“You may now use a laptop computer,” the stewardess’s voice announces. But I don’t anymore—a crazy thing for a writer, but I’ve settled into a life without it since my neck went out two years ago.

That changed everything. Pain is this brilliant teacher—unremitting, consistent, and unrelenting.

“Pain is your best friend,” a monk told me in Thailand, “When pain leaves it is like your best friend has moved away.”

I’m beginning to understand what he meant.

The last year or so of my life is not a story I’m ready to tell. Not yet. Maybe never.

But my New Years’ resolution is to blog again—to quietly begin again. Not where I left off but where I am now.

Blogging is at the center of a question “Why?”

Why was I doing it anyways? Why this need to express? Why this compulsion to say? Why this desire to be heard and understood? Would my time be better spent trying to understand?
Why this inner prick that begs a world for a world of understanding?

Silly needs they seem now, though I still have these drives. I’m still human after all. Birth. Life. Death. Rebirth?

New Years resolution to blog again.

I know—I can feel it—I can’t jump back into the skin of who I was two years ago. I can’t write for hours on end either with paper or iPhone and I no longer use a computer.

But focusing on what I can’t do, what I used to be able to do doesn’t help me do what I still can. It makes me wistful to revisit this sacred space of expression. This is a digital place I love in this massive world of galore.

TravelWriteSing.com—Maybe I should cut the “sing?” I don’t play the guitar anymore. Blame or thank the neck. But life is a song. Life is a dance.

I’m writing this on a plane, so I still travel and write—no not like before, and that’s hard sometimes, but ultimately I’m grateful to be exactly where I am right now.

What do I write?

I ghostwrite other people’s books to pay for my bills. I have a bi-monthly column with my lovely travel insurance company Seven Corners. But when I have the time, I work on a novel called “The Release of Jerry The Hamster.”

“The story of Jerry the Hamster must be told,” was my mantra on a beach in Thailand where I was convinced I was dying.

But I wasn’t—I was being reborn in a way. I got a chance to see some silliness that lived inside of me, watched some ofit die, and was gifted tools to live a fuller life.

I am leaving my family home and headed to my expat home in Guatemala. This time I won’t get in Antigua’s late night coughing fits. I’m headed to find a sanctuary at Lake Atitlan where me and a rapping artist from England will stake out some zen.

The universe’s message is painful and clear, slow down mate—life isn’t a race, it’s an ongoing embrace.

The story of Jerry the Hamster must be told. I hope to have the first draft by the end of the spring. I’m biting off blogging again at the pace of a weekly post. If you’re reading this than shhhh, don’t tell anyone 🙂