Mind the Gap

This is what I know about London:  I’ve been there twice.  The first was a layover, where my dad and I, with 18 hours to spare before hopping on a flight to Prague, stopped into a British pub.  We ate fish and chips.  We drank Guinness; I wrinkled my nose.  We smoked cigarettes and popped into the loo and felt quintessentially, contentedly British.  The pub was near Victoria Station.  The pub was the British experience, packaged neatly for tourists who might wander in to eat fish and chips and smoke cigarettes (“they’re called fags!” I whispered to my father, urgently) and use the loo. I didn’t know this then. This is what I know about London: On my second trip to London, it rained.  It rained until the tube station flooded, leaving me stranded at a cybercafé on the outskirts of the city.  It rained until the steps at the cybercafé flooded, turning into a waterfall that gushed downwards, threateningly, towards the naked computer wires at my feet.  When the tube started working again, I took it to the bus station, where I caught a bus to Amsterdam.  In Amsterdam, it didn’t rain as much, and when it did, I was stranded in not a cybercafé, but a coffee shop of a different variety altogether.

This is what I know about London: when Zack, my boyfriend of four years, decided to apply to graduate school there, it was words on a page.  It was smiling faces on a website and funny accents in a new student video.  The surprise wasn’t that he got in, but that it was a real place that he could say yes to, and we could go.  We could click buttons on Kayak and end up with British Airways flights.  He could send off a check and receive confirmation that, in the year 2014, he would graduate, ostensibly a master of something.

This is what I know about London:  these are the things that are normal there:

1. Taxi cabs that look like chic town cars
2. Eating Cadbury Cream Eggs year round
3. Hopping on a quick flight for a weekend jaunt to Sicily or Santorini
4. Pronouncing things so that they inevitably sound lilting and lovely, even if the topic at hand is the opposite of.  Try making a British person say, “I’ve cheated on you with your sister” or “You have an inoperable tumor” or “They’re expanding the sanitation plant next door” and try not to close your eyes and sigh with content.

This is what I know about London:  the Olympics are there.  Whenever I’ve been near a television, I’ve craned my head, trying to see not the amazing feats of athleticism, but the inspirational filler shots: the London Bridge, the Eye, the wide pan of the city skyline.  In the same way, I perk up when I see pictures of celebrities “caught on the scene” in Notting Hill or Soho, trim brick houses and wrought iron gates peeking out behind them.  “Ah,” I think, as my eyes and brain seek context and recognition, “There it is.”

This is what I know about London:  It terrifies me.  It renders me stumbling and stupid; it is the first place I’ve moved with no detailed level of prior knowledge.  I can’t tell you what neighborhood is the best for shopping, what neighborhood the best bars are in, what neighborhood I might get murdered but probably not.  I have two images in my head: that of the bar, and that of the café.  These two things do not a new life make (although, as a writer, I may be closer than most).

This is what I know about London:  nothing, really, but I’ll know soon enough.  It’s followed readily by---not yet.  Not yet is the part that sounds best, that tastes best as it hangs like a swimmer on a starting block, ready to dive off the tip of my tongue.  For now, I’m content to wait, to float in the tantalizing possibility of expectations.  That’s the best thing about the future, isn’t it?  Nothing’s happened yet, so anything can.

The Streets of Lisbon, The Views of Belem

I haven't been overseas since the beginning of 2012, which feels like the longest lapse between adventures in a decade. But my life in San Francisco is in flux and requires me to stay put. I suppose with various changes in my life, each day at home feels unfamiliar in its own way, so it's *almost* like I'm wandering in a new place, or at least experiencing similar sensations I feel when I roam the streets of a different country. But I feel the itch to explore again. To see colors I'm not used to seeing, like the oranges on the rooftops of the buildings in Lisbon. To smell whiffs of pasteis de nata, a flaky, golden Portuguese pastry I can almost taste right now. To turn a corner, to explore an alleyway, to find a picturesque hilltop miradouro from which to gaze—and dream.

Portugal, I'm thinking of you.

xo, Cheri

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What Are You Reading (offline, that is)?

There is a house---a camp, really---on a lake in New Hampshire that is owned by my husband's extended family. It houses many generations of strong women; a matriarchal household in every sense of the word. Bought in 1948 by my husband's great uncle and his wife, many of the women who now run the house during the summer and collectively supervise their kids running through the woods and swimming in the lake grew up traipsing through the same woods and swimming in the same waters. It's a family with deep roots and a well-documented tree, but one that is also made of people who have been brought in and enmeshed through skinny dips and grilled hot dogs. Stand in the kitchen long enough, and you'll hear one of the women say "did you hear about the time when..." before the rest of them break out in peals of laughter that carry down to the lake and across the water. The more time you spend here, the more clearly the ghosts materialize and give a sense of tradition to the rhythm of the day that has survived with the minimal necessary evolutions for over 60 years. Claude and Phyllis (the couple who bought camp) skinny dipping early in the morning and serving hot dogs and milkshakes for lunch; the bouncing Jack Russell terrier begging to be let in by appearing in two second intervals in the open top half of the Dutch door on the porch (after chasing a squirrel into its hole and getting his face stuck in its burrow); my mother-in-law first learning to waterski by sitting on the shoulders of her cousin as the boat pulled them both up. In these stories, the men are key players to be sure, but their narratives remain peripheral. The driving characters of the stories of camp are the women. I am weaving myself into the fabric of this family, first as a girlfriend, then a wife---a friend, a mother, an aunt. The Christmas before I married Jordy, the ladies of camp bought me a beach towel with my name embroidered on it. It was to be left here for the winters, awaiting my return each July. I took the gift as a statement: just as there was a place in the hall linen closet for my new towel, there was a place in this family for me. I've come here this week for a family vacation. My in-laws are here, and my husband has a rare break from work. This is more than a vacation, though. By coming here, I get to reconnect with women (and their kids) who I see maybe twice per year, but to whom I feel viscerally connected. They've held me in hard times, called me sister in happy times, and loved me unconditionally through both. For 64 years, the women of camp have gathered by the water, surrounded by bronzed children of various ages to discuss our lives, to discuss current events, to discuss what to make for dinner, to discuss what we're reading. We call ourselves "the ladies of the beach."

It's funny to have such a strong connection to the history of a family that is not biologically mine (in the abbreviation-language of camp, I am an NBR---a Non-Blood Relative). In many ways, I think that spending time with Jordy's family on land that they have shared for so long binds me to his family in a more raw and fundamental way than any other could. I learned to water ski the same way and in the same water that my husband and his entire family learned; my daughter jumps off the same rocks that my mother-in-law jumped off as a little girl, and we all make a daily pilgrimage to the ice cream shop where 2 generations have worked during the summer. The oldest of the third generation will be old enough to continue the tradition next year, and we are all eagerly awaiting her employment (though our waistlines may disagree). Connecting with Jordy's family this way encourages me to love him (and them) even more deeply, and in a sense for more time. Though my time moving forward is limited, I feel like with each summer here, I get time both in the present, and also in the past. It's a richer, augmented experience when you're layering summer on top of summer on top of summer. I recently picked up The Big House: A Century in the Life of an American Summer Home by George Howe Colt. It's a story of a summer house, like this one, and the family that inhabits it. I just started the book, but I love the way that the house and the land are intertwined with the family and its history. The author's memories of his grandparents are similar to the memories that Jordy has, and likely similar to the memories that Emi will have as she grows up. It was handed to me as soon as I arrived, looking for something to read. I just finished 1Q84, and needed something to thumb through at the beach in-between discussions of the latest article in People or Frank Rich's column that morning. Reading is an integral weft in the social fabric of the ladies at camp. We love books, we love to read, and we love to talk about what we're reading. Here's a sample of what's made an appearance at the beach this week. If some of the reviews seem short, it's because I made people tell me what they were reading as they were running through the house on their way to the beach, the grocery store, or to watch the Olympics (the only time, save for the U.S. Open, that the television is allowed on).

