The end of the year is approaching at a pace faster than I realized.  I was supposed to write something festive and yet I’m sitting here thinking whether an end is really an end. 

Like, doesn’t December 31st naturally flow into January 1st?  For someone not careful, these two days run the risk of becoming identical twins.

And, if there is an end to our lives, why are many of us not given a chance to put a period to the end of our last sentence?  I still have a photograph that has been sitting on my desk for a year. This time last year, its intended owner abruptly left us, amidst the holidays.  That one time we said good-bye, none of us realized it was actually a “sayonara”.  

By the way, being able to say sayonara and to eat sushi doesn’t make us Japanese.  But something about my Assistante and I continue to confuse people over the years when we tread the world.  One of them happened to be a Spanish nobleman that we met this year. On a separate occasion, we met a gentleman that found out, while visiting a museum, that he’s of noble descendant. 

At times, I felt that I needed an armor to take me back to the Medieval time.  Wait, did women wear armors back there? Let me ask my sisters in Spain, Maria and Maria.  That’s right, I made friends with another Maria, this time in Soria, Spain (We met the other Maria in Barcelona). She has a beautiful daughter Ainara.

Back to Japan, can you believe we were thought to be Japanese by people there?  Maybe we should settle on the fact that it’s going to be a constance in our lives.  Speaking of constance, we made more friends in Japan, so many that, at the end of the trip there, we got really busy sending good-bye messages.  Come to think of it, they all seem to be girls, … and their husbands/boyfriends, of course. I sure will share stories about them, when I have the chance, in my blog or Instagram account.

In the US, we visited two places this year - Yellowstone National Park and part of Alaska.  Don’t ask me which place is colder. I really wouldn’t be able to tell once my fingers lose feelings.  But I do know that they have jokes about -40 degrees in Fairbanks. Oh yeah, when it gets that cold, tires can become square, and Fahrenheit or Celsius makes no difference.

Not sure if there’s a connection between us and snow (see the post about Kanazawa), we were met with heavy snow in Yellowstone again where snow (and a little bird) blessed me with good luck in an international photography contest again.

Although I’m starting to question the concept of endings, I do need to wrap it up with this image of a polar bear swimming off under the Alaskan sunset.  Some say “Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the number of moments that take our breath away.'' This is one of those moments that I know the days afterwards will not be the same.

I’m not a New Year’s resolution kind of person, but I plan to make every sentence count from now on because I don’t know which will be my last. :-)

Saving the best for last - I want to thank you for being there, reading, commenting and encouraging, some even laughing with me.  Wishing you lots of “breathless” moments this holiday season and the coming year. And cherish those that you care to share the breath with!

See you around! 

Jean