The sun sparkles through the windows of my parents' house in Arizona. It's morning time, and while it rises over the valley and makes its way into the homes of people and the desert crevices surrounding, we stir awake. It happens around 8am every morning.
When I open my eyes this morning I see a ray of light peeking in. I move my head back and forth against the pillow, rise to brush my teeth and open the bedroom door to make way towards the kitchen. The bedroom next to ours is called The Paris Room, because that's its theme, and I notice that its window is more open inside—curtains spread, sun flooding in like a wave. The light bounces off of a mirror full of mirrors: it's a piece of vanity glass with a frame of mosaic mirror cutouts twisted about, and as the light hits each piece, a perfect circle of yellow is cast against the opposing wall. I could liken the effect to a disco ball, but that feels like a bit too much for the morning time. Instead, I walk into the room and immediately associate the light with the sparkles of fairy tales; they shift and disappear briefly (as if they have lives of their own, as if they've been spotted!) while a cloud passes over the sun...and then they reappear. I step in the way of the reflection, hoping to feel the bouncing heat of the light somewhere on my face...and as I do, everything is illuminated. I see the single mosaic responsible for casting each light circle against the black and white Paris wall. As I move about, my pupil intercepts the light. It's as if an eye doctor were shining a scope inside, but of course this experience feels a bit more glamorous and ethereal. I dance about the room for a moment, trapping rays of light with my eyes.
This is an Arizona morning. And we wouldn't be here, or in Israel, for such long periods of time if this world journey didn't immediately teach us first and foremost, how much we value our family. Still, having now completed one full circle around the world in the past 8 months, we've also managed to spend more time with our family this year than the 9 years we spent living in New York combined.
We didn't expect it to turn out this way, but again, the minute you step into your freedom, it illuminates what you value most in life. It is quite the experience—to reflect over where you've gravitated towards and how you've spent your "free" time. It seems to expose what's most important to you (that is, if you didn't know it before), when you create the freedom and life-space to do anything.
Now, after this family time for the past month, the slingshot of travel approaches again. Next stop is the Caribbean—Turks and Caicos—and then we're slinging ourselves towards a life-long desired destination for both of us. We're going to Cuba!
Now that we've got a hand on what we're doing here around the world, I'm also going to make it a point to update this space more frequently. As the new year approaches, I believe I speak for the world of us when I say that 2016 has taught us more about what we truly value in our lives than any other year. For Aviv and I, one of those many values is this gift of an opportunity to see and be in the world, and I feel the need to celebrate that more, especially on our website.
As we move forward through December and into 2017, may everything be illuminated for all of us, and stay that way. Also, as Jack Kerouac so boldly coined:
"Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road."
Talk soon!