Why I Travel

As I walk through the security line at the airport, I notice the guy in front of me, athletic, all button-down shirt and casual cargo pants, with black thick-frame glasses that turn colors as you move in and out of the light. He  carries nothing through security but a black, almost perfectly square cooler. I figure he must have some affliction and he needs his meds kept cold (I know from experience). But appearances and our own biases can be (and very often are) deceiving. 

He pulls a plastic bag out of the cooler, with three (3) frozen solid bottles of Deer Park water. He puts them in the TSA tray and leaves the cooler open. The TSA agent warns the screening guy that “frozen water, coming up!” and moves on to help me with my bag. The athletic guy moves along through the people scanner, chewing gum, completely non-chalant and well-possessed, not even blinking. No explanation. No fuss. Like he owns the world. 

The guy behind me says to the TSA guy: “Excuse me. Umm...What is that, exactly? You are allowed to transport water bottles through TSA if the bottles are frozen?” The TSA guy goes “Yes, sir! That’s right!” The guy behind me says “Well, I don’t agree with it, but wow! Just wow!”

In my mind, I say: “Sorry, buddy, your authority nor opinion is needed here. Move along.” But yes, I am wowed too. 

After I clear security, the first thing I do is google “can you take frozen water bottles through security?” and lo and behold, yes, you can! This just completely baffled me. I have been traveling consistently by plane since 1998 - for those hard of math, that is 27 years. I have counted 10 one-way airline trips (some of them with multiple flights) this year alone and I have never known of such a rule. This was a lesson ... 

As I continue my journey, I come to my gate and we’re ready to board. They tell us, as they often do, nowadays, that the plane is full and to make sure we board quickly and sit down immediately, not to block the aisles, you know ... the usual. Then, they call people by “zones” (some airlines board by groups, some by zones). They call First Class, then Zone 1, then Zone 2. We all wait. And wait. And not one person boards in Zone 1, nor 2. I have never seen such a thing. Again, ever, in all my travels are whole “zones” completely empty with “a full flight”. The gate agent seems totally OK with this, but we’re all looking around like “are they still at the bar or what?”. I am telling myself “this is going to be a trip of firsts, I guess?”. 

After I board (with my zone - I can’t recall what it was, but I am at the end of the darn plane again, zone maybe 7 or some such unlucky number; as a matter of fact, let’s not be ungrateful - zone “never” might be unlucky; the fact that I am on a plane at all is a plus), and after all the people are in their seats, the pilot walks all the way to where I am sitting and hands over a goodie bag to a lucky passenger on account that they are a “first-time flyer”. No, not with this airline but ever. Not sure how they know this? Not sure how or if they verify this, but there it is ... I am shocked. How has someone nowadays, especially in the very large America where people are so spread apart from their families, living in this huge country, never flown? This person is not a toddler either. It’s a mature man with a head full of white hair. They are totally shocked and embarrassed and they accept the bag with a chuckle and applause follows. 

Then, to make it even more unusual, the pilot walks to two rows in front of the man he just congratulated, on the other side of the aisle, and hands over a second goodie bag to another first-time passenger completely unrelated to the first one. Now, I am thinking I must be in a dream: there is not one, but two such rare specimens on my flight. What??? You live and you learn, as the cliche goes. 

As we’re preparing to take off, they make their little announcements and there is a new one for me: they tell us that video taking is “absolutely prohibited”, and this is not an “airline policy, but an FAA policy”. And I pause. Well, if video taping is prohibited, then how come TikTok (at least this is what I hear, since I am lucky enough to not be tethered with such a curse as a TikTok account) full of videos of flight attendants being slapped by or slapping passengers all over the world? Or did the policy come in response to such videos and is new? I am not videoing but I am taking pictures, so I figured I am not in trouble, but my goodness, frozen water first, no videos second, airline rules are moving fast, even for this mildly-frequent flyer... 

As I leave the plane on my arrival to the other end of my trip, at my final destination of Orlando, FL (a destination, I feel, that should require a passport, if you’re coming from anywhere else in the US, even), I head over to the ground transportation area to call an Uber so I can head to my hotel. I was a late adopter of Uber - have been using it for about 3 years - but I have used it on two continents and tried using it on a third one, but the Gods of the travel agency protected me from using it in Africa. Long story, for another entry. 

A cheerful gentleman called Jose arrives and I see a new disclaimer on my Uber app - that Jose is “recording this trip”. Hmm ... Video forbidden on the plane, but obviously running by default in the car transportation. I do not like surprises all that much, but this trip seemed to have it all. 

These are just a few examples from my most recent trip. And this is all to say that one of the main reasons I travel (other than to get where my life takes me) is to learn. Travel is almost a free add-on or bonus of new lessons about how you should behave in the world, how you should carry yourself among other humans. It teaches you how prepared you are to just be a human firing on all your cylinders, and being the best you can be among your peers. It builds tolerance and empathy - which are becoming somewhat endangered nowadays - but this new world we live in, try as it may, I would never, as long as there is breath in my body, want to lose them. 