Lulu, 65 The matriarch of this house, Lulu, has made it her business to extend her family. She is the wife of Claude and Phyllis' younger son, John, and is at the center (though some days she would like to be removed from it) of camp life. A fellow only child, Lulu's philosophy is that there are always enough beds, and we can always make dinner stretch to accommodate a few more. Lulu is an honorary grandmother to most of the kids here, and is an honorary mother to all of us. She is the grandmother who waterskis and swears like a sailor and finishes the crossword in the Sunday Times, and she makes it her business to keep alive the history of camp (and with it, her husband's family). When you come to camp, you inevitably hear the stories of this place, and Lulu is often the one telling them. Tender at the Bone, Ruth Reichel "I love it. It's a memoir of her childhood with a very crazy mother and how food became so important in her life. She comes from a really crazy family, and she just by happenstance gets connected to a family that loves food, and she discovers that when the world isn't working well, you can make a good meal and all is suddenly right with the world."

Nancy, 70 Nancy's husband, Ricky, was raised with John, Lulu's husband. Both of their fathers were off fighting in WWII, and their mothers, Dot and Phyllis, moved in together. Both nurses, they were best friends, and each had two boys. They got double coupons and worked opposite shifts so that while one worked, the other watched all of the children. They shared jobs---Dot hated darning, so Phyllis did that, but Dot did all of the maintenance. The husbands were in the same medical corps in Italy. Ricky's family used to rent the camp next door when Claude and Phyllis bought this camp, and Nancy first came up to the lake when she and Ricky became engaged.

Nancy, through sheer luck, stayed up here the summer that I brought newly-born Emi to camp. She would rock Emi as Emi screamed and screamed, and she would sit with me through the seemingly never-ending nursing sessions telling me stories of her own family, in and out of which members of our family would dance. Asked about her favorite things about camp, she says, "The thing that always struck me was the intergenerational thing, the cocktail hour with the great grandparents, grandparents, aunts and uncles and kids, sharing stories and sharing time. All of the ages and stages and kids, and everyone just kind of took care of their own kids and other kids---kind of like how it is now. Oh, and coming down to the beach with all of these very professional, intelligent, highly educated women sharing stories from smutty magazines."

War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy "It's a book that I never in a million years thought I would read (even though I'm an English teacher), but my book club decided they would do it. I am fully immersed in it. The first 100 or so pages were difficult just because of the many characters and getting the names straight (and feeling intimidated by the fact that it's War and Peace). But once you get over that, Tolstoy is so fluid and so all-encompassing and he understands human nature and the big picture so well, but he includes detail to make it seem here and now. The writing is a narrative, so you read it for a story, but you also get a sense of the history and the philosophical and ethical issues that people thought about at that time in Russia (and even now): the nobility and the peasants; why people go to war. You're also brought back by the everydayness of the characters that he creates, and they become real. It's a great read. We were supposed to read 200 pages and meet and read another 200 pages, but I've almost finished it because I've become so involved with it."

Emily, 37 Emily and I became fast friends when she started dating Jordy's cousin, Evan (Lulu's son). She is one of the funniest people I know. She was married here at the lake, and I was one of her bridesmaids. She returned the favor for me when I married Jordy. Her daughters, 4 1/2 and 2 years old, sandwich Emi in age, and the three of them are quite a sight to behold when they are galavanting together on the beach. Emily now does the Sunday crossword with Lulu, and she's the only person I know who can beat Jordy at Scrabble.

"I just finished Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn. I loved it up until the very end, but I couldn't put it down---I was sneaking reads during work. It was a page turner, and you didn't know what was happening. It was a good mystery, and how you felt about the characters changed throughout the book at different points. I read The Art of Racing in the Rain at the beginning of the summer. It's written from the point of view of a dog---[she looks at me raising my eyebrows and goes, "I know, but it's really good."] the dog is this smart being, but because of how he was created (with a floppy tongue, no thumbs)---he's stuck with his thoughts and knowledge of things but no way to express himself. I just started reading Sharp Objects."

Alice and Claudia, 10 I've known Alice and Claudia (sisters, daughters of Jordy's cousin) since they were toddlers, speaking in one-word sentences and eager to investigate my shoes every time I came to their house. Watching them grow has been astonishing; if ever there were two more interesting 10 year olds, I don't know them. Alice is wonderfully imaginative and creative. This week, she made a magic wand for her brother out of a twig that she had stripped the bark off of in a striped pattern, and a vine woven around and anchored with pine sap. Claudia is thoughtful and funny and up for anything. She's also incredibly creative, and her wrists are buried in brightly colored friendship bracelets that she's made. The two sisters, along with their brother and cousins, are delighted to invite Emi to play with them, and are old enough to be able to tell her stories when she's older about her first years here.

Alice The Fingertips of Duncan Dorfman, Meg Wolitzer "It's about this dude who plays Scrabble, and he has a power in his fingers to read things with his fingertips. They're in a tournament in Florida. I got it for my birthday from Grandma and Grandpa. It was on the Chautauqua reading list."

Claudia The Son of Neptune, Rick Riordan "It's the second in a series the Heros of Olympus, which is the sequel series to the Percy Jackson series. It's about a boy, Percy Jackson, who's memory is taken by Hera/Juno, and he loses 8 months of his life with the wolf Lupa and her pack, learning to fight. Then he leaves the wolves and journeys to the Roman demigod camp and he's originally from the Greek demigod camp. I read the first one in the series and it was about a boy, Jason, who gets the same thing but goes from the Roman camp to the Greek camp, and he has to unite the camps before the prophesy can come true. It's so good, I've read it seven times."

After a bit of questioning, Claudia admits she's read it seven times because she's already read (or can't find) the other books in the top of the boathouse, where the girls sleep. I promise to take her to town tomorrow to get a new book to read at the local bookstore. She'll read it and give it to her sister and cousins---I imagine that it will end up in one of the bookshelves in the house, waiting for Emi to grow into it. As for our trip into town, I can't promise anything, but it will likely include an ice cream cone. I know all too well that in a blink, Claudia will be old enough to drive herself, and in another one old enough for me to take her kids for her while she catches a moment to read on the beach.

From Cannes, France...

Dearest Clara, August is for going to the beach, isn't it? I didn't necessarily used to think so always, but the older I get, the more I miss the salt water air and carefreeness that comes with hot summer days and cool ocean water.  We were lucky this year - the beach in Cannes called our name.  Maybe if we're lucky next year, it will call again.  Here are a couple of things I've learned from this beautiful coast:

• Rosé goes with everything: Everything.  Remember how I said prosecco goes with everything in Italy? Well here you can’t go wrong with rosé.  Lunch, dinner, aperitif, fish, chicken, anything adn everything . . . when in doubt, go pink.  And you can even throw in an ice cube or two.
• There will prettier girls sometimes: At least, that’s what you’ll think, even though it is not true.  And sometimes there will be thinner girls and ones with more money, a deeper tan, cooler sunglasses . . . This is a place where often people have more, and it’s easy to get caught up in comparisons.  But believe your mother on this one, you are just as beautiful as any person out there and it will be your confidence that makes you so.  Whether your bathing suit costs $20 or $200, the ocean water will be just as refreshing.  And when you come home, you’ll wonder why you did all that silly worrying.
• You can have cheese for dinner:  Really.  Our hosts are such wonderful entertainers and chefs, and evenings around the dinner table featured so many good things that were on endless parade.  Yet, one of my favorite meals is the night we were all tired, and we had “cheese for dinner”.  Of course, there were several different platters of all kinds, and accompanying breads, and baskets of fresh figs and honey.  The milk and the creams that go into French cheeses are so good, and the process still true to what it always has been.  Sometimes, something simple can steal the show – give it space to do so every once in a while.  And don’t forget the rosé.
• Enjoy a quiet night in the garden: Cannes has a way of feeling hectic sometimes, but it’s amazing how many pockets of solitude you can find, and absolutely everything that is beautiful and fragrant seems to grow here.  I guess that’s why so many perfumes are from here.  Enjoy these plants and smells…the lavender…the olive trees…the herbs…it all comes together in such a unique combination.  You’ll come back in the future just for that experience all over again.
• Go to the beach: That’s what you’re there for.  Whether it’s a little cove off the road, or in a full on beach club, go to the beach and get in the water.  Nothing sparkles quite like the ocean in the south of France – this is your chance to be part of it.

