Reflections from the month by David Johnon. A letter head for my monthly newsletter. Black writing on a blue background with a drawing of a tree to the left

March 2023

Hello and welcome to the March 2023 newsletter. I am hoping that I can get this months’ newsletter out on time. Time will be a crunch. Because of how Micro.blog, the host for my blog and newsletter, is structured, I will have a small window of opportunity to do the final editing and add this letter before jumping on a airplane to San Francisco. I shall probably be doing that editing sitting at the departure gate at Maui airport.

…that’s what I am doing right now, on my phone. I hope that this arrives in one piece…

My last letter in part chronicled my February travels to England and Portugal for three weeks. This letter is catching me as I depart for the same countries, except this time I will be gone for two and a half months and not traveling solo, but with my wife.

The February trip was a maintenance run to Portugal to get some things done, and check on the house that we had purchased there at the end of last year. This visit will be a longer stay to get more acquainted with the house and town, and to make the house feel more like a home.

As I sit here and write this, I have mixed feelings about leaving. In no small way, that feeling is fed by having only been home for a month and now turning around and heading off for so long. But this trip had been on the cards for a while, before my February travels, and so it is no surprise. I keep telling myself that I’ll be fine once I am on my way. A far cry from my early twenties when I’d throw a pack on my back and walk out the door without looking back.

The mens groups that I am a part of here on Maui have started meeting again, with the pandemic now, for the most part, behind us. This month we held our annual gathering, our first for four years. It was great to be sitting in circle with like minded men. Men wanting to look at themselves, to be accountable for their actions. The day was challenging to me, I think in part because I realized how I cannot be as involved as I was, at least in the short term, because of my travels. These groups and the men in them, have been important to me.

This months blog posts have been dominated by the Micro.blog, March 2023 Photoblogging Challenge. Members of the Micro.blog community suggest a words which act as subject matter for each day of March. Jean McDonald, Micro.blog’s community manager, selects a word for the day from the words submitted. Those taking part then find a photo from their personal collection that for them fits that word.

So I have included some of my favourite photos from the month, along with a couple of other posts that I have slipped in.

On the home front, the weather has gone from wind, horizontal rain and strong wind, to sun. Winter felt as though it suddenly ended. The rain hasn’t disappeared, we live in a wet part of the island, it is just nowhere as intense and frequent as the first couple of weeks of the month.

Thank you for reading, and please feel free to get in touch. It would be lovely to hear from you.

David.