Travel allows me to make my thoughts, my whole being stop chattering and opinioning and just listen and watch. Assess and propose corrections in my own path. Or not. Travel keeps my senses alert. There are so many things we must be present for in travel - you cannot space out and get lost in your doom-scroll of Instagram when the TSA agent, or a passport control agent demands answers from you. You are forced to connect with the person in front of you and think. Although I like to think of myself as a minimalist when it comes to consuming social media, I still hate when precious minutes go to nothing but mindless scrolling. Travel is not mindless. It is focused, character-building (remember that 20th century concept anyone?) presence. If you don’t have that (presence) while you travel, your very life might be at stake. 

I travel  because I need new energy, from the outer world, to replenish and recharge my own depleted body which becomes stagnant after a while just being enclosed in myself. 

My sister and I grew up “in the mountains”, we call it. We were city girls by birth - born and raised in the second-largest (by population) city in Romania - but for about 3 months every year we would live with our distant relatives in the Northern Carpathian Mountains, with no running water in the house, working tireless every day for our food which came from cows, sheep, chickens, or foraging for wild berries and mushrooms in the woods. This is how we learned physical, manual labor. Life on the land was very different from life in the city. In the city, we learned how to be pedestrians and how to ride with civility in a public transport vehicle. In the mountains, we learned how to listen to nature, and know dangers unknown to the city dweller - like the call of a wolf, or the scratch of a mouse in the attic eating through corn, or getting splinters out of our soft, city hands when we split wood in the woodshed behind the house to make fires every night to heat our rooms in the wood-burning stoves or in our water heater boiler every week for our shower.

Travel reminds me  a bit of those times - when we were forced to live in a completely new environment and we were absolutely forced to develop a new set of skills that would not have been developed otherwise. 

I travel because I know my perception of the world is biased. And I need hard proof for the truth. 

I travel because I am consumed by wanting to know the truth. Is the world really as bleak as the media and social sites claim? Are people as angry and evil? Are they truly hating one another? Travel shows you a different picture of that. Or certifies it for you. But you will never know for sure unless it becomes your experience. 

I travel for food and for new-ness. For taking myself outside of my cocoon of safety and forcing myself to react, to feel, to truly know, and to truly form an opinion. I travel for the surprise of it and its shock value as much as I travel to realize that I had the weirdness and diversity of the world within my soul all along. But I just didn’t know it. 

Travel forces you to think quickly and outside the box. And make do with what’s in front of you. 

Travel forces you to look deeply into your soul and assess - do you like what you see? Here, there are alternatives, would you like to reconsider? I never speak to myself more honestly than when I am traveling - because it forces me to be present and to stay awake and aware for the simple reason to be safe. It also forces me to be awake because everything seems to be new. I cherish getting lessons from everything that I open myself up for. 

I travel because travel leads me to books. And books lead me to travel. And books have been the one, only, constant in my entire life that has never disappointed. Boyd Varty’s Cathedral of the Wild led me to Londolozi which changed my life. Then, Londolozi led me to The Elephant Whisperer which enriched my understanding of human kindness and nature kindness and nature intelligence as well. And the examples are many from so many of my other travels: the innumerable books I read about English and American authors growing up that took me to England and later America where I found my soul, eventually. 

Travel brought me to wonders like the South African wild this year - and what a quantum leap that was! I emerged transformed only with a fraction of my old self from the African bush. It tapped into senses I didn’t know I had. Our over-technological suburban world dims those senses, or, in some cases, completely exterminates them. But going out of our comfort zone (something that is intrinsic to travel) allows our minds and sometimes even our bodies, to develop abilities that otherwise lay dormant or are in danger of becoming extinct because of our lack of need to use them. When you are called to react to things you don’t encounter every day - like a leopard on the hunt, or a pride of 9 lions completely wild, with no circus director to tame them in sight, or a river full of crocs opening their huge jowls at you, or even foods you have never seen but are called upon out of respect to try - you cannot help but learn new lessons and new abilities that you might not have thought you had. 

I turned 50 this year. I read a lot of thoughts on what and who you’re supposed to be when you turn 50 or when you reach your mid-life. Some people are told they are old. Some people fight this concept and feel young or do meaningful things to feel young. Because I live inside this 50 year old body, I feel just like I did when I was 10 or 20. 50 seems to me to be just a number. 

For me, the one thing I want to be or to do going forward (which has not changed just because my ID says I am not a different age), the only thing that I hope will define me in my next decade and beyond and always is the desire to continuously learn. To avidly and voraciously keep learning, with every day, with every trip, with every person or any other being that I encounter. Keep learning and becoming and changing and morphing into who I will eventually leave as my finished “product” on this planet, once my time is up in this realm. 

I cannot think how I would be able to learn without traveling. Just like I have said many times before, stopping traveling is like stopping to breathe for me. I felt like I needed a reminder to reassess why I do it - I do it to remain whole and to keep becoming. Becoming is my now and my future. That is all ... And that is all that matters ... 

One of the places that stays with me, 28 years later: the thermal pools of Pamukkale (or “Cotton Castle”) in South-Western Turkey - I took this picture after I climbed this mountain barefoot with hot streams under my feet on a 100F degree day in August 1997. 