And of course, don’t forget your sunscreen.

All my love,

Mom

A Half Moon Land Between Sky and Sea…

Liguria, Italy.

My Memories.

When I was little, my grandparents bought a house in Sestri Levante, a small village located along the Ligurian Riviera, in Italy. Since then, I like to take refuge there every time I can, losing myself in thoughts and simply relaxing. It’s easy for me to reach this half moon of land between sky and sea, as it’s only a two-hour car ride from Milan. Yet, this place seems so far away too, perhaps lost somewhere in my memories. I still remember when I was four or five, and my grandma used to push me around Sestri on my stroller because I was too lazy to walk. Well, she never suspected that I only played lazy, but I actually loved knowing I was the center of her world.

 

Nowadays I like travelling throughout the region with my husband, in search for hidden corners in a salt and sun smelling blooming nature. Liguria is a dream land to me, rich in intimate and unique details which suddenly appear to your side and fascinate you for their beauty---ancient defense towers stretching out towards the sky, small churches, chestnut woods, miles of walks with gorgeous panoramic views on sea and inland. It is the land where I spent my summers as a child and nourished my first innocent hopes and dreams.

Celebrating The Land - A Famous Italian Poet and His Words.

Prose writer, editor and translator who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1975, Eugenio Montale was born in Genoa. He spent his summers at the family villa in a small village nearby the Ligurian Riviera called Monterosso, and later images from its harsh landscape found their way into his poetry.

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A white dove has landed me among headstones, under spires where the sky nests. Dawns and lights in air; I've loved the sun, colors of honey, now I crave the dark, I want the smoldering fire, this tomb that doesn't soar, your stare that dares it to. 

Collected Poems, 1920-1954, translation by Jonathan Galassi.

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To slump at noon thought-sick and pale under the scorching garden wall, to hear a snake scrape past, the blackbirds creak in the dry thorn thicket, the brushwood brake.

Between tufts of vetch, in the cracks of the ground to spy out the ants’ long lines of march; now they reach the top of a crumb-sized mound, the lines break, they stumble into a ditch.

To observe between the leaves the pulse beneath the sea’s scaly skin, while from the dry cliffs the cicada calls like a knife on the grinder’s stone.

And going into the sun’s blaze once more, to feel, with sad surprise how all life and its battles is in this walk alongside a wall topped with sharp bits of glass from broken bottles.

“Meriggiare pallido e assorto”, by Eugenio Montale, translation by Millicent Bell.

Liguria Through My Eyes.

 

 

When Memories Collide

You could have fit five people in the front of this car. In Alexandria, maybe even eight.

In the early days of knowing one another, before love, we crammed into a 6-person van to see the other side of the Mediterranean. Having grown up in Thessaloniki, Greece, the Mediterranean always faced south of me. Watching the waves crash with an awareness that more sea lay north was a sight I needed to behold. Accomplishing that involved cramming 11 foreigners in a car that was designed for 6. My first glimpse of Alexandria took place while I was sitting on a woman's lap with my head bumping up against a sticker of Hannah Montana. Next to me, there were two men in the driver's seat. One of them was holding the door open. Or closed. Whichever way you look at it.

Those early days of Hannah Montana and two drivers and a stranger on your lap set the precedent for our driving excursions in the years to come. There was that one car we rented with an engine so loud that we would have to shout directions to one another to be heard. There was that other car-like vehicle with seats so small that our fingertips touched as he steered and I unfolded the map.

***

And now we are sitting in a car named Valor. A car with front seats so wide that you could fit our whole Egyptian clan between him, the driver, and me, the recently-arrived passenger.

"It feels strange to have you so far away," I tell him, aware of the irony that he feels far one seat away from me when we have just spent two months of summer a continent and a half away from one another.

"I know," he responds. "It's not a rental car if we are not practically sitting in each other's laps."

This is the kind of car that lets you plug in your iDevice of choice to fill the space with music. I fumble with the cables and remember driving through Kentucky with a car that only accepted cassette tapes, through Israel with the car that would not read CDs, through a desert with a car that would only broadcast Galgaalatz FM.

"Beit Habubot!" I scroll through his iPhone and find the music that provided the soundtrack to our last road trip, to what we had then nicknamed The Farewell Tour. Music pours out of Valor's sound system and all I hear is the sound of waterfalls in May, all I see is a green scarf tied around my hair and droplets forming on his forehead as we hike. Higher. Onward.

***

Beit Habubot continues to play in the background and I struggle to catch my breath as he drives through Harvard Square. I am not used to experiencing this space from behind a windshield. There are no one-way streets on foot for foreign freshmen walking to get their first burrito, or for sophomores slipping on ice, or juniors getting their heels caught in the cobblestone. By senior year, I had driven a U-Haul through here. I had already put a layer between myself and the site of memories, reinforced by the rage Boston driving inspires and the need to shelter oneself from cold and farewells.

In a minute, Harvard Square is behind us. We are past it. It is neither our final destination nor our shared one. This was Home for me before I had ever heard of Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. Before "home is wherever I'm with you." Before him, and us, and love. Redrawing this memory to carve out space for him, and us, and a car named Valor feels like worlds colliding.

***

We park in front of a falafel shop in Davis Square. If Beit Habubot was the soundtrack of our shared explorations in the Middle East, then falafel was certainly the culinary backdrop. I had a favorite "falafel guy", he had a favorite "kebab man", and both of them made us promise that we would come back to Jerusalem in the future. My return to a former home well-loved is accountable to mashed chickpeas.

This falafel shop is hip. The walls are bright red. There are certificates of cleanliness on the wall, and of Not Being a Fire Hazard, and of being Allergen-Aware, and so many certificates that my head hurts with propriety. More typed signs, more instructions on how to make a falafel sandwich. Instructions on how to eat. Instructions on avoiding the garlic sauce. In the back, a woman is sculpting the mashed chickpeas into the perfect falafel ball. I can feel my falafel man cringing a continent away.

***

We take our falafel to go and Valor soon smells of the Middle East. Right by the checkout counter, we picked up a flyer about falafel. More instructions. More information. I read outloud to him in an homage to all the times I read out from a Lonely Planet or an incomplete map. "Falafel was a mid-1962 discovery for coca farmers in remote Colombia."

He does not let me finish the sentence. That is too much for both of us. We can deal with the transposition of Beit Habubot from Zefat to Harvard Square. We can wrap our minds around the slow shift from the overpacked van with Hannah Montana stickers on its ceiling to the Kias and tiny Fiats to the Valor. But Colombian falafel is where we draw the line.

"You know I love Colombia. You know just how much I love it," I offer. "Wouldn't it be convenient if falafel were from there?"

He does not need to respond. We have both born witness to Egyptians and Jordanians and Lebanese and Israelis lay claim to falafel as their national food. We have participated in the taste tests. We were even willing to carve out some room for it in our new home, to let it be part of a new story. Secretly, we may have even been hoping we could draw out a falafel man with his cart on these cobble stone streets. Colombian falafel, however, is too much of a stretch, too much of a collision of memories.

