“You know, everybody dies,” Jenny Fields tells her son T.S. Garp in John Irving’s The World According to Garp. “My parents died. Your father died. Everybody dies. I’m going to die, too. So will you. “The thing is, to have a life before we die. It can be a real adventure having a...
Searching for small miracles in the pandemic’s perpetual present
“FYI: It’s possible I’ve got COVID-19.” The text message, via Signal, arrived a while back from my son Brendan, huddled in his apartment in Phnom Penh, 6,200 miles away from our home in the rural French countryside. As my heart skipped a few beats and I tried to beat back the panic, he...
When does a place become home? An epiphany in the high Alps
Driving up the steep switchbacks of the Savoie to a historic plateau in the French Alps, our caravan came to an abrupt stop. It didn’t take long to see – and hear – the reason why. On the narrow road in front of us, a group of French dairy farmers was shepherding a...
We leaned into winter. It leaned back, hard.
In my fevered dreams, there’s always snow. So much snow that my mind struggles to find a way to accurately count just how much is falling from the sky onto the white, ice-covered streets of Asahikawa, Japan. Although it makes no logical sense, I am frantic to make sure I count each flake,...
What is our purpose? Through travel, a search for meaning
We’ve been thinking lately about our purpose in life. Philosophers have spent lifetimes pondering the question, but I’m happy to say that for people on the cusp of 60, it doesn’t deliver quite as much of an existential punch as it did when we were 18. Paula and I put in more than...
Springtime in Sweden: A love story
We just spent three days in Stockholm on Sweden’s southeast coast, and two days in Göteborg (Gothenburg) on the southwest coast, the first time for either one of us in Scandinavia. Paula grew up with relatives who emigrated from Sweden, so the trip was very personal for her. Here are some impressions after...
Cruising Manhattan: Take a classic cabin cruiser around the island for incomparable views
People who visit New York frequently all have their favorite places to go and things to see. After the last two times traveling here, we’ve added a favorite to our New York experience. Last spring, Paula and I took a Classic Harbor Line architecture cruise that circled about half of Manhattan and brought us up close...
An amazing encounter with the Northern Lights
There are a lot of really good reasons to travel. Here’s one: By pushing yourself into new places, moments inevitably happen that show us how incredibly beautiful our planet is, how tiny and fragile we are upon it, and yet how much we are connected to it, all in an instant. Last night,...