The Big Lesson

I have been writing this post in my head just about a thousand times, with only a smidgen of exaggeration ... And I realized that I better let it flow and stop overthinking it, so here it goes ... 

For the last team meeting of the year, my boss asked us to come up with one accomplishment, our biggest for 2021. One. And you know what? I racked my brains for days to come up with one. Not because I’ve had so many, mind you, that I had trouble choosing, but just because I am afraid 2021 was one of those just ... OK years. I never believe that any year is forgettable. I’ve always believed that every year is good and bad and new and old and it’s all its own “thing”, just like people. You can’t just pick one person to be interesting - we all are for different reasons ... But in the “personal accomplishments” department, 2021 seems to be lacking. For me. 

I personally don’t think of accomplishments per se, either ... I string them together in my head around milestone days (birthdays, anniversaries, deaths, year-ends) right alongside the losses and the not-so-glamorous events. But, I usually count the “new” and the “different”, the lessons in my years and this year, just like all the others, had those, as well. But again, if I were to compare it with other years of my past, it would not wow me. It would not stand out. And it would not beckon me to repeat it - although I never want to relive things, either, even when they are great ones. What is the point, when life has so much more new-ness in store for us that’s worth trying at least once?! 

This year felt a little bit like this: 2020 was a bizarre, surreal, fiction-like year that brought about end-of-the-world-like fears in me, and everyone around me, family, friends, or complete strangers. There were true, palpable events that could literally have made “the whole sh*thouse go up in flames”. 2020 was one of those years (probably the first for me, in my 46 years of life) where my whole world, my frame of reference of the world, was completely blown up and exploded to smithereens. And I knew that the smithereens would never come back together just the way they were before,  they were never to make the same exact whole, albeit cracked, as before 2020 struck midnight on January 1st. Last year we were all trying to regain our balance and to clear the ashes and smoke out of our eyes before we barely realized what the heck just happened to us - our lives, our routines, our understanding of the world was completely shattered ... 

And then, after 366 days of that (it was also a leap year, remember?!), I told myself (and I am sure I had company, too): “All right, 2021. Be (dare I say?!)  normal! Let’s figure out how to get back to before the Big Interruption of 2020, shall we?! 2021 came with the promise of new vaccines that would restore our freedom. We’ll then open up the world. We’ll get rid of the Dictator in Charge in the White House. The world will be freer, fresher, will hit Reset and start back up. Shakier, changed, a new kind of “new”, but start back up. We hope.” So, for 365 days (almost) of 2021, that’s what we did: we kinda waited for that “normal” to come back ... We waited. And hoped ... and we’re still waiting and hoping ... Or at least I am. 

Truth is: 2021 did not end up being much different than 2020 ... Still another year of proving “unprecedented” to be a painful cliche ... Still a year of “not normal”, a year of fear, of waiting, of hatred, of haves and have-nots, of one day competing with the next in bad news and drama, no matter what news channel you follow ... Turns out that 2020 did not teach us much. Yet, anyway. We kinda wanted 2021 to reset us to our “old selves” but what it instead did, at least for me, is made me believe that there is no “old self” to go back to ... The scars and pain of 2020 morphed me, and us, into these new earthlings and will now have to find a new path, a new life, a new routine for whatever the future might bring to us ... 

I am sure the generations that survived the wars could relate to this: they could never again be the people they were before the wars began ... They could only move on as the transformed people they became during the trauma and the tragedies they witnessed during those wars ... And so are we today.

The world has evolved (or really just changed) and our “war methods” might be different today than in the beginning of the 20th century but they are still wars - direct affronts to our systems of value, of integrity, of being ... Disruptions to a perceived and comfortable order that we had established for ourselves and called it our own ... 

2021 was the Year of the Big Lesson, I would call it, or the Year of the Big Reset: the lesson was that there is no new normal to come back to, that the world has the power to disrupt, interrupt, even demolish, but it’s up to us (only) to rebuild, to rekindle, to reinvent ... And that, I did not do this year and because of that the year seems emptier than others ... I can only hope that it was a learned lesson and in the years to come I will soul-search deeper and find some answers and some new rules to this game we call life, and apply them and move my life along ... 

John Lennon said that “life happens when you’re busy making other plans.” In 2021 I was not even busy making other plans. I was in this hurry-up-and-wait mode, waiting for something, some signal, some external change to reboot my world ... And it never came. I am not one to have enough patience to wait around much (I am kicking myself I waited even as much as I did, for two years now!) and I can tell you that I am full of doggedness for the next little bit to try to go after life and meet it halfway. No longer waiting, no longer watching to see what she’s up to today, and in the next week, and month, and year. Just go and try to meet her ... wherever life is ... 

I hope I can sit here 365 days from today and report back and tell you that I do have at least one accomplishment I would be proud of for 2022, but I know life is tricky and she might still have a few curve balls to throw. All I can say is: I will try a lot harder to do everything in my power to not come empty-handed again in another year. I will try to make it count. 

