for me to once again pack up and hit the road, although I'm doing it a little differently this time. This adventure has no definitive ending and I am seeking quiet and the opportunity to continue growing and seeking a deeper understanding of the things I have experienced this year, I am seeking some space and a break. Life in the city has become quite a struggle for me. I long for quiet and plants and fresh air. I long for views without human structures in them. I long for the wild and the unknown. I need some space. I need a minute and I need to keep practicing everything I have learned. I fully recognize the privilege I have in my ability to pursue this break, and I am nothing but grateful for it. I have worked hard all my life, I have worked hard not just in the typical jobs that we are conditioned to seek out but also in my relationships with people and animals and the space around me. I have worked hard to build relationships that help carry me forward and hope that I give that blessing to those I have forged relationships with.

     So with that, those of you who reside on the west coast, US and Canada alike, maybe prepare yourself for a knock on your door in the coming months, for I am about to go a-wandering and I don't know where it will lead me. For the time being I step southward, heading for the serenity of Southern Oregon and the opportunity to help a new friend and maybe make another of those amazing relationships I've come to realize are the foundation I have built my life on. So much love to each and every one of you, and if no one reads this, well love to each and every soul out there anyways.

     Alex

PS - Here are some pictures of what I've been up to this year! (mostly art, yoga, rocks and nature)