I don’t wanna watch the news anymore It’s really become a dreadful bore
Murder, murder D.U.I. Bombs are falling from the sky Duck right now, you’re gonna die
I don’t want to watch the news anymore
When I was a kid, the news made you smart And now it just gives a jolt to your heart The food I just ate is being recalled! The effort for peace is eternally stalled! A storm might be coming to blow us away And insurance is bankrupt and refusing to pay What other bad shit do you have to say?
I don’t want to watch the news anymore.
I know that good things are happening Around me every day. But they never make the local feeds, Because as they say, “If it bleeds, it leads” But I’m tired of all the blood and gore,
I don’t want to watch the news anymore!
They tell me my neighbors are enemies. They tell me they’ll be no more fish in the sea. They tell me I’m screwed if I want a home. And it leaves me feeling forlorn and alone.
What if we just stop listening to all the doom and gloom?
Just Stop!
Instead, let’s write and dream and sing. Let’s find joy in everything. Let’s save our worries for what the day brings.
I’ll find joy in everything. I’ll find joy in everything. I’ll find joy in everything.
My husband Jeff and I are never truly happy until our next adventure is planned.
As soon as one trip ends, we walk around like zombies with haunted eyes, not knowing what to do with ourselves until our next vacation is booked.
We love the planning and anticipation as much as we love the trip. We can plan a trip a year in advance, think about it and talk about it every day, do nerdy research, create spreadsheets, and obsess about every aspect of it until the day we depart. That’s fun for us. That’s the high life.
Sitting outside watching the sunset with a glass of wine and debating what we will do in Aruba 10 months from now Is an evening well spent for us.
How did we get to be like this? That’s a long story.
In 1988, when we were engaged to marry, we desperately wanted to go on a honeymoon but had no expendable cash. That little complication didn’t slow us down. We were undeterred in our dream.
We met working together in the office of the local cable company. Adorable, right? Think Jim and Pam of the Office, but cable TV instead of paper. Other people saw it before we did. We kept telling people we were just friends. But then we weren’t. A first official date. Stolen kisses in the breakroom. And six months later, a wedding.
Our colleagues were delighted about our romance and upcoming wedding. Instead of a bridal registry, we set up a coffee can on our desks which we decorated to say, “Honeymoon Fund.” We told people we wanted money for our wedding for a honeymoon. We already had our own places and owned toasters, crockpots, and such. We just wanted a trip.
A few months before our wedding, we checked on our can, and it had 37 cents and a random shirt button that had fallen off one of our co-workers’ shirts. We realized we had two choices…
No honeymoon. Be responsible, pay our bills, and travel at some future date.
Go on a honeymoon, not pay any of our bills that month, book a cruise and airplane tickets and let the chips fall where they may.
If you know us at all, you know we picked option 2. We booked a Disney cruise, 4 days at sea and 3 days at Disney World, and 4 airline tickets. Four, you say? Yes, because we took Jeff’s daughters with us on our honeymoon. Everyone mocked us about it, but Jeff was a single dad then, and we wanted the girls to know they were loved, welcomed, and included in our new family.
It worked out magnificently, Premier Cruise Line (who partnered with Disney before they launched their own cruise line) had scheduled activities for kids from 10am-dinner. After dinner, until 10pm- so we had plenty of alone time. The kids were happy going to Mickey’s Magic Show and digging up buried treasures on the beach in the Bahamas with Goofy. In contrast, we had adult fun drinking Bahama Mamas on a hammock on the beach.
That first cruise bit us with the travel bug and gave us a lifelong addiction to travel. I immediately went home and enrolled in night classes to become a travel agent because one of my friends who was studying to be a travel agent told me that travel agents traveled for free. That was the life for me!
That one decision opened so many doors for me in life. Traveling to so many places we never would have seen otherwise (here’s looking at you, Paris!) and getting the big travel agent job that launched a 22-year life of magic in San Diego.
