It seems like I’m always on the move. One season drops off while the other picks up with wind, rain and sunshine. Nevertheless it is comforting to find stillness in the moments I share with people in my life. A conversation over a beer. A bottle of champagne shared. Glasses of wine poured to engage sighs, silence, and smiles with the constant movement.

Change has been more visible these days – the political shift, the California rains, the polar vortex, and my own internal focus. While it can be easy to fall into negativity with the narrative that is unfolding, it means more to embrace the challenge and find a way to overcome it. To strike a balance between the polarities. No doubt that it is going to be hard work, but the foundation is there.

So I push forward while appreciating the progress that has been made and acknowledging where we’ve come from. I’m excited to strike a balance, live a more well-rounded life, and explore new places. To recognize the present moment with a more open heart and open mind. Life is meant to be enjoyed – jumping off boats in tropical waters, sloshing through muddy vineyards, and engaging in conversations with people from diverse backgrounds.

In recognition of January and its newness of sorts, I leave you with a note from John Steinbeck –

“Speaking of the happy new year, I wonder if any year ever had less chance of being happy. It’s as though the whole race were indulging in a kind of species introversion – as though we looked inward on our neuroses. And the thing we see isn’t very pretty…So we go into this happy new year, knowing that our species has learned nothing, can, as a race, learn nothing – that the experience of ten thousand years has made no impression on the instincts of the million years that preceded…Not that I have lost any hope. All the goodness and the heroisms will ride up again, then be cut down again and rise up. It isn’t that the evil thing wins – it never will – but that it doesn’t die. I don’t know why we should expect it to. It seems fairly obvious…that two forces are necessary in man before he is man.”