We drive back through Harvard Square in silence. Tamacun by Rodrigo y Gabriela is playing in the background. I picture him making pancakes in our Beer Sheva home and me getting in the way of the ladle with my kitchen dancing. We have each arrived in Boston with two-ish suitcases, but the hidden load is that of the memories of all the Elsewheres we have loved. We do not quite know how to be here. We were not quite ready for this collision of falafel and Colombia and Beit Habubot and Valor, of my Harvard Square and his driving, of his guitar in the corner and my baggage. Neither of us has unpacked. In a sense, we do not need to. There are memories spilling out of everything, slowly filling the empty space.

Eleanor of Aquitaine, The Queen Who Went on Crusade

Last January, I traveled to Lebanon by myself. Even though I tried to hide it, I was terrified. The farthest I’d ever traveled solo before was Victoria, British Columbia, where I was pretty sure I could walk around at midnight with a sign on my back saying “Mug Me” and be alright. Of course, I had a purpose in going there—an academic conference at the American University of Beirut—so it wasn’t an unstructured, completely unaccompanied venture. But still, I wondered if it was wise. Especially being a girl and all.

I was reminded of this when I was reading about the life of Eleanor of Aquitaine, who basically kicked ass and took names through most of the 12^th century and never really let her gender get in the way. This was a woman of vision and ambition who ignored whatever traditions should have constrained her, and who consequently had more power than most of her male countrymen. It didn’t hurt, of course, that she started out as the daughter of a noble of vast territorial holdings; and then, that she was strategically betrothed to the inheritor to the French throne. I mean, she started out strong from birth. But what she did with what she had was still abnormally ambitious.

Eleanor married the soon-to-be Louis VII at a young age, becoming the queen-consort of France. A highly-educated woman with a forceful personality, she contrasted sharply with her soft-spoken, religiously devout husband. Their marriage wasn’t meant to last. The catalyst to their breakup was her inability to produce a male heir (typical), which she attributed to the rarity of his trips to her bed (also typical). The excuse and the means was their consanguinity (read: they were related; for royals, ALSO typical, but invoked or not invoked as desired). This allowed them to get an annulment from the Church.

But her 15-year marriage to Louis wasn’t totally uneventful. Eleanor accompanied him on the ill-fated Second Crusade, traveling to Constantinople, Jerusalem, and various Crusader states in the Near East. Picturing Eleanor atop her steed, French crown stylishly perched on her head, gallivanting across central and southern Europe to arrive at the Crusader castle of Antioch, aside her husband, who unlike her would rather take a pilgrimage than go to battle—well then, traveling to Lebanon on Middle East Airlines for a five day stay at a comfortable hotel doesn’t seem so brave, after all.

(One thing that my trip and Eleanor's trip had in common: We both went to a Crusader castle. However, hers was probably a lot more intact and functional than the one I went to.)

Eleanor’s ambitious career didn’t end with her French queenship. Shortly after her annulment, she married the heir to the throne of England, the soon-to-be Henry II, who was at least a decade younger than her. (I want to make a joke, but I’ve sworn to never use the word “cougar” to mean anything other than the animal.) With Henry, she had seven children, including future kings Richard the Lionhearted and John Lackland. If you’ve seen Robin Hood: Men in Tights, that’s Patrick Stewart and Richard Lewis, respectively.

Years later, Eleanor was accused of plotting with her sons to overthrow her husband, and so Henry, fearful, locked her up in jail, where she remained for 16 years. When he finally died, favorite son and new king Richard released her; then he trotted off on the Third Crusade for a few years, leaving Eleanor as his regent.

Eleanor remained active in governing and politicking and strategic marriage-arranging until her death at the age of roughly 82—ancient by 12^th-century standards. I imagine she was like one of those really cool old ladies who still runs marathons and knows how to use Facebook. “With it” to the very end.

Her longevity is only another facet of her overall impressiveness, though. Queen of France, queen of England, Crusader, coup conspirator, jailbird, king’s regent—by any standards, what a life!

I think that, every time I’m feeling a little constrained by expectations—whether those be gender-based, or age-based, or anything-else-based—I can look at Eleanor for solid proof that expectations can be defied. True, structures exist in society which circumscribe choices and limit options, but the limits are not unbreakable. For Eleanor, the sheer force of her personality, paired with her own limitless ambition, allowed her to not only become, but redefine what it meant to be a queen in the Middle Ages. Twice. If she can do that—I can certainly go on a trip by myself.

How It Began

When I am growing up, my grandmother often prints out thick packets of stories and legends about women who did things and sends them to me in large manila envelopes. After a while I have history and myth all mixed up, but I know more about Sacagawea and Joan of Arc, Jane Austen and the goddess Athena, than any of my friends in Mrs. Smith’s first grade classroom.

Every summer we make the drive to North Carolina to visit my grandparents. This time, I walk into the room where my sister and I always sleep and instead of the familiar stack of printed-out pages there is a small hardback book sitting on the bedside table. The cover shows a collage of train tickets, magazine photographs of the Eiffel Tower, and plastic figurines of women in traditional southern French dress. I like it right away. I have always judged books by their covers.

Postcards from France is a series of articles written back to her American hometown newspaper from a young woman spending a year living in Valence, a small city in the southeast province of Savoie. I finish the book in one day. I read it again the next year, and again, and again. Inside the back cover, in the careful, blocky handwriting of a child just starting to write, I inscribe, “This is a great book!”

From then on, I am completely obsessed with the idea of spending a year in France---of travelling the entire country, becoming fluent in another language, and making unforgettable friends. I will do this, too. And I do, in my own way.

Conversations with Myself as an Old Woman

By Eliza DeaconKilimanjaro, Tanzania

Gnarled hands that are surprisingly pale, folded in her lap. Capable hands, although she never liked them despite their ability to reach one note over an octave on the piano. She’s always stayed out of the sun, not for vanity, but because she doesn’t like the sun or the heat---funny for someone who has spent the last 60 years of her life in Africa. You can look like leathery old strips of biltong otherwise, the intense heat of mid-day etched deep into crinkles and creases. Nice faces though, lived-in, they look like they belong here.

Here she became the person she never thought she was before---hidden away, in a too-tall lanky body, by insecurities and doubt, never entirely comfortable in the skin she was born with. It wasn’t so simple, but then this continent never is; it tests and challenges, weeds the strong of heart from those who shy from its extremes. It can drive you mad and it’s easy to stumble, the dusty earth is often rock-strewn and rarely flat.

She often used to wonder if this was a place to grow old; she never wanted to feel fear and it’s here sometimes---visits at night with the winds, with shiftas and waizi . . . thieves who come in when the moon is low, skulking around the perimeters in whispers. The dogs bark and the old Maasai askaris keep them at bay, but they’re still out there. And fear is an unwelcome guest, especially when you know your limitations.

She and the man she loves know of nowhere else to go. This place they call home is just that and has claimed them wholly. They have both been spat off the continent before, thrown out of the land they were bound to. For him, because the colour of his skin was deemed wrong, despite having the right passport. For her, because she was told she had just been there too long. But where else to go? Where else do you find the life that offers you the most extraordinary freedom, whilst always with cruel accuracy reminding you that this freedom comes at a price?

At times she wonders at how she can still find the thrill in that particularly African golden light that comes just before dark, that one-hour grace period when everything else is forgotten and the Gods smile down on all. And the moment when walking on the farm, she startles a wild animal and it’s frozen, staring with wide eyes, preserved in that drawn-out moment until neither can bear it any longer and the spell is broken.

She remembers things: bare feet on wet grass, stepping carefully in the darkness, the smell of sweet wild jasmine and night sounds in her soul, feeling giddy with wildness in the shadow of the mountain. And she remembers a dress covered in a thousand sparkling sequins. As they drove down the long farm road towards a moonlit gathering, it filled the inside of the car with colour, like stars that no-one could see but them.She files away all these memories, carries them carefully in a treasure box, revisits them at sunset when, sitting on the veranda with a glass in hand, the world slows down and sinking back into the past is easy and without regret. Old now, but there is so much that is good here. As much as you can ‘belong’, they know that they have been marked, carry the scars as well as the laughter. There is permanence and stability in its indelible stain and it ties them to that dusty African soil, a compass that always points them home.