There are trips I want to take in this new world of travels, new books I have stacked up high to read, there are classes I want to take and speeches I want to give. There are blogs I want to write and even a book or two ... There are days and weeks I still want to spend with my family and my aging parents ... because if one thing is for sure, no one is getting younger ... There are antics I still have not seen from my brand new kitty (rescued and adopted during this so-called “empty” year of 2021 - so maybe she can be my biggest accomplishment?!), and many recipes I have not yet tried in my ever new and ever evolving and ever richer vegan world ... There is so much life, even when the world is doing everything in her power to evidence the contrary ... If there is will and hope, there will always be life ... 

I hope your year’s been full and the next one will be fuller still ... 

Be well, everyone! 

'The Ghosts of Christmas Past'

I have always faulted Romanians for living in the past. Their present, for as long as I have lived, has always been grim and disappointing, and they always take refuge in the past. “Yes, this government is more corrupt than any government in the history of the country, and our standard of living is below poverty for 99% of the population, BUT … Europe won the Second World War with our oil and we gave the world insulin and Nadia Comaneci!” Who cares, right?!

But as I age, I find myself looking back to the past more and more. Not sure if as much as a refuge from the present, but just as a contemplation of where this aging body has been – a long journey, full of good remembrances!

This Christmas, I have spun through my head the memories of my life, at Christmastime, like you spin an old movie reel. And they are so many and so different. I have been lucky to not only have a family who is very much into Christmas, but to have come across, over the years, families that adopted me at this time of the year and shared with me their traditions as well. I have been exposed to a smorgasbord of Christmas pastimes, so my memories are very eclectic.

When we were little kids, I remember mom and grandma taking us to the most central park in our hometown where we would watch the lighting of the tree and the temporary statue of Santa Claus. We did not have the Santa that lets you sit on his lap at the mall. We didn't have a mall. We had this giant, wooden Santa, about 30 feet tall standing by the city tree. It boggled my little mind how this huge Santa would even fit through our door to come drop off the presents – this was just the beginning of my doubting nature. There were no carols, really, because it was during communism and we were not allowed to carol churchy stuff. Our family sang carols, but it was very much hush-hush. Christmas was about winter and Santa, not about Jesus. For this reason, we never went to Church on Christmas.

We went to see the tree and Santa on Christmas Eve, not 10 weeks before Christmas started. Everything started then on Christmas Eve. We even made our own tree on The Eve, too, not weeks before. We would have the tree up till January 8^th, after celebrating John the Baptist's feast and Jesus's Baptism. We did say “Happy Holidays” in December, and we still do, back home, and that was not because of some anti-Christian agenda, but because we really did celebrate multiple holidays: Christmas, New Year's with its feasts, John the Baptist, and Jesus's baptism. I never thought that there is something wrong about saying “Happy Holidays” till later in my life, when I moved to the US.

After the Christmas tree and Santa viewing, mom and grandma would take us home which always smelt like food. Cozonac mostly (a Romanian sweet cake) but also lots of meats, mostly pork products. We ate Christmas Eve dinner in the family, always, and then the adults would distract us so they can sneak some presents under the tree and tell us Santa stopped by with presents. They were wrapped in newspaper – I still remember how I hated that ink from the paper making my white fingers black. I remember the smell of the ink, too.

I don't remember getting more than one present. When we stopped believing, we got presents from the parents, grandparents and some relatives, but again, just one from each party and not even wrapped or under the tree. They would just buy us something and they would say “this is your Christmas present”. The joy of finding things under the tree and unwrapping them as a family came much, much later in my life. I grant America with revealing that wonder to me.

In Romania, Christmas (and Easter, for that matter) lasts for 3 days. On the 25^th, 26^th, 27^th of December we took turns visiting people we knew, mostly relatives, and they took turns visiting us. With every visit, we would eat a 10 course meal, with all traditional foods: several kinds of sausages freshly made from a pig that just got killed, sarmale (cabbage and grape leaves rolls), pork meat in aspic, lots of appetizers, including meatballs and boeuf salad, which in fact almost never had any bouef in it at all. We would eat all these foods, prepared tens of different ways in our home and every home we visited for three days straight. I swear our stomachs expanded this time of the year.

In the city, we did not get carolers for Christmas much, but we would get them for New Years. They could sing about the New Year, which seemed more lay than the birth of Jesus, so this was safe. This was the Christmas at home, in the city where my parents lived.

Christmas in the mountains where I grew up was much different. There, it was all about Jesus. People in the mountains were simple and as simple people come, their lives revolved around the church. And they cared little about communism. Communists also cared little about them, too. Communists knew that mountain are remote places with stubborn people and they did not ever care to even try to brainwash them. Mountain people had the notion of private property, they killed their own pig in their own yard and did not have to give The Government any piece of that! They also believed in Jesus and they were extremely respectful of the faith. I cherished that! They did have carolers every year, and every carol was about The Birth, and Jerusalem, and Mary and Joseph. Sometimes, they would sing about making bread on Christmas with a broken oven and a broken pot, but making bread nonetheless, which tasted sweetest, because it was made in the family.

The mountains always got snow, too – so it was a magical fairy tale time to spend Christmas there.

