It’s a Friday in France. My apple cart is still upset, sleeping only every other night. What can you do when you fly over an ocean and cross time zones? Unfortunately my body is not a machine. It does not go on and on like an EverReady battery.

I am missing the smallness of my life back home – my morning rituals, writing in my sun room with my fur baby at my feet. She knows my moods. She licks my wounds and picks me up. I miss my flow of words.

It is not a bad thing missing the familiarity and comfort of home. It makes me appreciate what I have. I work a little harder and pay a little more attention to the here of France. I am not skilled at details nor at gathering information. I absorb things but can’t spit anything back.

Maybe it seems foolish of me to keep up my writing but it helps my focus. It trains and disciplines mind. It’s not that I want to develop multi-tasking. But if I want to be serious about my writing, I want to learn to be more flexible and be consistent at it.

My routine is disrupted but I can still put my mind in that 15 minute space and in that one-inch picture frame. My concentration and train of thought are scattered to the wind. Can I put my mind to what is right before me, in this place now?

I put aside my small discomforts of travelling as much as I am able. I appreciate the special place I am presently in. Now is the time for expirencing and learning. I look around and take in as much as I am able. It is mentally challenging and tiring at the same time, not knowing the language, not familiar with the culture.

I am a strange woman in a strange place. I am in the desert of my dreams. The shadows of the old have followed me across the ocean. They are nipping closely at my heels. I feel their hot breath against my skin. I hear the snap of their teeth close by. But I elude them.

At times I feel as if I had wandered into another’s life. I am THE Alice who fell down the rabbit hole into Wonderland. Can I write her story? More importantly, can I write my way out?

That is the key, of course. We have the key to unlock the doors to Wonderland. We can write a different story if we don’t like the one we’re in. We are not trapped. There are ways out of rabbit holes.