When the going gets tough, it’s tempting to close and laptop and back away. Writing is a struggle for all of us, and yet, if we back away, we’re just pushing The End further down the line. This morning I awakened at 4:45 in a terrifying nightmare sweat. It was the first time my memoir […]
Posts in the Travel category:
Snowstorm
A spring snowstorm arrived overnight in the Berkshires, triggering more childhood memories. Haven’t lived where snow is a regular event for more than twenty-five years. There was plenty of warning. We all knew the snow was coming. I went to the Stop & Shop yesterday afternoon. Stocked up on groceries for a couple days’ worth […]
Actun Tunichil Muknal
Belize’s Actun Tunichil Muknal has been named the #1 Sacred Cave in the World by National Geographic. That distinction alone is enough to attract serious archaeology fans and spelunkers from all over the world. Add the fact that accessing the cave requires a one hour hike through the jungle, while crossing the meandering Roaring River […]
Babci and Me. Courage.
My babci (grandmother), Róża, was only seventeen when she boarded the train to Antwerp—alone— near Kolno, in northeast Poland. It was December 1911, three years shy of the turmoil of World War I. Stars sparkled in the moonlight on the coarse crust of the deep frozen snow and young Róża drew her cheap coat closer […]
Belize Day 4 – Morning Has Broken
“Morning has broken like the first morning Blackbird has spoken like the first bird.” Cat Stevens At 5:10 AM, I peel back my comforter and step out onto my porch. Yikes, the burrito man, with his bicycle and a cooler full of breakfast, is standing there in front of me with a broad smile on […]
Belize Day 3 – Synchronicity, continued
In 1970, I was an undergraduate student at UMASS Amherst trying to come up with a suitable subject for a lithography printmaking assignment. I wasn’t terribly inspired in those days. I had a Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary that had been a graduation gift from my local hometown newspaper, where I was a high school journalist. I flipped […]
Belize Day 2
It’s been less than 12 hours since arrival in Belize and, already, I’m back in the groove. Any thoughts I had of maybe going elsewhere next winter are slowly getting squashed by the synchronicity that I always experience here. syn·chro·nic·i·ty1 /ˌsiNGkrəˈnisitē/ noun the simultaneous occurrence of events that appear significantly related but have no discernible […]
The Dream, Climbing Back to Creativity
The Dream, Climbing Back To Creativity Yesterday I arrived at my destination just as dark fell upon a tiny beach village on the U.S. side of the Canadian border at British Columbia. I had driven north on a grey day (or a gray day or a grey dey- I was already contemplating poetry and prose- […]
From Hopeless to Hope – My Week at Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health
This is Mental Health Week. Last week I enjoyed a glorious retreat of self-discovery and restoration at Kripalu, the world famous yoga and wellness center in Stockbridge MA. I didn’t check in under my writer name and I definitely didn’t plan on writing about my time there. I also didn’t plan to be transformed by […]
The Road to Marrakesh
After flights totaling 21 hours, we wearily checked into the El Mansour Hotel in the old Medina of Casablanca, Morocco. Roger left me in the dark shuttered room while he hailed a cab to pick up our rent-a-car. “I’ll be right back,” he said. That was more than 40 years ago. February 1975. Our honeymoon. […]