We had a tree in the mountains that one of the older boys in the family cut themselves in the forest right behind our house. We would trim it with pine cones, mostly – not with the fancy, colored, glass ornaments we had in the city. The tree was in our room, which was the main room of the house, the living room and dining room, too. It smelled so good and piney in there. We would fall asleep with the sound of crackling fire logs in the wooden stove, every night and we were tipsy from drinking red wine. Yes, even as kids, we would drink some: it was in a way, we were told, medicinal, to drink mulled red wine; it would keep colds away. Carolers came on Christmas Eve and we would give them nuts, apples and sometimes real food too. We only gave some money to kids related to the family.

Communism was over and Christmases changed for us in the city. We had carolers there, too, and it became a lot more commercial: we got nice presents, wrapped in nice paper, or bagged in nice bags. The food and drinking and carrying on for days was still the same. The closeness of family was nice, too. We are closely-knit families back home as it is, but for some reason getting together for The Holidays (we celebrate New Year's for days, too, then the other holidays of January) was always special: we all contemplated as a family what we left behind in the old year and we made plans on what the new year is going to look like. We hoped. We dreamed. And we shared.

And then, I moved to the US. Here, every year seems different. I have had the good fortune to meet some people that welcomed me into their homes for Christmas and included me in their traditions. And now, after 19 Christmases on this side of The Pond, I have made my own traditions that are a mish-mash of what I have learned from everyone's celebrations, including my family's.

Some memories that come to mind from these past years: the years I spent Christmas with wonderful friends in Charlotte, NC – I am still, to this day, yet to see the amount of presents and bounty that they displaye at Christmas! They are some of the most generous people I have ever known, with warm hearts, too.

For a brief time in my life, I had an uncle (by marriage) and he decorated his house like a Christmas store. There was no shelf untouched, no corner, even the railings of the house were full of Christmas 'scenes' and dripping with artificial snow. He had hundreds of Santa figurines and snowmen, too. He started decorating around Halloween to be ready at Christmas. I spent just two years at his house, for Christmas, but they stick in my mind as being special, because of his joy, like a little kid, showing off his decorated house.

Then, there were Christmases that I spent alone with my cats while being on-call for work. I still cooked like my family taught me, and during my free time, binge-watched Hallmark Christmas movies and marathons of home improvement shows. Having sent off presents to family afar and meeting with other friends around town on non-Christmas days made it feel special to me, in a different sort of way.

One year, I went to a carol concert at a church on Christmas Eve, invited by a, then, coworker. She and her husband were alone that evening and would not let me go to be alone at my house: they invited me for dinner at their house instead. They had a tree and a simple dinner (I don't remember what it was, but not sure it was ham and fixings at all). It felt a little uncomfortable at first, but in the end I felt less alone.

Southern Christmases are truly the best: the weather is amazing (I don't miss snow on Christmas at all – never have!), you can walk after a big meal, and people are nicer and calmer – it really brings out the best in them. I love the Salvation Army bells in the South, too, with people dressed up like Santa ringing them.

Then, we moved to Utah, as a family. I made a promise to myself that as long as there is breath in me, I will have a Christmas tree in the house - and so far it has kept. We made a tree every year, and although our stay in Utah will not stand out as a friend-making experience, we managed to have a Christmas gathering at our house and sometimes a second or third one at someone else's every year. We shared foods, and stories, and presents and learned about what other people, some strangers to us, had planned for The Holidays. These gatherings were that much more meaningful as they were rare and we felt lucky to be invited to them and to be able to invite others to our home, too.

Also, in Utah, we have learned about “neighbor's gifts”: you're supposed to give something, anything, to all your neighbors. We got stuff from many people we didn't know – small things, like a box of tissues (really!), or more significant things from our next door neighbor who we did know (like a garden lantern).

One of the strangest Christmas memories will probably be the one from our last year in Utah: for 12 days straight we got presents from a “Secret Santa”: we got everything from chewing gum packs and beef jerky to bottles of soda and a tub of ice cream.” To this day, we will never know who that person was, but for the “12 days of Christmas” they kept giving us presents.

This year has been a hard personal year for us and even harder for our extended family. With our cross-country move, I started Christmas preparation and sending gifts to far-away family late and not with much enthusiasm. Some of the presents won't make it there in time. We do have a tree, but we downsized the present buying for ourselves this year – after all, we bought a whole new house, right?!

Every year since I started to consciously build my own traditions, I try to do something “Christmassy”, meaning something that you can only do around this time of the year: like going to a Christmas play or concert, or the Christmas market bazaar, or going to see some Christmas lights somewhere. I am not sure why this is important to me, but it is. Maybe it's my dad reminding us to take time for “special” things, because this is how memories are made – and, like I said, you don't get to these things year-round. So, I take the time to do them this time of the year.

I know it's not a popular idea to buy “stuff” for people around Christmas – which has nothing to do with the holiday itself. But if this is how you understand the holiday, I would say it's OK. I do want to see (or imagine) the eyes of people I love glisten with anticipation as they open my presents, knowing that this is my way of saying I am thinking of them. We cannot be close to all family at Christmas, as they are all so far away. But knowing I can send them a token of love and acknowledgment that they are indeed special makes my holiday brighter. This is the same reason why I still send cards to my special people. I get it that it could be consumerism, but I see it as sharing my bounty with people I love.

