Reunions and Vacations That Rock

Imagine yourself on a sunny sandy shore, sitting under the shade of a bright blue umbrella, just a few yards away from the pale turquoise water of the Caribbean Sea. Delicious! That's where I was last week - at Morrocoy National Park in Venezuela.

If you don't have a vacation planned for any time during the next 6 months, start making arrangements now. Time away from the daily routine is indispensable for the creative, rich life.

While I was in Venezuela, I got to see many dear friends. Reconnecting with people you enjoy but no longer see on a regular basis can even be healing. On my return flight, I read the following passage from Write It Down, Make It Happen, by Henriette Anne Klauser, PhD. Her ideas resonated with the writer in me, and a lot of what she suggests reminds me of Julia Cameron's work. She writes about a friend's experience with a college reunion:

...[W]hat I learned, going back to seeing my old classmates, was yes, you probably do grow and change, but here is something in your personality that doesn't change. Your sense of humor, or non-sense of humor, the way you look at life in general, and the way you interact with other people -- there are certain basic things about you that just don't change. Of the people that were at the reunion, all of them were pretty much the same in some fundamental way. Their personalities were the way they were thirty years ago.

There is security in that, because you can look at yourself and say, "I am the same person, I haven't become a different person" (146).

Think of someone with whom you'd like to reconnect. Renewing old friendships is a great example of an important, but not urgent thing to do. You may be surprised how much fun it is to catch up!