Bus stop for work commute. A precious moment.

I’ve fallen down on my commitment to myself to post on at least a monthly basis. I beat myself up a bit, but now I’m back. Admittedly, since the election of Donald Trump for POTUS, I’ve become a FB junkie posting provovactive articles, devouring and commenting on news articles, and using FB to satisfy my desire to write. I fear I’ve done this to the point of terribly offending friends and family who only want to use FB to stay in touch and watch the kids grow, and all of that other sweet stuff. I have to tell you, before FB became a platform for political rantings, I found it rather depressed me. I’d look at FB and feel like I didn’t have a life. Everyone else’s life seemed so perfect and fascinating compared to mine. That was of course until Chris and I started our travels…then, I could keep up with the Jone’s. Now I had a life. Ha! In all seriousness, FB did serve the purpose to help me stay in touch with friends and family while Chris and I were traveling. But the truth is, I’ve never been much of a small talker and FB to me often feels like a bunch of small talk. That is, until DT. Then, FB became this wonderful place for deep discourse, posting of in depth provocative articles, connecting with like minded people, and discourse that goes beyond how cute the kids are (though I do like the kid picures), but instead, gets into what people really think and feel about life. And yes, even beyond policital persuasion, FB has become a place for me to explore religious and spiritual concepts. My FB feeds me daily doses of  Richard Rohr and  Jack Kornfield. Christian and Buddhist persuasions respectively. I’ve devoured articles and blogs of how the “Christian Right” has played into the election of DT and I’ve discovered the Christian Left. So yes, I’ve been diverted from our Back of Beyond Journey Blog and used FB instead. I’ve also again become gainfully employed, requiring me to devote a third of my days to the work my employer has hired me to do and not to my musings. And yes, my external travels have stopped for now, but not my inward journey. If I’ve learned anything from the 8 months of freedom from “a job” where I have to show up everyday and traveling to remote parts of the USA, it is, that, “wherever I go there I am.” I’ve always said this after reading the book from Jon Kabat-Zinn with the same title, but it became much more real for me.   I know where ever I may find myself on this great place we call earth I can grow right where I am. I love traveling and find I yearn to be back on the road and in the high desert in the Back of Beyond. But there is a time and place for everything and now my place is back in the Burgh with my awesome husband, my great new job, and learning to live in a new reality with fake news and alternative facts with Donald Trump as president. So moving forward I suspect my posts will be more political. They will reflect my inner journey as I contemplate and digest all that is. I can’t guarantee I’ll stop my FB rants, but for the sake of my dear family and friends who want to like me, but find they can’t because they feel they cannot escape my constant barrage and differing world views, I hope to bring it down a notch on FB and use this as my medium. I end today’s post with a quote I read this morning at the end of a yoga session I followed from this great site called DoYogaWithMe. “Live, Love, Laugh, Learn. Be Good to One Another.”

Until next time ~ Diane