We have been on 6 cruises on 3 different cruise lines. We flew many miles back when my airline flights were free, but now, we mostly drive and sail. This past summer, we went over 6000 miles around the U.S. in three weeks and then drove another 2000 miles fleeing a hurricane in September! We have racked up a plethora of hotel points this year in chain hotels and discovered some genuinely unique boutique hotels that you must try, like the Hotel El Rancho in Gallup, NM, and the Highlander Hotel in Iowa City, Iowa! There are wonders to discover everywhere.
We will celebrate 35 years of marriage this year and, after a season of gloominess, we are finally happy because our next adventure is planned. We have from now until November to obsess over our trip, then we will take our journey, savor every minute, and as soon as we get home, we will start planning the next one. We are eternally united in Wanderlust.
There is no therapist on earth that can fix me the way 1000 miles on an open highway can fix me.
Nothing can bring me back to myself more than a highway leading to an unknown destination.
I have been depressed, probably like the rest of the world, since 2020 when everything we knew collapsed and the world went mad.
I have gained weight, lost interest, watched too much T.V. (to the point that I have created a spreadsheet to track it,) and spent money on gallons of wine.
My self-medication of eating, drinking, and watching T.V. to disappear into fantasy worlds did not help me at all.
This summer, Jeff and I decided after being fully vaccinated that either the vaccines worked or what was the point, and we thought we’d test it on a month-long road trip. We drove around 6000 miles around the U.S. in a meandering fashion.
On the first leg of our trip, we headed from Florida to Las Vegas, Nevada, on our annual trip to meet up with friends.
We drove north from Fl, and things were going along nicely until we hit the sign that said Jackson, MS. It’s a place of trauma for me, where I had a tragic car crash many years ago.
Every time I cross into that city, I feel my stomach tighten, and I brace myself until we reach the other side as though I think the city wants to devour me whole. This time, 40 years after my accident, when we crossed the city limit, I heard God whisper, “Reclaim your joy.” into my ear.
I looked around; the sun was shining, and Jackson, Mississippi, didn’t look like it wanted to harm me. It looked welcoming, and I decided to lean into that feeling in my spirit and shake off the dread I had lived with for four decades. I took a deep breath and kept saying, “Reclaim your joy.”
It isn’t easy to reclaim your joy when you feel as if you have lost nearly everything that ever mattered to you. Reclaiming your joy means moving forward when you are desperate to hold onto a life that doesn’t exist anymore.
I know so many of us have experienced that these past two years. Perhaps you had your life set up just the way you wanted it, a home, a job, a family, and then the world caved in, and you lost your home, your job, or perhaps irreplaceable people you love died. How do you reclaim your joy after such losses? What do you rebuild on when it seems the world is still moving underneath your feet?
It’s a mental shift. It’s a choice. It’s saying, “Okay, I do not like how things went. I am not happy with the current state of things, yet I embrace life again. I choose to live instead of hide. I decide to DO instead of watch. I choose to drive 6000 miles, not knowing what I will encounter, instead of staying safe in my room. “
Every mile we drove, there was a wonder. In Gallup, New Mexico, we stumbled upon the historic and unique El Rancho hotel. If you haven’t been there, you must go. It’s filled with old movie memorabilia, and many westerns were filmed there. The ghost of John Wayne is probably hanging out in their lobby.
We stayed in President Reagan’s suite. If you know me, that’s delightfully ironic since I worked on the Carter campaign in 1980 and protested Reagan when he came to Akron. But now, I have slept in his bed, stared at his photos, touched all his stuff, and thought about what a lovely man he was despite my hippie liberal politics. Ha.
We stopped to get a picture of ourselves, “Standin’ on the corner in Winslow, Arizona,” and listened to Eagles songs melting out into the desert heat.
We partied with friends in Vegas, as hard as people middle-aged folks can party, and drank through the entire bar menu at our hotel. If only there were medals for such accomplishments, we’d collect the Gold.
We drove back from Vegas and stopped in the most incredible hotel in Iowa City, Iowa called the Highlander, which is fun and funky – a 60’s hippie vibe. It’s filled with old records, a turntable you can take to your room – an extraordinary chill space.
