The drive from Sorrento around the coastline to the Naples airport is a mere 33 miles, but locals advise allowing two hours for traffic. Our 7am departure precluded the complimentary breakfast buffet, but my husband nicked two cornetti al cioccolato in a paper napkin for us to stuff down before our car arrived.

We were both mid-bite when our driver pulled up. Immediately, we both turned away to hide our eating, not wanting to be those Americans. But instead of judgment, the driver simply said:

piano, piano . . .

He gently encouraged us to take our time with our croissants before setting off on the long car ride.

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I saw the word piano several times in Italy, often referring to the floor of a building. But I also overheard others say it, and usually as two words: piano, piano. More than one waiter uttered the phrase. (I could’ve died of old age before a server would bring a bill unbidden.)

In Italy, piano, piano is a directive to slow down.

But in real life I only have one speed, and it is not slow. Even when I have no good reason to rush, I struggle with resisting the urge to speed through life.

Even the scooter set hums on a different vibration in Sorrento

But I do go slow on vacations. Perhaps this is why I am not the first person to wish I could just chuck it all and live in whatever land I am visiting. But finances and family and all manner of practicalities prevent that from happening.

This time, the souvenir I wanted to bring home was not an object but an orientation. Now that I am back in the daily hustle, I have taken to repeating piano, piano whenever I am feeling particularly speedy. And in that moment, I am reminded of a place and a people not constantly running at 1.2X speed.

More views of Sorrento

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We happened to be staying across the street in a rental I can only describe as très charmant. And by “happened to be” I mean the bookstore was an important factor when my husband Sean made our reservation. (He has a history of surprising me with bookstores on our international travels.) I’ll describe the experience of visiting the bookstore, but first let’s look at the books that brought me there.

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The first book is The Paris Bookseller by Kerri Maher. This historical fiction novel follows the life of American Sylvia Beach, who moved to Paris in 1916 and later opened Shakespeare and Company, an English language bookstore with her partner Adrienne Monnier.

The bookstore was remarkable for many reasons, namely for attracting a variety of authors to hang out among its stacks, including Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound, and F. Scott Fitzgerard. But most notable is Shakespeare and Company’s publication of James Joyce’s Ulysses in 1922. The book outlines how Beach provided a vibrant space for writers of that time, her tumultuous working relationship with Joyce, and the eventual closure of the bookstore in 1941 during the German occupation of France.

Yes, the bookstore I visited was not the original Shakespeare and Company location, which brings me to the second book that brought me there: The Paris Novel by Ruth Reichl. This novel set in the early 1980s follows young American Stella as she follows the directive of her once-estranged and now-departed mother: “Go to Paris,” accompanied with a one-way ticket.

Reichl is food writer, editor, and restaurant critic, which makes this book especially delicious as she details Stella’s coming-of-age in the culinary world. But central to the book’s plot is Stella’s residence at Shakespeare and Company as one of its “Tumbleweeds.” (Tumbleweeds were aspiring writers and other creatives permitted to sleep amongst the bookshelves in exchange for work around the store.) George Whitman opened the left-bank bookstore in 1951 first named Le Mistral, and re-named the store Shakespeare and Company in 1964 in honor of Sylvia Beach.

Visiting Shakespeare and Company now is a mixed bookbag of sorts. On the one hand, stepping through the doorway is a portal to an illustrious history of books and writers and dreamers. But the bookstore has transformed from a literary hub to a constant stream of tourists lining up throughout the day for a chance to look around. We were there during a Paris heatwave, yet there was no way I was going to miss this opportunity. And so I queued up.

Perhaps the best decision the store made was to prohibit photography inside the premises. Otherwise, the Instagrammers would certainly have taken much longer looking at the titles, or more aptly looking at themselves looking at the titles. But I was glad also to have this encouragement, to take in the sights of crowded bookshelves and imagine Tumbleweeds walking amongst them.

I ended up buying two books that day: Nora Ephron’s I Remember Nothing and Stephanie Danier’s Sweetbitter. Not purchases I was over the moon about, but actually sifting through the titles was difficult due to the crowds. In all, I am glad to have made the visit. But you know what they say about a book being better than a movie? In this case, The Paris Bookseller and The Paris Novel transported me to times and places that were perhaps even richer than the real thing.

