Recuerda Quien Eres: A Love Note from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
Every year I come to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico where I lead the Creative Entrepreneur ReTREAT from Women.
I like to arrive a couple of days before the workshops begins and walk the streets of Puerto Vallarta with my camera and my sketchbook. It's about a thirty minute walk from the Colonia Versailles, the neighborhood where I stay, and the center of Puerto Vallarta and the beach front Malecon.
For the past few years, I've photographed this same artwork, painted on the side of an entire building. The words say, "Recuerda Quien Eres", Spanish for "Remember Who You Are".
Even though I've seen this particular "billboard" many times, I forget about it until I am walking slowly down the the road downtown and see it again. Remember who you are. The message makes me smile, and I always take out my camera, to capture it again.
Remember who you are.
This year, I printed out instant photos for everyone in the workshop, and it is delightful to see how each person treated the image differently in their own sketchbook, even though we are all using the same materials.
Remember who you are.
This is the basis of the retreat, but also the underlying theme that supports all of my work. When we remember who we are, we can more easily create whatever it is that is asking to be expressed next in our work, and in our lives.
I'm sitting by the pool now, enjoying the warmth of the Mexican sun, as I write this note to you at the end of our week-long retreat. Today I will sit with all that happened in the studio. I'll look at all of the images from the sketchbooks and digital photos that students took during the workshop.
And I'll remember who I am, and who I want to be...from a whole new perspective.