We stopped in Ohio, where we were both born and raised, to visit family and friends. We stopped by our old house, had a fun night out with college pals, and enjoyed the hospitality of our friend Bridget who let us stay in her riverside Oasis while in town. We had to do a few tricky things while we were home, and coming back to that peaceful setting every night gave us peace.
We drove back to Florida with full hearts. I have tried to take that “Reclaim your joy” “mantra to heart since that trip, and it’s a little more complicated when you aren’t on the road having adventures.
As this year ends and a new one is nearly here, I want to remind myself to make Joy my daily aim. I want to stop looking back on a life that no longer exists and look forward to the possibilities ahead.
When I look back at photos of myself in Paris, I cannot enjoy them. Why? Because I had a terrible hairstyle, and for reasons unknown to me now, I decided to dye my hair a hideous shade of red. Was it popular back then? Was I drunk? Did my stylist Kenny tell me it would look fabulous on me? I don’t know.
All I can say for sure is that the photos of me in Paris are unpleasant because I hate my hair. Me in from of the Eiffel Tower with hideous red hair. Me leaning against the Arc de Triomphe with unsightly red hair.
Back in 1994, I was working as a travel agent in NE Ohio. My husband and I made very little money. I became a travel agent because we wanted to travel, and we knew working in the industry was the only way to accomplish that goal.
One day at the AAA office, a fax (yes, fax!) came through saying the low, low price of $299, a travel agent and one companion could get flights from Washington D.C. to Paris, spend a week at a Euro Disney hotel and get tickets to the park.
We jumped on it. I got it approved as an official AAA Fam Trip, )travel lingo for Familiarization Trip where agents learn about a new destination to sell to clients.)
We drove from Cleveland, Ohio, to Washington, D.C., to catch our Air France Flight. We got on board, and they served champagne and Duck a l’orange. In coach! It was an elegant experience compared to our U.S. flight experience. No peanuts in sight.
When we arrived at Charles de Gaulle and got into the city, I could not believe I was there. Something I’d been dreaming of since my childhood vacations to Canada, which prompted me to take French in high school and college.
We checked into the Disney hotel and were happily surprised to discover they spoke English. There were people from all over the world. There were lines marked with agents saying “French/English,” French/German,” or French/Espagnol,” etc., so you could get into a line with someone who spoke your language. I was mesmerized.
We bought a Carte Orange, the public transportation pass at the time. We could hop on any train and ride from the Disney complex in Marne la Vallee into Paris proper.
We had very little money with us. We packed Ritz crackers and peanut butter to eat in case we ran out of money. We ate a lot of baguettes and brie from little markets.
We bought a museum pass and went to the Louvre for two days and still didn’t see everything. We went to the Arc de Triumph, Notre Dame, and to the Musee d’Orsay. We went to the Point Zero marker in Paris and the Shakespeare and Company bookstore.
We drank wine at the Tavern Henri IV wine bar along the banks of the Seine. We went to the Marche aux fliers and saw and smelled every bloom imaginable. We stumbled onto the Marche aux Oiseaux (Bird market), although I see it will be closing permanently at the end of this month.
We got into a massive fight in the middle of the Eiffel Tower, which is one now of our very best stories to tell at parties. “Here we are in the city of lights and love, on the most romantic spot on the planet, screaming at each other like the ugly Americans.” We can level our audience every time at the absurdity of this image.
We were also gleefully riding the Carousel Parc de la Villette. We accidentally got caught in a riot that involved us running for our lives from police with billy clubs and literally jumping onto the last train out of Paris before they closed down the city!
This story is another big hit at parties. One of us initially thought it was a carnival. One of us knew we needed to RUN. If you invite us over for a party, you can only find out which one was which.
As I flip through photos of this trip and think about the incredible things we got to do and see, I just want to go back and do it again.
But this time with money, maturity, platinum blonde hair, and elegant sunglasses.
