Tracking the Journey

    My son and his family are coming to visit, flying Delta from Atlanta to Seattle. A feature of Delta's website is a devise that allows you to track the flight. A little airplane moves across the map towards its destination. I will be following it all morning!
    Tracking our life journey is helpful too. We can recall key points along the route when we made vital decisions that impacted our lives. This is a great time of year to begin tracking. Here are some ideas:

• Photo tracks: keep a digital camera with you, and take a picture of a place, person, object---1x a day for the next year. Don't analyze them yet, but keep them in date order, and the week after Christmas, 2012, sit down and trace your journey. What happened? Whom did you meet? Where did you go? What did you see? Perhaps you will want to make a binder for 2012 and use it as a family time of talking about the family journey. (You can make a video journal as well if that's your expertise.)
• Write something every day, even if it's mundane or silly. Try to identify and include a feeling you are experiencing each day.
• Make an artistic style book. Include drawings, quotes, writing, photos, and artifacts from the daily journey.
• Find 1 item every day that describes part of your life and place it in a shelf, box, or some place you can keep it. You may need to label items: where they came from, date, and significance. By the end of the year, you might forget.

    Share your stories with friends and families. You may inspire someone else to start tracking their life journey.