I admit I was a bit cranky in Monday's newsletter.
Imagine leaving one of the most beautiful places on earth and —PLOP— you're back in Jersey, where it's raining and cold.
You will forgive me, won't you?
It's not an easy transition. My time in Greece now seems like a dream. And maybe it was.
I must apologize. Your vacation photos are not that bad. I'm sorry to insult anyone, especially my good friend, Neera. She is a fellow writer who, it seems, vacations year-round. She continually posts pictures of the fascinating places she visits. You can read her Substack newsletter and see her photos here.
When I wrote the newsletter this week, I was thinking of those @#$! plastic Sterilite bins in my basement, originally from my parent's house. They have moved with me to three separate dwellings and weigh a ton. They contain many, many photo albums of their international trips.
My mom was the photographer. Here is evidence of her picture-taking skills:
The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. I like to take photos of animals, too. If you squint your eyes, you will see a black squirrel.
Squirrels are shades of brown and gray here in the U.S., so I’m sure that’s why she wanted to document this creature, wherever it’s from.
The below photo is her signature style.
Her albums are filled with these types of nondescript landscapes.
Let's not blame the Canon Sure-Shot.
Mom didn't have an eye for it. Plus, once the photos were developed, dadgummit, you had to paste them into the album no matter how bad they were.
How could I generate enthusiasm about their fantastic trips? The photographic evidence didn't support it. I’d thumb through the pictures as fast as I could.
Nothing to see here. NEXT!
Boring photos aside, I did get feedback from readers asking for more about the trip. I'm happy to oblige.
I had to work through some head junk about it first, though.
I was considering whether my newsletter is the right venue to discuss my travels. I started the newsletter to discuss yoga and yoga philosophy. I don’t possess that much yoga wisdom, but I love talking about what I know.
Then I remembered that everything is yoga. Yes, all eight limbs of it. I practice yoga daily, whether on my mat or going about my day unaware of it.
Before my trip started, I practiced my yoga at the passport office. Remember how I waited for five interminable hours? (If you missed it, read it here.) That day proved I have a long way to go to manage my mind. The eye-opening part was that I had a front-row seat to witness my mind entirely out of control.
It was a shit show!
I watched my catastrophizing, pessimistic thoughts unfold as a detached observer.
It was awesome!
I glimpsed the chaos of the mind AND, most importantly, my awareness of the chaos.
BAZINGA! There it is.
When you observe the chaos, you cannot be the chaos.
You are not your mind at all.
And how could you be? Your mind is constantly changing and making stuff up.
You are infinitely unchanging. You are truth.
I look back at it now as another teaching moment on my journey. It was neither good nor bad. I shouldn’t be better than I am. I’m not behind.
I'm ok with it. I keep on.
Next newsletter, I will tell you more about my dream of a trip.