There is a difference between hope and faith. Right now, I have hope, but I do not have faith. I will explain, but this will be long, so I will understand if you don’t have the patience to get to the end with me.
Rewind…
2019 was a challenging year for us. Jeff lost his job, and as a result, we lost the life we had spent nearly 25 years building in California. It hurt. We mourned, and we still grieve the life we lost to some extent. We prayed 2020 would be better.
2020 started out well enough. We had just relocated to Florida. Our reward to ourselves for all we had endured and to celebrate Jeff’s (forced) retirement was to take a cruise. Jeff and I and my BFF Betsy set sail on the high seas. Covid had just hit the news, and as of the time we embarked on our voyage, there were only 60 cases in the U.S. This did not concern us at all.
We sailed into Saint Maarten and had quite an adventure. We stopped in Tortola and saw the most glorious turquoise water ever. Our next stop was San Juan, and the three of us ate, drank, and were merry in San Juan. SO merry! We totally fell in love with Puerto Rico. We didn’t know at the time that it was the last real fun we would have for more than a year. When we reached our next port, Grand Turk, we were turned away. We sat in the harbor all day. We looked longingly at a perfect beach, a Margaritaville restaurant, and lounge chairs that were calling our name but never got to dip one toe in the sand. By the time we got back to Miami, the world was closing down.
Despite that, I started a new job that I was very excited about and worked precisely two days in the office before Florida closed. We were sent to work from home. I worked from home in April and May and then got laid off along with another 80 travel agents. As you can imagine, a travel agent during a global pandemic wasn’t doing much business. I looked for a new job, but my resumes went unread and unanswered calls. I was discouraged.
Then in November of 2020, I was rehired, but not as a travel agent but a member rep. I was thankful for the job, but a very abrupt change happened; our customers had become angry and combative. Our company had a mask requirement to do business and social distancing, which enraged our customers. On an almost daily basis, we were screamed at as though those working at the counter had no say about corporate decisions. I didn’t understand the depth of the anger hurled at us. It was miserable.
In 2021, I felt like I was in survival mode. I got up every day, went to work, and prayed no one would make us push the panic button under our counter. I could tell you horror stories, but I don’t want to. Just trust me, it was highly unpleasant. And for me, this was such a huge culture shock as I had spent 20 years working in two churches where everyone was NICE. No one cussed me out or threatened to punch me in my decade at BVCC and my decade at the Rock. LOL. – I just kept asking God, “Is this really what you want for my life?” I’m crying as I write this because, for me, writing is therapy, and I feel like it’s been PTSD for a while now.
My happiest week of 2021 was meeting our friends in Las Vegas. For the first time since March of 2020, I felt normal. For a week, I recognized my life. I was lying in the sun with mountains and palm trees in our favorite hotel, with a pack of my favorite humans sipping Bloody Mary’s. We partied in the mob museum speakeasy and wandered the streets with wild abandon.
I felt safe. We were all vaccinated, and our hotel was sparkling clean, so I could just breathe easy in unmasked glory for a week. The post-vaccine high was that it was safe to roam the world again. But by the end of our week in Vegas, the city had gone back to mandatory masking. The Delta variant surged, and we were reminded the worst was not over. It was discouraging.
I didn’t want to go back to work after that week and face the reality of an understaffed office and a surly public.
I missed ministry. I missed waking up and doing something that matters. I wished my job was still to work all day on helping people who are hurting and making a difference. That wish didn’t turn into reality.
Instead, I started a new career last month in the cruise industry, which was exciting for an avid cruiser such as myself. I had hope. But today, with the latest announcements from the CDC about cruising, I’m waiting for it all to fall apart again.
And now to my point. I am hopeful that 2022 will be better. In 2019, I hoped 2020 would be better. It was not. In 2020, I hoped 2021 would be better. It was not. So, again, tonight, I hope for a future that is “normal” – but I silently wonder if we will ever go back to normal.
I know I should say, “I have faith that this will be a better year.” But I don’t have faith. The past couple of years have been harsh, not just for me but for most of the world. I cannot look you in the eyes and say, “I have faith that this will be a better year.”
