With more free time on my hands, I’ve begun to venture out and explore more of the local area. It’s full of hiking trails, winding side roads, small towns, art galleries and restaurants—of which I’ve only explored a small fraction.

The outer circumstances of my life have shifted in some very obvious ways over the past few months, but at this point I’d say that the more inner transformative change I’ve been trying to nurture is progressing less noticeably and far more gradually. I find this a little discouraging at times, but I really shouldn’t be so surprised. The habits and thought patterns that I’m trying to change and free myself of are the result of many years of conditioning and repetition.

Hearing the news of the earthquakes that devastated parts of central Italy the first week of April 2009 served as another reminder of the uncertainty and preciousness of this life, and the importance of not squandering it.

After years of dreaming and planning, I finally made the transition from working full-time in a corporate office to moving to the Catskills full-time, downshifting to part-time work from home. The many scenarios that I created and revised on spreadsheets over the past eight years since 2001 suggest that getting to this milestone has been orderly and predictable...far from it!