I don't really get all the cooking, either – but I embrace it as a custom given to me by my family and by people I love. I have a friend who always says that she cooks for people because she doesn't know how else to say “I love you”. I agree to that.

But I digress. Back to not feeling enthusiastic this Christmas.

For weeks now, I have thought about what to cook for Christmas, and I am not feeling like cooking at all. All I want is just to look at my tree, snuggle with Gypsy and close the door on the world for a few days, under a blanket with a trashy magazine.

But I did find some drive to cook and we will have our own traditions, like we normally do, because I cannot bear being a Grinch, no matter what my life is doing. It would feel like I have given up, if I were, and life still has so many beautiful reasons to celebrate. We will open presents over mimosas and breakfast casserole on Christmas Day (a tradition I stole from my Charlotte friends), we will speak with relatives, and watch Christmas movies, me, over eggnog, and Aa. over wine or a mixed drink. We might even make a fire, too. We will nap and read and walk in the crisp air, too. Because we are back in the land where we are lucky to have friends, we hope to see some of them over Christmas and New Year's as well.

Maybe my looking back through the memories is, in fact, a way to escape the present, which is challenging my patience and peace of mind right now. Maybe, I am just Romanian, after all. And yes, this is very much, tongue-in-cheek.

Whatever Christmas is to you, I hope it is warm, healthy, calm, long and lingering. I hope you find at least one reason to smile, many reasons to celebrate, and look forward to what's beyond this time, with hope and dreams anew.

Happiest of Holidays, everyone! 

Still my most favorite Christmas picture. We were young and unassuming. All four of us. 

The Thankful Heart

On February 11 of this year, they split my chest bone in two with a saw. They then found my heart underneath and stopped it, right after hooking me up to this machine which took over the job of my heart and my lungs. They then cut my heart open. Then, they froze me to trick my brain into not needing too much oxygen, and then, they cut off my ascending aorta right out of my chest. After 12 hours of more work on and around my heart, they made my heart beat again. After 12 hours, I came back amongst the living, with a beating heart. I was dead, really. And then, I came to life. To say I am thankful for this would be the grossest understatement. But I am.

Today is Thanksgiving . It seems like a great day to pause and write down just how grateful I am for this crazy roller coaster year.

Anything after February 11, each breath of air, each step, each warm shower, each bite of savory food, each soft paw of a kitty that I got to touch, each amazing sunset and sunrise, each hug of a loved one has been nothing short of amazing and each a bonus. It's like Christmas morning about 200 times a day, every day. I am thankful for that.

I am thankful for medicine and the progress we have made there to keep people like me alive. I am thankful for my amazing surgeon who knew how to kill me gently and bring me back to life, in more or less one functional piece. I am grateful for God for giving me the strength to take one day at a time and build myself back up from physical ruin.

I am grateful for my mom, who, in the midst of untreated COPD fits traveled 5000 miles to cook a pot of soup for me. I am grateful for my sister who took time off from work to wait for hour by hour updates about my surgery. She then came down to make sure “I move the same way she remembered”, once I was a bit better. Her thoughtfulness was healing. I am grateful for my friend, H., who stopped in the middle of her July 4^th vacation to come and see me, to make sure I am OK. I am grateful to my mother-in-law who rallied up a group of strangers to me to form a prayer group. They prayed every week for my health. They still do. The benevolence of people humbles me. 

I am grateful for my customers, co-workers and friends who wrote, watched the emails closely to get updates on me, and sent cards and gifts. With each one, I felt a little bit less alone; a little bit more encouraged.

I am grateful for my nephews, and their facetime sessions. With each one, they give me a reason to live and push on. My family has been my rock. Without them cheering me on and listening to my crazy stories, I would have been a depressed puddle of mess.

I am grateful that my company allowed me to move into a job I have dreamed of all my life (I finally have “writer” in my job title), at a time when I needed it the most.

I am grateful for this … whatever it is … that keeps me going, one foot in front of the other every day. This drive, or lust, or meddlesomeness that drove me to see new and interesting things this year, even when I was ground bound: like Hemingway's last home town of Ketchum, ID, and two glorious National Parks that left me in awe, Canyonlands and Mesa Verde.

Through worry and tough days, I have learned to live (I am still learning) with my newly rewired heart, which is still taking its sweet time to find a rhythm inside of my newly put together chest. I am grateful I am sitting here, writing this, more than anything in the world. I am grateful for the promise of tomorrow, but more than that, I am grateful for the present. Every second of every day, every breath is a gift. All wrapped up in the most beautiful package you have seen. Small little gifts, seconds are.

Maybe more than for anything else in the world, more than for my own life, really, I am grateful for my husband. This man does not know the word “no” when it comes to me. He is the most loyal and loving and giving and selfless human being I have met. He washed me, fed me, massaged my numb arm, religiously, every night for nine months straight now, and allows me to lean on him, unconditionally, every day. He is my peaceful shore, where I rest when life gets too crazy, and life has won the crazy record this year, for damn sure. There are no words, really, to express the love, and breathless thankfulness I owe him, every day.