But I do have HOPE. I hope people will make changes in their thinking and decision-making so that we can all stop being held hostage by this virus. I have hope that what was turned upside down in the world will right itself upward again. We can get back to the business of living, dreaming, exploring, solving problems, loving one another with warm, long embraces. I have hope that this upcoming year people will tire of bickering and try to make peace with those they are at war with. I hope that feuding families will come together and work out their issues rather than give up on valuable relationships.
I hope that our politicians will spend more time solving problems than vilifying those on the opposing side. I hope we will care more about loving people than labeling them. I hope we find our way out of this fog. I hope 2022 is like the Roaring ’20s and we have a long decade of dancing and celebration when it’s finally declared we beat this disease. I have HOPE.
If you have faith, pray for me to find some faith, too. Hope is keeping me afloat, but I wish I could believe again.
Many moons ago, when my husband and I got married, we went on a cruise for our honeymoon, and we fell in love with the sea. I immediately came home, signed up for Travel Agent school, and chose that to be my career. I love to travel, and I love to help other people dream up and plan their own adventures.
On February 29, 2020, my husband, BFF, and I boarded the beautiful Carnival Magic and embarked on what we thought would be a grand adventure. We had stops in the ports of St. Maarten, San Juan, Tortola, and Grand Turk. We vaguely heard about a new virus coming along, but as of the time we got on the ship, there were less than a dozen cases in the U.S., according to the nightly news.
The first few days on the ship were precisely what we had dreamt of – sparkling turquoise Caribbean seas, enormous rum-filled drinks served with paper umbrellas, steel drum music, and raucous laughter. Eating multi-course meals and experiencing exciting adventures in port, like accidentally ending up at a nudist colony in St. Maarten by picking the wrong cab driver. (That’s a blog for another day.)
Tortola was one of the most beautiful islands I’ve ever seen, and when we hit San Juan, we toured the glorious church San Juan Batista and then stumbled upon a charming little Puerto Rican bar where we drank too much and laughed too loud. It was a thoroughly delightful day.
Then we set sail for Grand Turk, and we were very excited about it because it was our one actual beach day! It was the day of our cruise where we planned to lay on the beach at Margaritaville, soak in all of the Caribbean goodness, and relax from the challenging 2019 we had all had. All of us leaving California, moving across the country, trying to find new jobs, and watching our lives shift in ways we hadn’t imagined. This trip was our reward to ourselves for surviving heartbreak and loss.
The day we left San Juan, there were rumblings on the ship. People had watched the news and saw that other cruise ships had been infected with Covid and could not debark.
We arrived in Grand Turk and were already dressed for the beach. Bathing studs on, a bag of snorkels and sunscreen and were ready to roll. The cruise director came over the P.A. system, and we were giddy because we thought he was going to say, “Welcome to Grand Turk! Have a lovely-jubbly day at the beach!” (Because he kept saying Lovely-Jubbly…) But instead, he said, “We are having some issues with customs. Hang tight, and I will update you when we know more. We sat in our cabin, afraid to leave in case the announcement came through. We went out on our private balcony and stared at the beach we would be on at ***any minute***!
But- alas, we sat in the port all day, and no one would let us off the ship because a few people on our cruise had reported flu-like symptoms, and Grand Turk was unwilling to rick Covid on their island. At the time, I didn’t get it. I was indignant! How dare they reject us! But now, obviously, they made the right call. Here’s an article with more info should you be interested.
We turned around, set back out to sea, and noticed a significant change. We no longer could serve ourselves at the buffet- there were servers to help you. When we went into the casino, as soon as you stopped up from a slot machine, someone came and wiped down the seat and the slot machine handle with disinfectant. All of a sudden, the ship tightened up, and people with mops and disinfectants were marching like an army behind you wherever you went.
We started to panic. Would we be allowed off the ship when we arrived back in Miami? Would we be like those other port seafarers stuck on their ship for days, unable to leave? To be honest, at first, that didn’t seem like such a terrible thing. We had a lovely cabin with a private balcony, and I was traveling with two people I adore, my husband and my bestie, so I probably could have lasted like a day or two locked in a room with them before the fighting broke out. Ha.
