I have begun to take a meditation class once a week, offered at the university. It is on Thursdays, when the bulk of my week is done, and before the heavy homework time of the weekend begins.
I can already tell, after two weeks, that it is positively changing my life. Learning to be mindful may be the most valuable lifelong skill I take away from university life.
Reflecting on mindfulness
Our cycling trip through France was the greatest adventure. It did not involve jumping out of planes or scaling high mountains – although we had a close encounter one day with a speeding train, but that was not planned.
Our trip was a simple, nicely paced tour of a magnificent part of the world. We stopped regularly to just look around. We were always rewarded.
As we departed Amboise, after staying two nights and feasting in the finest restaurant in town, we looked back at this bit of perfection.
Amboise
There are no words to express the beauty of what we experienced in France. I took far fewer photos than I had originally planned because I was consciously trying to live the moment, rather than putting it into my camera. How do you really do justice to an immensely beautiful piece of architecture against a stunning blue sky? Our photos are snapshots, not a complete moment by moment documentary. And I’m okay with that.
This is in Amboise, a wonderful place where we spent two nights, doing a cycling loop the second day. The town is built around the Chateau, as many towns in the Loire Valley were. In this town we had the most amazing dinners and I learned that 3 flights of stairs, with a 40 pound backpack, at the end of a day of cycling is a reminder that 51 is not 21.
This photo was from one of 11 days of wonderful.
There were so many fields of sunflowers in France – but most of them were past their expiration date. This one flower battled the wind to stay standing.
writing in the (mom)ent 