We have a saying in Romanian: “Sanatate. Ca-i mai buna decat toate.” It means “Health. Because it's better than everything else.” This should be the slogan of this past year. And for the fact that I have been given sickness to learn from and health to appreciate life, I am grateful.

The Detour

When I first started this blog, it was supposed to be, I think, about my life in travels. Because I have always seen myself as a gypsy, because I have always lived away from people dear to me, which always required travels, because, for some reason, I have always been in love with things that are far away from where I live (England when I was in Romania, the ocean and the mountains when I lived in the foothills of North Carolina, Montana, Arizona, California and Colorado, now that I live in Utah), I pretty much knew that if I were to tell a story about my life, I would tell a story about my travels. 

I sometimes forget places I ate at, foods I had - all I remember is that they were memorable enough, so I come to the blog and re-read my posts to remind myself of what was. I always thought I'd keep this travel diary to remind my old age mind about where I have been all my life. I kind of look forward to each year's travels, in January, because I can see the new pages I'll fill up with stories, people, pictures, foods, smells, music ... 

But this year is different. This year, we'll step aside from the nice, lovely, straight road, and we'll take the grassy road that wants wear and go on to have our heart surgery next. That will be followed, if all goes well, and all should go well, by a long process of recovery and rebuilding my new body, with new heart parts in it. A new valve. A new part of my aorta. Some re-positioned blood vessels to bypass the sick ones. You know, old age "stuff". This is what this year's posts will be about, along with how I get out and see the world during it all.

I have struggled in the past few  months with the overwhelming severity of my condition, the risks, the possible complications, the strange state I live in and the scarce amount of good medical care. I have been at the very bottom of the hope bucket. I have cried, and been depressed and sad, and feared for my life. I could not bear the thought of not ever seeing my family, my husband, my life as I know today ever again. 

But knowledge is power. I talked myself into learning and researching, meeting people like me online, researching the best surgeon possible in this darn state. Love is power, too. I have been listening to people who know and love me and who pulled me back to the shore from my deep, deep waters of confusion. And you know I needed help, 'cause I can't swim. 

So today, only a bit over 12 hours before surgery starts tomorrow, I am ready. I am ready for this, as I have never thought I could be before. I don't know much about medicine and what my body will decide to do during the surgery. I don't know much about God's plans, either. I just hope He agrees with mine. But I do know that deep in my heart, I am not ready to end it here. As I have mentioned in my previous 2 posts, I got stuff to do! I am ready to start plan it, just as soon as this surgery and its recovery is over and just as soon as it's safe again to be out there. 

This is not sad, to me. I am grateful, because this condition, for now, is fixable. I am grateful that I have a surgeon who gives hugs and tells me the truth about everything, no matter how bleak, while cheering me on that I can do it. I am grateful for friends and for my rock solid husband who will not let me fail. I know this. 

I am hopeful and ready. This is my big detour. That is all. Sometimes it's necessary, you know. And as the poet knows, and we know now to be true, "that will make all the difference". 

Talk at you folks, in some time. But we will talk! 
 

My Bucket List Now

(I pray that God is listening and finds me worthy of granting these wishes ...)

I don’t know many people who don’t love the movie “The Bucket List”. Even my husband, who finds it depressing, loves it. How can you not?! If we can’t make fun of our mortality, how else can we muddle through to the end, right?!

These days, I think a lot about my “bucket list”. And I am thinking that with every day, it keeps changing. As I think it should. Every day is different. Like the proverbial onion, every day peels off another mystery which triggers more opportunities to explore, learn, get involved, and grow ... There are big things on here and small things and just rightly sized things. They are my things and I treasure them as my heart children.

Here is my “bucket list” today - not in a specific order. 

Tomorrow ... well, that’s another story ...

1. To see my nephews graduate and have families
2. To show my nephews the world, the way I saw it, and sought it
3. To see Australia
4. To camp in our new camper till it falls apart and all it's good for is firewood
5. To ride across  America in our camper
6. To see Alaska and shoot the glaciers there and the bald eagles
7. To move to my retirement place, wherever that is: Florida? North Carolina? Oregon? Somewhere with green lush trees,  mild temps, and clean air
8. To see Ireland
9. To write a book (at least one)
10. To scan all my negatives into digital format, to leave them to my nephews
11. To retire
12. To go to Hawaii at least one more time
13. To go on a cruise
14. To see Los Angeles and walk on Venice Beach
15. To visit Graceland (Elvis's home)
16. To be really, really good at yoga, again
17. To shoot Yosemite, the redwoods in California and the Grand Canyon
18. To eat lobster in Maine while looking at whales in the Atlantic, and hike in Vermont
19. To eat sushi in Japan
20. To order bayou shrimp again at Village Tavern in Greensboro, NC
21. To see The Vatican and Jesus's tomb in Israel
22. To paint really well
23. To celebrate at least my 25th wedding anniversary and maybe my 50th, too, with my husband right next to me
24. To take my sister on some trips, just the two of us
25. To win more trophies for making a difference
26. To go to Colorado Springs, CO and hike at least a little bit of Pike's Peak
27. To hike The Wave in Utah
28. I want to camp in the desert, sandwiched between the starry skies and the red rocks
29. To spend a week on the North Carolina beaches with my girlfriends one more time. And bring my sister along this time
30. To spend many Holidays with our families, together, somewhere
31. To take my husband to New Orleans and get lost in the French Quarter, lead only by the smell of food and the sound of zydeco music
32. To live in a cabin in the woods
33. To live small
34. To speak about cholesterol and heart disease to whomever will listen
35. And more than anything: to survive my open heart surgery with a functional life ahead to allow for all these
36. To write a lot more lists like this, after this one is accomplished.