We arrived back in port, there was a brief delay with debarkation because apparently one of our fellow cruise passengers decided to try and smuggle some weed back from the islands, and the DEA escorted her off the ship with her illegal ganja. But after that, smooth sailing- other than the fact that my BFF and I packed too many bags, we were unable to walk them through the terminal, and they had to go outside and get a porter tome in and help us because the other passengers were yelling at us for holding up the line. Geez., I had to bring both beach attire and evening gowns, guys; chill!
We drove home, and the next day my BFF was told she was not allowed to go back to work because she had traveled outside of the U.S. I was starting a new job. I worked exactly two days in the office before the office was closed down, and we were sent to work from home. Everything went on lockdown. When we were whooping it up in Old San Juan, we had NO idea it would be the last place we would have fun for a year and a half. All other travel plans were canceled and discarded. All other road trip daydreams squashed. As the virus burned its way worldwide, the travel industry was brought to a complete stop. – To be continued!
When I moved from rural Ohio to San Diego, California, in 1997, I was a rube. I didn’t know I was a rube, but I absolutely, unequivocally, was a rube.
I grew up in a white town. All of my teachers were white. All of my classmates were white. All of my pastors and the members of my church were white. In college, I finally had encounters with people of different races and cultures, but not in any deep and meaningful way.
But when I arrived in San Diego, all of that changed. San Diego is a diverse and vibrant city filled with every culture and heritage you can imagine. My life became astronomically richer and exponentially happier because I got to know and understand people from different backgrounds, races, and cultures.
But this life transformation didn’t come without some uncomfortable moments.
I grew up in a Christian household and attended a Baptist church most of my childhood. The first Baptist church, we went to kicked out my angel mother because she wore lipstick. Some ladies came to apologize and give her a second chance,” but when they arrived, she and my grandmother were playing cards, another sin, so they concluded they were right about her, and left.
The second Baptist church I went to was not as legalistic as the first. However, they still taught me about all the things I should be afraid of and that I should be on the lookout for the demonic forces that were continually following me trying to lure me away from my faith.
Why am I telling you this? For context. Without it, the next part of this story would seem absurd.
Jeff and I made friends with people from his new job, one of whom is our dear friend Alfredo. Alfredo graciously invited us over for dinner, and we accepted. As soon as we walked into his house, there was something that seriously frightened me. I got sick to my stomach. I was shaky.
My first reaction to what I saw was, “OMG, this dude has a demonic shrine in his living room.” Skeletons and candles! A shrine of things that seemed scary and wicked to me. I thought I must have walked into the home of one of the devil worshippers the Baptists warned me about!
But wait, that thought didn’t make any sense. How could that be? Alfredo was (is!) a very kind and gentle man. There was nothing remotely in his character that would make me think he was into Satan.
Instead of letting that fear grip me, I decided to do something uncomfortable and ask him, “Hey, what’s with all the skeletons?” (Hopefully, I was more polite than that…)
His answer was eloquent and passionate and had me in tears. He explained to me about Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) and that those skeletons represented lost loved ones. He patiently educated me about his culture and all the symbolism present in that shrine. He answered my questions. He didn’t laugh at me, although he probably wanted to. I was no longer scared, but instead very moved. Did you see the film Coco? If so, I bet you cried. It’s beautiful. But before you saw that film, did you already know about the Day of the Dead?
I had never had a Mexican friend before. I had not been taught about their holidays, cultures, or traditions in school. My first reaction to something unfamiliar was Fear. I was afraid because I didn’t understand. I had a blind spot, but I didn’t know it until some of my beliefs were challenged by befriending a dear man with a different cultural background.
I am thankful for his patience with me. I appreciate that he allowed me to use him as my Mexican culture Yoda for my first year in San Diego. I am thankful he didn’t dismiss me as a bigot simply because I was uneducated in his culture. We are still friends. Alfredo’s kindness and graciousness helped me overcome ignorance and allowed me to be immersed in a beautiful tradition of a warm, soulful, colorful, and vibrant culture.