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This was the last leg of our 9-day walk covering just over 80 miles. After Conques, we would take a train to Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port to hike the Pyrenees from France to Spain the following day. But for now, we were grateful for this sleepy hamlet nested in a valley, and our only plans for the evening would be to visit the local church, the Abbey Church of Sainte-Foy

At dusk each day, a church official offers up the history of the abbey in front of the main doors. I really don’t remember much of what our guide said; every night after our long walks was a struggle to simply stay standing with eyes open. But that all changed in an instant after we toured the nooks and crannies of the abbey and sat down for a little musical entertainment.

A monk began playing wildly on the organ. Here’s a small sample:

But perhaps the most shocking part of the performance was the monk’s signature piece. As he started to play it, the lyrics appeared in my mind . . .

There is a house in New Orleans
They call the Rising Sun
It’s been the ruin of many a poor boy
And God, I know, I’m one

In this little French village boasting a population of 250, I listened to a wild organ rendition of House of the Rising Sun. (Sadly, I was too dumbfounded to record it). The monk’s performance of this cautionary song, about either a brothel or a gambling hall but surely about one’s ruin, took me to another place. It was a spiritual moment to be sure, but I can’t articulate why.

Imagine, if you will, the monk - perhaps working out his issues - as he pounded out the notes:

Oh, mother, tell your children
Not to do what I have done
Spend your lives in sin and misery
In the House of the Rising Sun

Or maybe he was a fan of this trad folk song popularized by The Animals (which happened to debut in the year I was born). I’ll never know, but I’ll never forget it.

We probably couldn’t afford wine at that time, and I don’t recall if we made that moment happen. I do remember at the end of the trip existing on potato chips when our travel funds ran dry. Sean and I have repeated this phrase over the years - just give me a little bread, a little cheese . . . whenever we want a change of pace, something to take us away. To me, his refrain is a celebration of savoring, something he is particularly good at.

Jump to last summer when Sean and I visited Paris again, in our we-can-afford-wine-now era. And yet, instead of wishing to dine at Epicure, Sean repeated his bread/cheese/wine desire. This time, we chose the Jardin du Luxembourg for our déjeuner and came to the park with provisions that included two tiny bottles of screw-top wine.

We were so excited to bring to fruition this idea we’ve played with for years. We started out on the iconic green metal chairs that are placed around the park’s paths. But then, Savoring Sean spotted a beautiful tree, and he decided we must elevate this experience further. So we dragged our chairs on the grass and continued our adventure.

I speak a little French, but I really had no idea what an older woman started screaming at us not long after we set up camp. I’m guessing it was something like, “Descendez de la pelouse, bande d’Américains stupides!” (Get off the grass, you stupid Americans!)

We didn’t understand her words, but we knew what she was telling us. We immediately packed up and brought our chairs back to the path. We were red-faced from being chastened (it stings a little more to be verbally slapped in French) but also from the strain of suppressed laughter. A little post-picnic research reveals that sitting on the grass, at least in that part of the park, was strictly interdit.

We may have been accidental ugly Americans in that moment, but we quickly fell back in line with Parisian park etiquette. We crunched a baguette that revealed soft, fresh dough inside. The ham and cheese cut with the knife Sean fashioned out of a coffee stirrer was rich with flavor, as is my memory of this Parisian moment flanked by sunshine and trees and all manner of Parisians passing by.

For more information on this scene, visit Jardin du Luxembourg

Hiking to Machu Picchu was a long-held dream of mine. So, when Jodi suggested it, I leapt without remembering that A) I am 60 years old, and B) some serious training will be required. My best preparation intentions collided with end-of-school year madness, and I wound up having just a few sessions with a personal trainer before our trip. In addition, I only hiked when the Phoenix temps were low enough to keep the rattlesnakes off the trail. Which is, to say, not very often in the month of May.

But I am an experienced long-distance hiker. I hiked hundreds of miles on the Camino de Santiago in Spain six times. I trekked the Dingle Way in Ireland. I went down and up the Grand Canyon in a day. Each time I felt underprepared, and each time I was able to complete the journey. I carried this sense of self-efficacy (read: cockiness) into our Peruvian adventure.

My confidence grew when I met the 15 women and one man who were part of the retreat. The mean age of our group was north of 60, and some were even in their 70s. They were a freakishly fit group - being yogis and all - but still I felt like I could keep up.

On the night before Machu Picchu, we took part in a Pachamanca, a traditional Peruvian meal cooked under the earth. While the food was being prepared, the retreat leaders led us through a fire ceremony. We were asked to write one thing we would like to release from our lives on a small piece of paper and throw it into the fire.

