Be here now...Zen and the art of a short trip!Recently, I had the good fortune to visit Charleston, SC with my wife for 3 days. We've been there before...it's been a while though. That said, it's very easy to slide into the mode of tourist in a place like this. What made our trip special was that we did not feel compelled to "do everything" during this brief stay. Not this time. No schedule of things to do. We decided to "just be there." This lead us to stumbling into places "off the beaten path"...places you don't find when you've made up your mind that you are going to be at a certain place, at a certain time to do a certain thing. We embraced each of these moments fully. We also did not let the fact that the weather was not the best...ruin our experience. And it could have easily. One afternoon in particular saw the town taken over by a terrible rain storm and our response was to spend the better part of 40 minutes just walking around...moving from one thing to the next as if it were merely sprinkling. Being in this place, at this time, with the person I love more than anything else in the world "just being" was very calming. I'll admit, this particular walk was way out of my comfort zone...challenging my vision of calm. We were getting wet from head to soaking toe but...in the end...it helped me re-define what it means to be calm...to enjoy a nice, long walk. The walk also turned out to be a microcosm of the entire 3 day trip...which was very cool!!