These kinds of conversations are vital and necessary. We can’t make assumptions about people, traditions, and cultures we are unfamiliar with. Sure, it’s scary to ask those questions, but if we are ever to move forward as a united people, we have to work to understand each other and replace Fear with Love.
My second foray into wanderlust took me on the road for years. When someone starts out a question, “Would you like to GO…” I’m already thinking, “Yes!” in my head before they finish the query.
This particular decision was not well thought out, I hadn’t saved up any money, and I didn’t have a plan. I left on a whim because I was wild and restless and reexamining all of my life goals.
Disclaimer: This next post will not sound like a travel article at the get-go. Life, like travel, is an unpredictable journey. I think how I got to the road is just as important as the actual being on the road.
I enrolled in college with a clear vision, I loved politics, and I would pursue it. When I was 12 years old, I campaigned for George McGovern at my elementary school. I held campaign rallies at the teeter-totters. I know this because my mother kept a poster I made stating as much. I loved politics in elementary school, in junior high, and in high school. When I graduated, my plan was to get a political science degree, followed by a law degree, followed by delving into the political arena.
I had another great passion, theatre. I loved singing, acting, and writing. I was in school plays and in the choir at both church and school. I was in the very exclusive (or so I thought) “Girl’s Ensemble at my junior high. I loved being on stage, the costume, the songs, the choreography, all of it. But the adult advisors in my life told me that was a hobby, and one couldn’t make a living with those skills.
When I started college, I pushed my drama dreams to the side and focused on politics. I became the President of my College Democrats club in my Freshman year. I had a political internship working on the Carter/Mondale reelection committee in Akron, Ohio.
I have Forest Gump’d my way through life, stumbling into situations I should never have reasonably been part of. The 60 Minutes show decided to do a segment on the importance of college students voting. Dan Rather was coming to Ohio State University, where President Carter was coming to meet with students. I stumbled into an invitation. My friends and I were inexplicably invited to participate. We were given notes of talking points and were supposed to memorize them so we wouldn’t embarrass ourselves with Dan Rather.
Here I was, a college Freshman, sitting at Ohio State University with a bunch of other teenage Democrats and first-time voters preparing for an interview with Dan Rather. What?
Suddenly, President Carter walked into the bar we were in. It took my breath away. He was accompanied by Coretta Scott King, Andrew Young, and a bunch of secret service guys. President Carter sat down at the table and joined us for pizza and beer. He asked us questions, and he listened to our responses. I felt that flood of emotion wash over me. I was having a beer with the President, and I had never even voted yet.
I worked for and was wholly invested in President Carter’s campaign. I had two friends who decided to transfer to Georgetown and asked me to move with them. We had big, bold dreams: we had met people. We could be interns in Washington. We could jumpstart our political careers.
But then, Carter lost the election.
All of my dreams of jumpstarting my career with a White House internship fell by the wayside. I was disillusioned and depressed. I decided that sort of crushing blow of losing elections was not something I could bear a lifetime of repeating.
I was wrestling with the future and what my next move should be. I opened my dresser drawer and found a flyer I had shoved in there from months before. A traveling theatre group had come through my town earlier that year and invited people to audition and possibly join them on the road.
At the time I met them, I had a firm plan for a political future. Even so, I took the flyer because I am eternally restless and always take flyers that concern going somewhere.
I remember sitting on my bed that night looking at that flyer and wondering if it was totally crazy to drop out of college to go live in a van and act for a living. I decided it was exceptionally impulsive, but concluded it was precisely what I needed to do. Dream A hadn’t panned out, so let’s move on to Dream B.
A week later, I was on a flight to Chicago. The group was headquartered in Los Angeles, but they asked if I would be willing to join on the road because they had lost one of their actor’s mid-tour. Was I ready to dive in and just be trained on the way? Could I pack my bags and get on a plane immediately?