My Heart

"For in the dew of little things, the heart finds its morning as is refreshed." (Khalil Gibran)

I am sitting here, writing. I can almost hear my heart, almost as loud as the fridge in the kitchen. Beating. Very clearly spaced out, beat after beat, after beat.

I think this is what gave away for sure that I existed in my mom's womb - the heartbeat. My heart has since then been the rascal of my being: mom tells me all throughout her pregnancy with me, the doctor (who did not have access to an ultrasound machine back then) always heard two heartbeats in her stomach. So, he always thought she was carrying twins. She didn't. It was just my show off, loud heart.

As I grew up, I have learned I have a condition that will eventually damage my heart, as well as my brain, as well as many other vital parts of my body. But the heart was always the number one concern for all doctors - the heart goes first.

Almost all of my life, since I was 6, I have known that one day my heart would give me trouble. Well, that day has come. I am scheduled for open heart surgery in just a bit over a week.

Ever since I can remember, I have looked up to open heart surgery patients! The concept of it is no less than Frankensteinian! To crack your chest open. To stop your heart. To cut your heart. And replace parts in it ... who does this?!?! What kind of stomach does a doctor need to muster?! And then, the surviving, the moving on. The acceptance of a life on the watchout. Forever. For as long as you are lucky to breathe after that. The scare of maybe repeating the surgery, again. Oh, Lord!

Although I have known this for what seems ever to me, I am still in semi-shock. I have been lucky to have known about this for months now, and it's still hard to swallow! For 40 years, there was always "something else" they needed to try and surgery was not mandatory. There was a pill. A lifestyle change. Another test to be done. Now, there is no going around it anymore. No more delays. No avenues. No path not taken. Just a wall. A big, huge wall. A mountain to climb, and on the other side, hopefully ... life.

I pray. I beg. I cry "why me". I cry "forgive me, Lord". And I take one day at a time. And I hope. I am a big hoper these days.

I am not even in the least bit afraid of the recovery time - of all the pain, the forever meds I'll be on, the trauma, the light head, the nausea, the gore ... I am afraid of those 6 hours where my whole life, my rebel, crazy, stubborn, loud heartbeat, that first "me" of this world, will be silenced, and will only be placed solely in the hands of God and the medical staff I have only recently met. I am mortified.

I hope and pray that life will continue even better and louder than before. I hope I will meet my family, my friends, my future, on the other side. I have so much to look forward to. I miss my nephews. I miss my dad. I miss reading books I have not bought yet. I miss writing books I have not dreamed about yet. I will come back. I need to. I must.

Sick as it's been, and struggling, my heart has beaten fully, eagerly and passionately, for so many - my sister, to begin with, early on. My mom, with her blue eyes, always watching over me, beating for me, trying to make her proud of me, always. My grandma, maia, who raised me. My dad who made me tough. My aunt and all other grandparents who welcomed me, spoiled rotten, as their first born ... and not the least my husband - who keeps me together and re-stitches my broken self, daily. My cats. All the space in my heart is filled with them, overflowing.  I know all their love must keep me together because what else is there to?! So many others that never knew I cared for and about ...

I am afraid of not being the same at the end of this, the most. I am afraid that my mind will lapse and slip away, that my memory won't be all there, that my feelings will change and my outlook on life will be compromised. I am afraid of the post-op me, I guess, the most... I guess we're always afraid of what we don't know, what we don't see, and what we can't control ... but this is the ultimate in that. My dad jokingly said: "Honey, they'll pick up your heart, pull it out of your chest, wash it with some disinfectant, wipe it clean, and put it right back in". They might as well do that, or do that to my brain, and I feel just the same.

I have done some crazy stuff in my sick life. One should really not be allowed this much happiness, and gusto as I have known in my 40 years. Especially with a sick body like mine. To say that I have been blessed is to insult the word.  I have lived on impulse, spoken the truth, and never feared to look fear itself in the eye. But this time is somewhat different. Every time before, I was (although sometimes just seemingly) in control. This time, it's God and the doctors. I am just a guest at my own sorcery business.

I hope one day,  folks will remember me for one thing. And I hope that being scared out of my wits for almost the first time in my life won't be it!

I'll continue to listen to that beat. Every moment of every day. Every second. Every glimpse. For as long as God will allow. Love it and cherish it like my own first born. It needs to know it's loved and cherished. This beat needs to continue its march and stay the showoff rascal it's accustomed this world (and me) to be. I need to tell it, it's perfect just the way it is now, so it will come back promptly and carry me through many, many more winters ...