Welcome To The Blog
The place for talk of place. And sometimes of person, and sometimes of time.
But this first edition? This is a tale of all three.
As we begin, we’ve just experienced a total solar eclipse in North America (April 8, 2024). The crowds went wild; hotel prices within the path of totality were up 500% in some places. No Taylor Swift, no Lebron James to draw such a swarm - just a couple of celestial bodies crossing paths.
As it happens, the city I live in was just outside said path. Like, 99.7%-totality-outside. I awoke resigned to be fine with that, to say, eh - why make the effort for more? - as the traffic inward was predicted to stall for hours, and the forecast was of complete cloud cover.
But as I stumbled sleepily to my French press, I was greeted with a clear, blinding sunrise. Skies as crystal blue as a Midwest spring can deliver. And while I didn’t live in that path -
I knew four people that did.
And I was 100% sure they’d be home.
I beat the rush, taking my time, and arrived to the region - less than an hour from my downtown loft - quite early. While I’d spent my childhood traversing these grounds, I’ve avoided them for many years. What some call “progress,” I called abomination. I emphatically wished to preserve What Was in memory, never to be confronted with What Now Is.
But hell - I had time to kill. And all that lifted. And I turned the corner I’d turned hundreds of times in my life, parked my car, and took a walk.
My grandmother’s perennial flowers are gone, the intoxicating scent of lilac - a hallmark of spring - notably absent. In fact, the whole front yard is gone, a new house built in its place. My entire family originally hails from deep in Kentucky’s Appalachian region; the regard of earth, the relationship with earth, was cellular. The large garden and apple orchard and woods (also gone) nourished us all. Picking and snapping and stringing green beans was a dreaded and laborious summer pastime - but in decades of adult life, nowhere in the world has a haricot vert been as gratifying.
I steeled my eyes to take it all in: the cookie-cutter housing development surrounding the property where open fields had once been, my grandfather’s woodworking shop still erect but severely dilapidated. I genuinely expected to be crushed. But instead -
I was at full peace. Because as I stood there, I realized - the land knew my scent. Nothing - absolutely nothing - had changed.
Even before the actual event-of-the-heavens, that moment was indelibly transformative to my worldview.
Onward I went, to my final viewing destination. I always have to look for the right spot on this expansive stretch of land, even though some of the most important moments of my life were spent there: delivering the eulogy of my mother on a warm May day many moons ago, grateful that my high heels sank deeply into the damp earth, as it held me steady. Rushing up late to the party that graciously waited for me, as we lowered my father beside her. Decades before, the burials of my beloved maternal grandparents.
This cemetery has only flat headstones, and it sits on a lovely rolling countryside. As he did every day of his waking life, even 8 years after his death, my father has now made a task easier for me: I can easily spy their plot, because grass stubbornly refuses to grow on his grave. It’s the only bare one.
I had plenty of time to settle in. I cleared a few dandelions covering my grandmother’s name, but left some, grinning that she’d be happy for the pop of color. I gave my saint of a grandfather a nod. And I then settled with my parents, on the soft grass of Mom’s and the cracked, dry dirt of Dad’s. It’s just like him to ensure she had the better one…
And here, dear reader, we get to the crux of this narrative: the conjunction (blurring?) of person, place and time. Of how for mere minutes that felt like eternity, I laid on bare earth, with my parents’ bones directly beneath me, and the moon and the sun directly above me. All. In. One. Straight. Line.
Of how it was holy. Of how time itself collapsed, of how my own cells felt rearranged as the sky darkened, as the abrupt coolness enveloped me. And most certainly, of how I now believe in something I didn’t before that moment.
So turns out, it was not just hype. I’d have paid that extra 500% if I’d lived further away. I’ll remember it for the rest of my days.
But what’s important is that said holiness isn’t restricted to a major celestial event. It is in any moment in which we are paying attention. In which we feel, appreciate, recognize, and perhaps most of all, are willing to be surprised - our apertures open to what is before us, rather than our fixed expectations.
And this is why we go.
In fact, I’d argue - this is why we breathe.
I did not have to leave the continent, or even the state - but man, when I do! When I stare intently into eyes that have seen what I haven’t, notice how fluidly one of advanced age moves with feet familiar with terrain that’s foreign to me, how a scent is embedded into a dish or into skin or the very air around me.
We’ve been taught that travel is a luxury. That our jobs need us, our families need us, that we mustn’t whittle away resources, that our own communities need tending. But travel and home carry equal weight in our forms. Be it a return to hallowed ground we’ve imprinted a hundred times, or completely unfamiliar territory - this is to be alive. There is no “real life” vs. “vacation mode.” There is only this life. There are only those we love before us every day, waiting to be noticed (or remembered). And strangers awaiting the same.
So I hope you’ll join me. For the light and lovely tales, for the deeply soulful ones, and all in between. I can’t wait to introduce you to some of my favorite travelers, businesses, and hosts around the world. And I can’t wait to hear of what makes your explorer sing.
Let’s Go.