Absolutely. I took my very first flight completely alone to meet a bunch of total strangers to live in a van traveling and performing. My parents were mortified. They were worried about my hasty choice and the education I was throwing away. I loved them so much and didn’t want them to worry, but I had to go.
The travel bug bit me for life at a very young age. When I was 5, we started traveling to Canada every summer for vacation. My Daddy preferred to drive at night, and he would come home from work on a Friday, immediately go to bed, wake up around 2 or 3 in the morning and we’d start driving.
Our station wagon was always packed to the gills, mostly with boat motors and fishing gear for my dad, a life jacket for me, and cooking gear for Mom. My parents listened to Paul Harvey on the AM radio with “the rest of the story.” It seemed like whichever state we drove through Paul was on the radio telling amazing stories of ordinary lives with glorious and unexpected outcomes.
I’d lay in the backseat, drifting in and out. Sleep, then stars, then singing to myself, then a little Paul Harvey, then sleep again. I always asked my parents to wake me up before we crossed a state line of the Canadian border. Ohio. Pennsylvania. New York. Canada! I loved that drive. I had a favorite overpass that was called the “Angola Service Center.”
It had a skybridge that went across the highway to get from the parking lot to the restaurants and restrooms. Daddy let me stand on the bridge doing the “trucker blow your horn” signal until a truck honked for me. It made me downright giddy.
Early morning on Saturday, Mama would say “We’re almost in Canada!” and I would spring to life to be awake for the border crossing. We crossed at the Rainbow Bridge into Niagara Falls, Ontario and suddenly- a whole new world!
There were Canadian Mounted Police! The money was pretty colors! Everything was in both English and French! (It’s the reason I took French in high school and college although as it turns out, Spanish would have been more helpful during my 22 years in San Diego.) There were shops with Maple Leaf candy and my very favorite all-time candy bar- Coffee Crisp! People had accents! When we arrived at our cabin in the woods, we could take our boat to the store! The flag was a giant maple leaf!
I loved leaving Stow, Ohio every summer and discovering a whole new world. Everything seemed different and exotic. I adored meeting new people whose lives were nothing like mine. I was delighted to read things written in French.
That journey every summer was the highlight of my year, every year until I grew up and stoppped vacationing with my parents.
My first road trips were with my adventurous parents. They were the catalyst to my lifelong love of travel. Summers in Canada. Crystal clear lakes for fishing and swimming and diving. Laughter, music, and Paul Harvey.
This is a post for those who grieve and those whose hearts have known the depths of loss.
Christmas is my favorite time of year. Christmas is hard for me. Both of those things are true in equal measure. I countdown the days until it arrives, and on a day like today, as I am packing it up and putting it back in boxes, I weep.
I just packed up a seashell that my mother hand painted silver so she could hang it on the tree, I packed up an angel ornament that was hers when she was a child, a dedicated, fragile thing over 85 years old. I packed away an ice skating girl who my Daddy let me pick out when I was 8 and trying to learn to ice skate. I could hear his voice saying “She looks just like you!”
I cried when I saw my mother’s handwriting on recipes. I cried when my Dad’s favorite Christmas carol played.
My parents are gone. My sister is gone. All of my grandparents are gone. I am the keeper of all the memories, and all the stories, and all the history of what once was my life.
Sometimes people tell me I’m a hoarder because I have all these boxes of things – but they contain treasures to my family and I’m the only one left to protect them, to remember them, to tell our stories.
I do not say these things to make you feel sorry for me. I don’t feel sorry for myself. I just feel especially lonely sometimes.
But the reason for that loneliness is because I was deeply loved. Nearly every ornament on my Christmas tree has a story behind it. The oldest one, my Mama’s angel. The newest one, Jeff and I picked out in Cozumel on our 30th anniversary cruise.
My Christmas tree tells the story of my family on every branch, and sometimes, left with just the memories and not the ones I made them with sometimes make me cry.
Those who grieve will understand. – Tamilu 01.13.19
Forest Gumping my way through life 