Happy New Year!!!

Happy New Year!!! Mutlu Yillar!! ευτυχισμένο το νέο έτος! سنة جديدة سعيدة! 


From my journal today-

It's New Year's Eve 2010.  December 31st, 2010.


I'm writing this on the Acropolis of Athens, watching the sun set over this ancient city.
Before me is a forest, a rocky hillside, a Byzantine church chiming the hour.
Beside me is the ancient agora of Athens.
Behind me, the Parthenon, the Erechtheion, everything.
And above me, but swiftly sinking, the sun.  Apollo takes his chariot into the sea for the last time this year.  When he surges out of the Mediterranean foam tomorrow, it will be a new year.


I am so happy to be here.  


A year ago, I was on a pier in Philadelphia with Liz + Ned and Annie, and my beloved Madli.  It was raining, but we still went out and watched the fireworks and had a lovely time.  Madli and I drank something she'd brought, and we stayed up late laughing and singing songs.


Tonight, I'm going to bed early.  I got quite sick in Cappadocia and haven't gotten over it yet, though I'm trying not to let it slow me down.  And I'm exhausted from my 2+ weeks of traveling.


I won't drink a lot or go dancing or stay up very late.


But I am on the Acropolis of Athens, watching the sun set for the last time in 2010.


I have done and seen some things this year - so many new challenges, new triumphs, some dreamed of, some impossible to anticipate, each sweet and memorable.


I've seen Alexandria, Cairo, Port Said, Ain Sokhna, Luxor, Aswan, Edfu, the Western Desert, magnificent Rome, Venice, Beirut, Bcharre, Al-Arz, Wadi Qadisha, Istanbul, Ankara, Cappadocia, Goreme and Athens.


And it's certainly not just the places I've been on a map.  I've been all kinds of crazy new places this year, and you can't see most of them with your eyes. 


I dreamed up a huge world for myself last year, and this year - 2010 - I have met that huge world and made it a reality that I now seek to fill with myself.  


I expand.  I am my dream.


I'm tired of plans and wary of dreams, but I'm hungry for the world.  Hungry for the sea and the sky and the dirt under my feet.  


I want to fill myself with the world, until I fill it up in turn.


Happy New Year, 2011!!!