From Berchtesgaden, Germany...

Dearest Clara, When we lived in Vienna, one of our favorite getaways was in the mountains, just across the border in Germany.  We spent so many weekends there---we took you for the first time when you were barely two months old, and we absolutely had to go back during our return trip this summer.  There is something about these mountains that keeps drawing us in, and I suspect we’ll be going back for years to come, even though this wouldn’t be the type of place to top most people’s “places to go list.”  All the better I say, it just leaves more of this gorgeous landscape undisturbed for those of us in the know to enjoy!

Berchtesgaden can be a tricky place.  It’s so beautiful that you want to think it was laying here so peacefully forever, but the truth is that it had its role in a darker side of history.  And visiting there presents somewhat of a quandary about how to reconcile those two things.  For me, what I’ve learned over the years is that will always be your responsibility to know the history of the places you visit.  But be sure to separate the past from the future that any place is trying to build---by being aware of both, you’ll be able to feel out what your assessment is of the present.

In addition, I’ve learned the following from this charming mountain town:

• The view from the top is always worth it: There are no shortage of hills and mountains in this area, some that you have to walk, some you can cheat a little and ride a gondola  to the top.  I think so often we breeze through places like these and just take the time to see the town and move on, but the real treat is what you see from the top of the mountain, not the bottom, so make sure you always plan for a few of these jaunts when you come across elevation.
• Tradition should always have a home: When places are small and not on the beaten path, we are quick to write them off as closed and narrow. But some people work very hard to preserve their traditions.  This time around we stumbled onto a parade of local villages, all with families in their local variations of national costumes . . . all handmade. there are very few places where such craft by hand can survive.  Know when to let people keep their traditions.
• Beef should be expensive: This sounds funny right? But in the hotel that we always stay at, they often have “filet of local heifer” on the menu and the translation has always made us giggle a bit.  And it happens to be the most expensive item on the menu by far.  This is common in many alpine areas, even though the meat is local to the region.  But it takes a lot of time and resource to raise animals that are out on fresh pasture, with space and cleanliness and natural foods.  Of course there are faster and cheaper ways of raising animals, but ultimately, animals are living things and should be respected as such.  I guarantee you it doesn’t taste the same when you take a shortcut.  You won't be able to take the long way as often though.
• Change can come quickly: Much like near the sea, the weather in the mountains can change in what seems like an instant.  Many times we’ve started out in sunshine and watched black clouds roll in, erupting the mountains into flashes of lightning.  A little extra preparation and know-how will protect you in places where change is the constant.
• Protect what’s still clean: Near where we stay there is a beautiful lake which is one of the largest and deepest in the country, but is also the cleanest.  In fact, you can drink water right out of this huge body of water in any place on the lake.  That is a rare gift that this water has been taken care of so well over so many years.  When you find these pockets of clean air . . . water . . . land . . . it is your responsibility to help keep them that way---when you find pockets that have strayed, you still have to do your part.

All my love,

Mom

The privilege of a return ticket

For reasons I do not quite understand, Barbarossa keeps recurring symbolically in my life in Greece.

I first became familiar with this historical figure when I was about ten years old and a new convert to the Age of Empires strategy game. That Barbarossa was a 12th century Holy Roman Emperor and the particular objective of that game scenario was to claim dominance over other European Duchies. It was apparently still the age not only of empires, but also of prizing dominance over compassion. At 10, I was fascinated by the concept that you could make digital people forage, build homes and fight just by clicking something in a computer.

The break-down of the dominance paradigm began during my encounter with another Barbarossa: operation Barbarossa during World War II, the name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union. Every time my favorite history teacher recounted the horrors of that war, I couldn't ignore the memories of the glorification of combat in the first Barbarossa I had known through Age of Empires.

Nearly a decade later, and after I have born witness to the kind of violence you cannot unsee and the kind of compassion you revere over dominance, I was standing in the cave of another Barbarossa. This one was a notorious pirate in the Mediterranean in the late 1400s. The bay in which he used to hide exists to this day and is aptly named Κλέφτικο in Greek: bay of thieves.

Κλέφτικο is a series of cliff formations on the island of Milos, Greece. Behind them, pirates used to hide to observe the shipping route to Crete. Today it is the site of sailboats and snorkels, sea urchins and sunscreen. I have always been intrigued by how history and the passage of time transform places from battlefields into tourist attractions. Two years ago, my love and I had camped in a field overlooking the Horns of Hattin in Israel. Those towering rocks had provided the backdrop for one of the fiercest battles during the Crusades. Now they are the stuff of wheat fields and hiking boots. As we pitched our tent, Elijah noted: "A crusader probably died here."

I am currently in Mexico City and for the first time in a while, there is a TV in my room. At night, I watch images of brutality in Aleppo, Syria parade through my screen. I remember my Aleppo of the car breaking down on the Syrian highway, of the kind man in the tow truck stopping to give us a three-hour ride to safety, of him refusing our money because "you have to help a traveler." I remember leaving at dawn alone for the bus station and being shielded from street harassment by the rest of the women there who glared at any men who dared to make eyes at the foreigner traveling solo.

The tragedy is not that I have lost the ability to return there for now; it is that I am able to leave in the first place. Being a foreigner, even if you are a "conflict specialist", especially if you are a "conflict specialist", gives you a parachute. You arrive at your liberty with a return ticket that you will use when you wish or when the situation necessitates. The Aleppo I saw then came with hotel floors that were less dusty than my own body. The Aleppo I witnessed was a direct reflection of my own privilege. My ability to parachute in and out is an outcome of that same privilege. I am ensconced in another hotel room with clean floors, watching the violence from afar, thinking of those without plane tickets out of it.

bare feet.

It's a particular feeling, the earth beneath your bare feet. For city folk the experience can be rare indeed. In the summertime, I try my best to find clean-enough looking patches of grass to wriggle my toes in, but I'd be lying if I said that the search always offers a kind reward. In the city, even sandals can pose summertime hazards. Spend an afternoon walking in a pair of flip flops, and you'll realize that city feet are perhaps meant to be kept somewhat better protected. For this city-dweller, the lesson isn't easily learned. Despite all prior experience, I've left the house on many mornings having done little more than slip on a pair of leather flip flops and trade one cotton dress I call a nightgown for another that I call a sundress. When I return home mid-morning, a thin black line of grime has already formed at the edge of my heel. At the front door, I kick off my flip flops and tiptoe across my apartment floor. Standing fully clothed in the bathtub, I attack my heels with soap and a pumice stone, scraping off the city street that's made its way onto my heels. More often than not, the water runs gray.

This week, I'm at my parents' house, just two hours from the city but in a place where I was taught that toughened and callused feet were a virtue. In the summertime growing up, my sisters and I would demonstrate our toughness by the ease with which we could walk across a gravel driveway in bare feet. By the beginning of August, we'd winced our way across the pointy stones enough times that our heels had the balls of our feet had formed their own leathery protraction. We giggled behind our hands at out-of-town cousins who took the grassy way around.

I'm getting in as much bare footed time as I can manage, but if my ten year-old self could see the way I just picked my way across the driveway, she'd be cackling.

From the Italian Lakes....

Dearest Clara,

I think one of the nicest surprises you can have is when you unexpectedly find yourself back somewhere that holds a special place in your heart.  Sometimes, places you loved just have a way of working themselves back into your life.  Six years ago, I met your father---long before he was your father, and before he was a husband even---in the Italian Lakes region.  Como . . . Lago di Garda . . . Lugano . . . we did them all.  But the one that's just a little more special is Lago Maggiore.  That's where he got down on one knee and asked me to be his wife, and it has been one adventure after another for us ever since.

