Madrid’s Egyptian temple in the snow, mega-blizzard Filomena, early January 2021.
Diverge is back…. again.
Good plans for more frequent writing derailed by a big project that fell out of the sky then by Camino trips in September and by…. just life.
The project was : updating a guidebook for walking tours in Madrid for Rough Guides. The old book was something like ten years old, so needed a lot of updating as well as correcting some historical errors and adding content that I felt was missing, even though the new book was supposed to be about same length as the old book. That was a very interesting experience, walking all the routes (some similar to the walking routes I offer), trying to see things through the eyes of a visitor, while adding fun local lore; no, I did not divulge all my secrets. That took me about six weeks, and while I was a little nervous about submitting the corrected book, it was apparently ok since my editor did not ask for any additional revisions, though she may not have accepted all the changes made. It will be exciting to see this in print, it comes out in April https://www.amazon.com/Rough-Guides-Walks-Tours-Madrid/dp/1835291724
Then two group Camino trips in September, and fall semester university class, 19th century Spanish history, a very complicated period about which I knew almost nothing, except that Napoleon’s brother Joseph was king of Spain for about seven years (yes really). Also…”King” Ferdinand VII was even more icky than I previously thought, and there were six constitutions in about 60 years (yes really).
Now prepping for exam at the end of the month, so writing this is technically procrastination, but not really (see later). (BTW, got good grades on two optional projects, which made me very happy, but still need to pass that dang exam to pass the class, entire grade rests on that one exam.)
Studying history has made me ponder how we measure time, which was going to be my topic for this long-delayed newsletter, but in the meantime, we have a new year which means some kind of promises or resolutions or whatever you call them that you want to Do Better This year. And in the meantime, two interesting articles in online Atlantic caught my eye as having good ideas for the new year.
One is about….. adventures. As in, if you are in a blah rut, instead of cocooning, maybe you need to shake things up a little. Get out of your comfort zone, have an adventure. The author quotes Ismael from Moby Dick who when he gets in a rut, goes to sea.
Now, adventures come in all sizes, and you do not need to chase whales, climb Everest or study quantum physics to have an adventure. You do need to stretch a little or a lot, though if you are new to adventuring, maybe start with a little. Or maybe not, if you are really in a rut or at an important Life Moment, maybe a big adventure, waaaay out of your comfort zone is just what you need.
The article suggests that we need adventures, we need challenges, to really be happy. Ponder that!
Now, my guess is that you need to give yourself permission to have an adventure, maybe taking time off from other “more important things”, whatever that means. Which is why finding time to write more this year may be one of my adventures; yes, some of my writing projects are out-of-comfort zone kind of things and yes, finding time and not making excuses to avoid that kind of adventuring may be one of my challenges in 2025. There are always more important things – like studying for an exam, or prepping a Camino trip – but writing more really needs to move from back burner to priority in 2025.
(other 2025 projects don’t really qualify as adventures: learning crochet, getting back to knitting and reviewing my almost-forgotten French).
So here’s an idea: have some adventures in 2025. Some small, some big, something just for you. What will it be?
Link to the Atlantic article, which likely you can only read with a subscription (sorry). Author Arthur C. Brooks has some other interesting articles.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/10/adventure-happiness-hero-journey/680441/
Yay! So happy for the new post and looking forward to more reading of Diverge this year.