Sometimes my patchwork heart aches so. So many pieces missing. So many scars and repairs. How do we go on? Sometimes, like last Friday, joy evaporates and is replaced with a rush of pain and then the ooze of black bilious anger that seeps out of every pore when I feel dread fear combined with…
Category: TRAVEL
In my dreams
These past 3 weeks have been like a dream in Oahu, Sydney, Uluru and Maui. I’ve hiked through a bamboo forest to a 400 foot high waterfall, watched shooting stars in the outback lying in an Aussie swag, followed a path full of red stone hearts around Uluru, visited Shangri-la (the Doris Duke version in…
10 km of hearts
When I walked the 10km around the base of Uluru, I found little heart stones everywhere embedded in the path. It made me laugh. And writing this the lights are flashing at my friend Gill’s house. I’ve been here 5 days and the lights haven’t flashed once…Hearts, birds and flashing lights seem to be surrounding…
We’re here!!!
We’re here!! Last night my friend Gill and I arrived in Uluru. ‘I’m so excited I think my phone is going to explode,’ Gill said when trying to capture the view from our deck at Longitude 131. ‘Doesn’t it look like a giant brownie.’ Well er yes and no. That might have been hunger-speaking after…
Galicia
If you crossed Switzerland with California you might end up with something like Galicia, one of the least touristy regions of Spain. It is an oft surprising mix of mountainous land with pine trees, ambling dairy cows and misty, lush green slopes, combined with bougainvillea, white sandy beaches and intense cloudless blue skies. The whole place…
Spirits Up!
Today I fulfilled another flying dream – whooshing up into the air in a little GT450 microlight plane – essentially an engine powered go-cart attached to a hang-glider. As we tore down the runway at 80mph, my co-pilot told me ‘these little machines are the rockets of the air’. Perched on a seat a little wider…
Tooth & Claw
‘Quick come and get your ticket. Don’t stop!’ The ticket lady in the beach parking lot shouted. I asked why. ‘There’s an alligator behind you.’ Sure enough two eyeballs were protruding out of the ornamental pond behind us and they were following us everywhere. The giant reptile was all but licking its chops. Last week…
Greeting the light
Last sunday I went to Philadelphia to experience artist James Turrell’s new skyspace at the Chestnut Hill Quaker meeting house. Each sunday, at sunset, the roof slides back to reveal a simple square of sky; a sort of window to the heavens. Visitors are invited to lie on the floor or on beautiful cedar benches…
Villa Romana del Casale
I’ve spent 20 years writing about travel and interiors and never seen anything as astonishing as the Villa Romana del Casale. It makes most Hollywood homes look like cardboard. It is a 4th century BC Roman villa in the center of Sicily. And although it is partly ruined, it gives an extraordinary sense of how…
Delizioso
Sicilians don’t stoop to modesty. Yesterday we had ‘the world’s best ice cream’ at Dolceria Costanzo in Noto. An extraordinary mix of creamy deliciousness and nuanced flavors (my favorite was mandorla made with sweet local almonds). Earlier in the day we had ‘the world’s best sandwich’ at Caseificio Borderi in Syracusa. We queued for an…
Free Bird
I’ve always wanted to fly like a bird. Yesterday I got my wish. My co-pilot, Thomas at (Hangar3 Middletown, NY) let my fly for a bit over a mile above ground (nearly 6,000 feet). Then he showed me how it’s really done with lots of rolls, stalls and swooping turns. It couldn’t have been more…
Anyone For Tennis?
I am in Palm Springs for work this week. I’ve always loved this tumbleweed town with its low slung modernist houses and desert rat concrete bunker architecture. It is an odd mix of beautiful and bonkers. Tomorrow I’m visiting Bob Hope’s estate (on the market for $25 million). The house looks like a cross between…
Journeying On
Why is travel such a comfort after loss? Is it that being on the move gives shape and purpose to a life when there is no shape or purpose left? My first thought after Laura died was to cut free of my normal existance, which was in tatters, and take refuge in travel. I went…
Soul Love Forever 