We have always wanted to go back, but we never pulled the trigger on the trip.  We said we would go for an anniversary . . . for a birthday . . . for a long weekend . . . but somehow something always got in the way.  Yet on this trip, which was not at all about Italy, the little town of Stresa, where we stayed after our engagement, just so happened  to be on our way as we were driving from Austria to France.  We couldn't help but stop to spend the night---in the same hotel no less. And it turns out it was worth the wait, since we were able to come with you.

In thinking about our very first trip there, here is what stands out in my mind:

• Always have some cash in your pocket: Believe it or not, while we were out on the lake, taking the ferries from island to island, we ran out of money.  We didn't think much of it, but it quickly became clear that credit cards were not going to get us on the last boat. We weighed our options between panhandling and swimming to shore; the latter lost out.  We will forever be grateful to that total stranger, and your father always makes sure he has some cash in his pocket when we leave home.
• Eat a big breakfast: No one does a breakfast like an Italian hotel---chances are you already paid for it with your room so take advantage.  Pick good proteins and fresh fruits, and a little roll in your bag for later comes in handy.  If you enjoy a nice leisurely and full breakfast, you can often skip lunch and make the most of your day out and about.  And don't forget a good cappuccino. Or two.
• A passegiata every night: The lakes aren't exactly bustling with nightlife, in the traditional sense.  No clubs here, but you'll find nearly the entire town taking a walk along the lake every evening before dinner.  That's a party to be part of.
• Admire pretty things . . . just because they are pretty: In this region, there are so many beautiful hotels, some would even call them over-the-top.  And you'll find some of the decorations to be excessive, maybe even unnecessary.  Just admire them for what they are: adornment.  The region is so beautiful, you can't blame people for trying to translate the visual feast of the view into their everyday surroundings.
• Take time to do nothing: The pace of life is entirely different around the lakes.  Days are calm, and there is nothing to hurry for.  Take in the view of the lake, enjoy a long walk, read a good book, have another coffee.  Or just sit and be.  You'll have time for it all here.  There will be hardly any obligations here---enjoy that rare freedom.

All my love,

Mom

Lessons from coming home...

Dearest Clara, Coming home from a trip is always a bittersweet moment, a mixture of relief that you made it safely with a touch of sadness for an adventure completed.  I’ve never been good at all of the activities that are supposed to take place after a trip: the laundry, the photos, the getting back into the swing of things at work.  I alternate instead between reliving the memories of where we’ve just come from, and dreaming away into planning the next adventure, the next trip.

Nonetheless, I still love the familiarity of home, wherever it is for us at the moment---here is what I always do when I arrive at ours:

• Tell people you are coming home a day later . . . or even two: The minute people know you’ve walked in the door, the world will start turning just as fast as it was before you left.  Tell others you’ll be home just a little later, and enjoy the quiet time that comes with no one knowing you are there.  Use the time for whatever you need for yourself.
• Don’t go back to work on a Monday: A boss of mine told me this years ago and I’ve stuck to it ever since.  There is something overwhelming about coming in first thing Monday morning with a list of things to do and a line of people to see you a mile long.  Come in on a Tuesday;  the week can start without you just fine.
• Drink lots of water: Whether you came home by plane, train, or automobile, I guarantee you didn’t drink enough water on the trip.  Drink lots, more than you think you need.  It will make you feel better and help ward off any unwanted souvenirs.
• Unpack on the first day you are back: Unpack at least a little . . . if only to throw your dirty laundry in the hamper (that alone should be the bulk of your suitcase anyway).  If you don’t start unpacking the first day, you can bet that your suitcase will stand there for at least a month before you touch it.
• Write it down: You think you’ll remember everything from your travels, and you think your photographs will be enough, but it is amazing how quickly the details start evaporating the minute you walk in your front door.  If it was important to you and you want to remember it, write it down, even if it is just a quick list in a notebook.
• Have a “coming-home” routine: Order dinner from the same place, take a taxi from the same stand, spend the first evening taking a bath or reading a magazine . . . whatever makes you feel relaxed and comfortable.  Since our home changes so often, we can’t always rely on the structure itself to make us feel like we are “back”.  Rather, the routines that we have developed over time have become our sense of home, our sense of arriving back where we belong.

I know you will travel far and wide over the coming years, and on your own---probably much further than I will ever go.  Enjoy every adventure that comes your way---but don’t forget that being at home sometimes can be just as beautiful.

All my love,

Mom

Unexpected

This was not the column I expected to write this week. But when I read Elisabeth and Miya’s recent posts about change and moving, I knew the column I had planned would hold for another Thursday. This week, I’ll tell a different story, one that I wasn’t expecting to tell.

On January 4th I got on a plane to head back to Bangladesh. I had moved across the world the previous February and come home for the first time 10 months later to celebrate Christmas with my family. Without question, moving to Bangladesh was one of the best decisions I have ever made. Certainly I was sad to be moving so far away from friends and family, but I felt, in my bones, that it was the right decision. My husband moved in November while I stayed in the states an extra three months to pack up our apartment, sell the car, and generally wrap up all the little things that go along with moving. And then I got on a plane and started a wonderful adventure.

It wasn’t easy leaving home, it never is. I almost cried as I waved to my mom from the security line and certainly would have shed tears when the first flight took off had it not been for the wondrous distraction of SkyMall. But I was headed towards my husband who I hadn’t seen in three months, so there was joy and excitement mixed with the sorrow.

Eleven months later, the situation was not that changed. My mom took me to the airport so I could catch the first in a series of flights that would take me back to my husband and Bangladesh.

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Except I never got there.

Three flights and 20+ hours after my departure I was turned back in India. There was a problem with my visa. Changing from one flight to another would, in essence, require that I change airports, which meant entering the country. A technicality to be sure, but it didn’t matter. Immigration officials insisted and I felt I had no choice but to do as I was told. Two flights away from my final destination and I wasn’t going to make it. I was guided back to the same plane I had just disembarked to repeat my journey, only in reverse. Over 50 hours after I left, I was back at my parent’s doorstep.

That was more than six months ago and this is the first I’ve written of what I have dubbed The Journey to Nowhere. With the exception of explaining what happened to my parents, sister, husband, two best friends, and an aunt, I haven’t even spoken of the experience except in platitudes. It was such a shocking event that until very recently (I’m talking two weeks ago) thinking back to that day was more than likely to lead to my heart pounding against my ribcage and my eyes watering. It was shocking and emotional and scary and just hard.

But that’s not what I wanted to talk about. Not today at least.

When I called my husband from an airport payphone in Amsterdam, I knew we had some decisions to make. We had a plan; I would go home for three weeks and then head back to Bangladesh where we would go about our routine for an indeterminate amount of time, probably somewhere in the vicinity of six months. Someone or something had thrown a wrench in our plan, now new plans had to be made.

Ultimately, we decided that I would remain in the states and my husband would leave Bangladesh after tying up any loose ends. It was undoubtedly the most logical and practical decision. But it was a decision that I felt forced into. I had a plan and it crashed around me leaving us to pick up the pieces and attempt to fit them, like mismatched jigsaw pieces, into a new picture, a new future.

I don’t handle unexpected change well at the best of times. Some people can just roll with things like that, but I am not one of them. I think it’s a trait of being an introvert. I like to plan and adjust, to dwell and ponder. To all-of-a sudden be living on a different continent than I expected was, for me, a curve ball of monumental proportions.

So, with the loss of a well-thought-out plan, an emotional upheaval, and an attempt to adjust to a new plan, I did all I could: I put one foot in front of the other. Early on, before my husband got back to the states, I was so thrown, so uncomfortable, that it is not an exaggeration to say I was taking things day by day. Twelve to twenty-four hours was as far as my vision could stretch. I learned several things from the experience, but one of them was that when you’re so lost you don’t know which way is up, its ok to only worry about the current day, not tomorrow, not a week or a month, just today. Do the best you can on this particular day, don’t worry about the rest.

