All It Took Was a Trip to Madrid

You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself any direction you choose.
Dr. Seuss

​It's almost a typical Sunday morning but with one exception – it follows a remarkable ten days away, which I talked about in my last Reflections post. At the risk of sounding like one of those "What I Did Last Summer" reports from the fourth grade, here's what I learned about myself last week.
 
In trying to decide what kind of vacation Sheila and I wanted, we chose one of the states where neither of us has spent any time – New Mexico. We spent two days in Albuquerque, four days in Santa Fe, two days in Taos and back down to Albuquerque, all total about 600 miles of driving. The trip was "remarkmable" – dig back to the Little Rascals and give that word all the enthusiasm Spanky could muster!
 
Well, I'm not back in elementary school, but I am surprised at how much I learned about myself over the week, and I'm hoping many of you will understand.

It all started in a little 1895 mining town called Madrid, but you have to pronounce it the way they do in New Mexico...MAD-rid.

Today it's a small artist colony, best epitomized by the woman in the general store, who when I asked, "When do stores open?" She replied, "Whenever they want to!" We laughed and then went exploring on the two blocks of shops and galleries that make up the town, and with half of them open and half closed, she was right.

There are no words to describe spending ten days without an agenda! There was no place we had to be. No specific time we had to be anywhere. 

Madrid was our first day in the car, driving from Albuquerque to Santa Fe, and like most of the pictures I shot, there simply was no rhyme or reason to what caught my eye. I'd be in a sort of pseudo-macro mode one minute and landscapes the next. At one moment, I wanted to try and capture the funkiness of the area and the next, the timeless beauty. 

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​And that brings me to my point. We all get so caught up in believing our own importance. We start to believe our own press releases. We get sucked into thinking our businesses are too often the priority. Or, at the very least we can't get business off our mind. We don't work in enough time for ourselves.  

I'll never not be Type-A, but that doesn't mean it has to be my full time "sentence!" Breaking away from the business, gave me a chance to explore not only New Mexico but quality time with Sheila, great restaurants, landscapes and mountain ranges galore and time for a little inner-perspective about what I want to be when I grow up! And, here's the best part - I still don't know!

What I do know is that nothing beats taking a long break, and while mini-vacations (long weekends) are nice, sometimes it takes shutting off all the noise to have time to feed your heart, soul and smile more.

Looking like the Mayor of Madrid, this pup pretty much epitomized the "What, me worry?" attitude of the town.

Well, I'm back, and recharged and while it was great to be away, there's no place like home! Take the time to step away from the business and appreciate everything about your life that makes you who you are, and all the people who have helped you realize your dream, even if it's not completely "baked" yet!

Wishing all of you a day of peace, time away from the business and especially the opportunity to check your priorities and make sure you've got your heart at the top of the list! Go for those eleven-second therapeutic hugs with the people who help feed your soul and take the time to appreciate your journey so far. And to my wife Sheila...what a trip!

You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.
Dr. Seuss

Note: I love the LUMIX G9. These images are right out of the camera with no post-processing except a crop here and there. It's incredibly fast on the focus and the 14-140mm lens gave me just the range I needed for just about anything I wanted to capture.