I’m still not 100% back to my old self. I’m not sure if it’s noticeable to anyone besides me, but I know I’m less confident, less secure than I once was. I have twinges of separation anxiety when I’m away from my husband overnight. And I’ve lost the trust in travel I used to have, that if I set out for a destination, I would ultimately arrive. But the fact that I was able to write these words, that I’m planning for more than tomorrow, well to me that’s proof that if you hang on long enough, the world will right itself.

Sometimes you don’t know the answers; sometimes you don’t even know the questions. Sometimes it is pointless to ask. If I had spent my time wondering ‘why me’ I would have felt even more lost and out of control. Because there is no answer, only more questions. Things happen, things we don’t understand, things we don’t like, things that throw us for a loop and leave us reeling with vertigo. And then, all you can do is look forward and trust that something great is hiding around the corner.

The trips that weren't

What they do not tell you about the Pyramids is that, grand as the monuments may be, the surrounding area smells profoundly of camel piss. I arrived in Cairo ungrounded: no apartment, no friends, no Arabic, not even my own luggage. I was anchorless to the point of adrift---weightless to the point of exhilarated. Over time, Cairo became filled with the buoyancy of firsts and the gravity of love. It was the first place where I worked with the United Nations and, in many ways, where my passion for gender advocacy and conflict management came alive. Cairo marked my first attempt to live mindfully in the present, an endeavor that ran counter to my inclination to wander in the memory of the past or anticipation of the future. And on the first day of Ramadan that year, I met someone on a boat on the Nile in the kind of way that will make it impossible for me not to consider the river blessed, the city magical, and my time there transformative.

We drank strawberry juice in a street alley across from his apartment building. Pronouncing "Mumkin asir faroula?" became a small victory. The strawberry juice gave way to tea and to coffee and to domino and when we ran out of non-alcoholic drinks and board games, he would deposit me into a taxi and I would employ the only other Arabic I spoke at the time: "Five pounds. The fare is supposed to be five pounds." The driver would argue, I would say no emphatically, habiiiiibiiii would bellow from the radio, we'd run a red light or five, and my head would hit the pillow just as the first call to prayer of the day echoed from the nearby mosques. The realm for a public romance was limited and filled with mines, so our budding love was rife with the kind of companionship that prepares you well for retirement: conversation, domino and tea.

And I had yet to see the Pyramids.

This was a point of contention among my friends. It did not matter that I was filling their inboxes with the cautious enthusiasm of a young love. Everyone would write back asking how Cairo is and "have you seen the Pyramids yet?" "No, but there's this little alley that I love . . ." stopped cutting it as an answer.

Four months of alleys and domino later, I had eight hours before I had to be on a plane to Uganda. I asked the cab driver to take me to Giza for the trip that almost wasn't: the pilgrimage to the Pyramids. The postcards create an impression that the Pyramids exist in a vacuum. They do not tell you that there are apartment buildings poking the air around the area of the Pyramids. The guidebooks do not mention the all-piercing smell of camel piss.

They also do not mention that great memories are not always made in the shadow of historical grandeur. Future travelers should take note of the unmarked alley off the map (which, to be fair, also occasionally reeks of urine). After standing in awe in front of the Pyramids for a few minutes, and waving off the salesmen asking me to buy papyrus, I went back to my alley, for one last whiff of nargileh smoke, sip of strawberry juice, and exhale of gratitude for the memories that were.

In Guatemala, I failed to make it to Lake Atitlan. In Colombia, I never saw Villa de Leyva. In Uganda, I missed Murchison Falls. This was neither my criminal inability to traipse to remarkable places nor a snobbish rejection of the kinds of experiences that inspire universal awe. Rather, I learned in Cairo to allow myself to be attached to the alley---and, like Hansel and Gretel in the fairy tale, to leave a trail of crumbs to come back to. "The trips that weren't" give me an anchor in a home that once was. They supply a reason to retrace the steps to a self I left behind. Seventeen conflict and post-conflict zones after Egypt, I favored the sites of memories over those in the Lonely Planet, saving the latter as collateral to the promise that I would return.

Jerusalem was meant to be the last stop for a while. After my work there, I would fly across the ocean to the United States to return to an academic study of gender and conflict. I would unpack the bags and own what is gratuitous simply for the sake of not worrying about how to pack it for the next trip. I would own wine glasses and more than one pair of sheets and I would get excited about things like latte art and permanence. This time, I was not interested in leaving any item unchecked. A month before our departure, I made The List: walks, food, experiences to have before we leave. We ate nostalgia for four weeks, stuffing our stomachs with all the food we thought we would miss and our days with itineraries. I thought we did a good job this time, that we did so much and saw so much and felt so much that we would leave Jerusalem with a sense of satiation---as though that could vaccinate us against future nostalgia.

Two hours before we had to hail a cab to the airport, we lit a coal for our nargileh and breathed apple-flavored smoke into the street. We had recreated the alley. Everything else may have shifted, but it was still him and I and the apple-flavored smoke. We looked over The List and realized that "the trips that weren't" had become the trips that were. I was afraid that we had done it all, that there would be no more Jerusalem to discover in the future. We had crossed off the items.

All except one: The YMCA was his favorite building in town. It became mine as well. We never made it to the top.

Outdoor Movies

I’ve never been to a drive-in movie. This is surprising, mostly, because given the chance to partake in anything that smacks even remotely of another era, I’ll be the first to sign up. I know I can’t be the only one daydreaming of necking while the latest sci-fi thriller goes unwatched in the background. I keep telling myself, one day.

In my own defense, active drive-ins are increasingly difficult to find. While I won’t claim to be an expert on the subject, I think we can probably blame increased land values and the incredible ease with which we can all watch movies from the comfort of our homes. Surely, there’s something wise to be said about an increased cultural tendency to turn inward and something else about folks’ unwillingness to pass a cozy evening surrounded by their favorite and least favorite neighbors.

While the drive-in movie might be largely a relic from another time, there’s an alternative to be found in movies playing in outdoors in city parks. Judging from the crowds at these cinematic evenings, I’d hazard the guess that more people than we realize relish the opportunity for some quality time surrounded by other humans under an open sky.

Last week, my fiance James and I joined throngs of our fellow New Yorkers to watch To Kill A Mockingbird in Brooklyn Bridge Park. The scene was impressive. The lawn was full to overflowing with families and friends and, in the case of the duo in front of us, very amorous young couples. Many of them packed dinner picnics and set up a hodge-podge of sleek picnic blankets and dirty beach towels to take in the film and the sunset over the East River. I imagine half the crew was seeking refuge from their overly air-conditioned offices and the other half sought the cool breeze coming off the river after a day of sweating it out without any.

Whatever the reason for being there, it was utterly delightful to be surrounded by so many happy movie-goers. The sun setting behind lower Manhattan alone would have been worth the walk down to the park, but seeing so many people enjoying it together, well, that just about got me choked up. If you’ve got a hankering for a little summertime movie adventure, or are feeling bummed out about a summer in the city, I heartily recommend trying to catch an outdoor movie or two. If you’re not in New York, never you fear. There are outdoor movies screening in cities all across the globe. Check out your local listings and make a pact to go. It'll be worth it.

Lessons from traveling...

Dearest Clara, We are still on the move---one week into a seventeen day trip.  This time around we have been taking you on a bit of a sentimental journey though you are much too young to remember these places or even understand their significance.  But don’t worry, one day we will certainly take you again.  In the meantime, we will take lots of pictures for you to remember this by.

We travel a lot, whether for fun or for work---it is a bit the nature of the job we signed up to do.  But even if we hadn’t, I have a feeling we would continue to move about anyway.  Traveling can open up the mind to so much, but it certainly can be draining as well.  Keep these things in mind when you find yourself on the go---my bet is that you’ll take after your parents.

• Don’t pack more than you can carry: I think this is rule number one.  If you yourself can’t carry it, you probably don’t need it.  My rule of thumb is one roller board and a folded duffle inside for the trip home (inevitably, you always come back with more).  But remember, you shouldn’t be dependent on anyone when it comes to just carrying stuff.
• Ask for help when you need it: That being said, ask for help when you need it.  Some days, your bag will be too heavy, or you’ll find yourself lost.  I always avoided services that booked taxis or brought bags or any countless number of other things, insisting that I do it myself.  That’s a good way to start and a good way to learn, but at some point, it’s okay to get some assistance.  It’s how others make a living, and sometimes, a few dollars more can save you lots of time and frustration and back ache.
• Move around with confidence: You won’t always know where you’re going, but you should always look like it.  You will build confidence in your own abilities to get to where you need to go, but you’ll also stave off any unwelcome attention that finds its way to the lost and unaccompanied.
• Be a gracious traveling companion:  No doubt you will come across myriad of personalities while traveling, and not all of them the nicest.  But traveling brings out funny things in people: some might be sad, upset, coming from or going to a place they would rather not.  Give people the benefit of the doubt and the space they need, and don’t take travel outbursts personally.  Be as gracious and patient as you can, the day will come when you need the same from others.
• Remember your documents and your wallet: I used to worry the entire way to the airport whether I had packed everything.  But my mother always used to ask if I had my passport and my wallet,  and then told me not to worry, anything else you can buy.  Always be able to identify yourself, and always have a couple of ways to get money where you’re going and you’ll always be set.
• Leave something to come back for: When you really love and enjoy a place you’ve visited, leave a little something to return for.  A museum unseen, a picture not taken, a personal item you forgot, a coin in the fountain . . . my mother always said that you should always “leave something to come back for”.

Over the years, you’ll find all of your own little bits of advice to make traveling easier.  You can always start out by laying out what you would like to take, and then taking half the clothes and twice the money.  Drink lots of water, travel with a shawl, and wash your hands a lot.  And of course, send your mother lots of postcards.

All my love,

Mom

On Coming Back

There can be heartache in city living, especially in the summertime. For someone who grew up as a country mouse, summertime has always been the backdrop for my most sensory memories: the smell of freshly mown grass and charcoal barbecues, the sound of airplanes crossing a lazy summer sky, choruses of peepers and cicadas, the sharp crack of baseball bats, the feeling of bare toes in sand and the hot prickle of a sunburn. In the city, the smells and sounds are different, even when they’re the same. The smell of barbecue wafting from our neighbors’  balcony feels invasive when it’s not paired with sounds of cicadas and the soft hum of a garden sprinkler. Airplanes that cross the city sky compete with sirens and car alarms for aural dominance and all but disappear before I’ve even noticed them. Our neighbors' air conditioner now drowns out the sounds of the birds I spent the spring listening to. Last week, we spent two glorious days in Maine. We drove seven hours up and back for the priviledge of walking barefoot in tall grass and having mosquitos bite our legs into near oblivion.  The trip was worth every single itchy red bump. While we were there, mostly, we relished the space and the quiet and the company. Now we’re back and the city feels stifling and smelly by comparison. The places where I normally seek refuge aren’t working their usual magic. Our tiny apartment feels tinier. The smell of Sunday night’s garbage sitting out for Monday’s pickup is oppressive. I'm the first to admit, I'm the worst kind of grumpy. There is so much to love about summer in the city, and I know I’ll get back into the rhythm of things, but for now, it’s hard to be back.

What Are You Reading (Offline, That Is)?

Yes, I have a love affair with books. My relationship with them is passionate, compulsive, sometimes even compromising. Books have shaped my life since I’ve been born – naming me Alice, my mother fatally bound me to a destiny of being a day and night dreamer, and I soon started to accept the responsibilities carried by my name, letting myself be won over by an alluring and beguiling world called Wonderland. And once upon a time, when I was 25 (well, I’m 30 now!), I did find my Wonderland---it actually feels like my Neverland, too---in a country (America) I deeply love and consider the one where I can get lost, and found, and I always feel myself at my best potential. I indeed tumbled into Brooklyn, a borough I fell in love with, a very special spot that takes thousands different shapes and smells thousands different smells. A place where I hope to live again soon.

So these are some of the books that have inspired and influenced my love for Brooklyn, and that have somehow contributed to shape my idea of a unique place.

A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN. By Betty Smith. LOVED IT BECAUSE it made me want to go back in time, wander around the streets of Williamsburg and meet Francie Nolan, a character I feel deeply attached to. Francie looks for simple pleasures in life, like being allowed to sleep in the front room of her house on Saturday nights, watching the busy streets below. Like her beloved tree, she is ready to burst into bloom. This novel paints a portrait of Brooklyn at the turn of the twentieth century, and it goes far beyond mere description. It made all of my senses came alive and helped me feel what it was like to live in Williamsburg back then.  A classic, a must read.

“It’s mysterious here in Brooklyn. It’s like – yes – like a dream. The houses and streets don’t seem real. Neither do the people.”

THE BROOKLYN FOLLIES. By Paul Auster. LOVED IT BECAUSE I lived in Park Slope, Brooklyn, not far from where this story takes place. The novel feels and sounds like the borough, and Auster's native Brooklyn is painted with affection. I liked Nathan Glass, a man who retires to Brooklyn to recover from lung cancer (and his divorce). And I liked his project entitled The Book of Human Folly, a chronicle of his unique mishaps, misunderstandings, foibles and foolishness, where he actually begins the process of authoring his own true existence.

“Kafka wrote his first story in one night. Stendhal wrote The Charterhouse of Parma in forty-nine days. Melville wrote Moby- Dick in sixteen months. Flaubert spent five years on Madame Bovary. Musil worked for eighteen years on The Man Without Qualities and died before he could finish. Do we care about any of that now?”

BROOKLYN. By Colm Tòibìn. LOVED IT BECAUSE this is ultimately an optimistic novel, and on many occasions it actually made me smile. Eilis comes from a small town in Ireland, and in the 50’s she crosses the ocean to find a new life. She has to learn to live in a new culture away from the only home she has ever known. I feel like she could have been more curious about Brooklyn though, and if I ever meet her in Wonderland I’ll tell her!

"She had been keeping the thought of home out of her mind, letting it come to her only when she wrote or received letters or when she woke from a dream in which her mother or father or Rose . . . appeared. She thought it strange that the mere sensation of savouring the prospect of something could make her think for a while that it must be the prospect of home."

BROOKLYN WAS MINE. Edited by Chris Knutsen and Valerie Steiker. LOVED IT BECAUSE it’s a collection of essays that gives some of my favorite authors (and today’s best writers) an opportunity to pay a tribute to Brooklyn. Its literary history runs deep, and also in recent years the borough has seen a growing concentration of bestselling novelists, memoirists, poets, journalists. Contributors include Emily Barton, Jennifer Egan, Alexandra Styron, Darin Strauss, Jonathan Lethem.

“... but this life, we have to admit - this endless throwing and retrieving of a ball, this endless cycle of shade trees to acorns to the winter hiatus from which our kidst burst, metamorphosed completely, while we try to believe we ourselves haven't aged - is the real life: the repetitive rhythm, the onrush of time.”

“There are moments when a city can suddenly acquire all the kinetic qualities of a human being, a person's moods and expressions, so that she becomes a character of some kind - like a large woman, I often think, half asleep on her side. You find yourself talking to her, asking her questions, pestering her. And living in such a city is a long, monogamous affair, or else a marriage one abandons from time to time. Cities are rarely causual flings.”

Only, I don’t feel Brooklyn WAS mine. It IS mine! And WILL always be mine!

Alice runs “alice + wonderland”, her new blog. She is now a copy editor at Rizzoli Publishing, in Milan, and a former Italian lecturer in New York and Washington DC. Alice is passionate about books, travelling, taking pictures, vintage clothing, and of course Brooklyn ❤ Tweets @pluswonderland.