I couldn’t stick to one thing. My list was loooong, and I was hoping no one else could see it. But I settled on one main idea:

Release the perceived judgements of others.

I threw the paper into the fire, where it promptly blew back out - with one small edge hooked to the fire - for all to see. I just stared at the half-burning paper not knowing quite what to do. Finally, I quickly tapped, tapped, tapped the paper back into the flames somehow managing not to burn my fingers as I did.

The Inca gods clearly have a sense of humor.

The next morning, we started off on a train with beautiful glass ceilings to better see the wonder of the Andes. We stopped at KM 104 to begin what would likely be a 5-7 hour hike. We were brimming with excitement as we extended our legs and our hiking poles and set out.

As we began the hike, our lead Inca Trail guide, Antonio, commented that my pack looked heavy. “Oh, I’ve walked 200 miles with a 20-lb pack. This is nothing!” (See above: cockiness; Also: forgetting that I’m now 60.) It is true that my pack was too heavy for a day hike. What was in it? Mostly fear, in the form of too much water, too many snacks, and assorted unnecessary gear.

Due to recent storms, the traditional Short Inca trail had been altered, and our path would include a series of steeper climbs and switchbacks. Before setting out, I calculated that the ascent portion of the hike would take about 2-3 hours. After about the fourth switchback, I knew I was in trouble.

As the climb progressed, Antonio switched places with Maria, the “sweeper” who was a second guide assigned to bookend the turtles of our group. As the final turtle, Antonio cheerfully chatted me up for a while before saying, bluntly, “I think this will go much better if I carry your pack for you.” This despite the fact that Antonio had a pack of his own.

If you’ve known me for a minute, you can predict my automatic response: “No, don’t be silly - I’ve got it!” But one look at the intensity in Antonio’s eyes, and I realized the decision to hand it over was made for me. I was embarrassed. I felt called out . . . and then the inner beatings commenced.

”I should have trained better.” “Who am I to think I could hike to Machu Picchu at age 60?” “I did it again - made ambitious plans and failed to prepare.” “As usual, I’m the slowest one.”

It didn’t help that the Maria asked me at one point, “Did you not train for this?”

But the worst was yet to come. After hours of grueling, we rounded the corner to where we would stop for lunch. There facing me in a row were the other retreat-goers, well into their brown bags and looking quite refreshed. It was then that I saw one of the yogi’s jaw drop as she spotted Antonio sporting two packs. The heat rose through my face. Perceived judgment! The thing I tossed into the fire the night before, and yet it’s still there . . .

At that moment, it occurred to me that what goes in the fire doesn’t always stay in the fire. Maybe I need a few more fire ceremonies. Or maybe I can just release my own self-judgement, allowing it to waft into the mists of the mountain range.

After our lunch break, I took my pack back from Antonio. But then we came upon the Monkey Steps (also referred to as the “Gringo Killer”), a steep stone staircase most people need to use both hands and feet to climb. “Do you want me to carry your pack?” Antonio asked, this time with less urgency and with maybe a little challenging smile. I said, “No, I think I’ve got this.”

As I emerged at the top of the Monkey Steps, Antonio shouted, “You are Wonder Woman!” And I felt every bit of my new trail name.

Word on the Water: The London Bookbarge is located in the Camden Town section of London on Regents Canal. The 100-year-old Dutch barge contains a wide range of new and used books, along with cozy spaces to sit and read, should you choose to do so.

Every inch of space is used to house books along with some quirky decor . . .

Quarters are tight but everyone seems to be doing just fine. Booklovers make room for eachother.

Word on the Water opens at 12 each day. Sounds like a pretty good life! Well, add to that all the lovely greenery aboard. 💚

I finally found some psychology books on the rooftop . . .

. . . and the Bookbarge provided me with this wonderful book to read and share with my Positive Psychology students!

If interested, you can support this indie bookstore by ordering books online at

https://www.wordonthewater.co.uk/

Or better yet, visit in person!

This post originally appeared on thepsychologyreader.com

Don’t you just love getting a postcard?

On the front of the postcard is a scene - a snapshot that transports you to another place. On the flip side is a brief story from a friend or loved one, trying to put into words what it feels like to be there.

Postcardalia is just that - a collection of scenes and stories from an enthusiastic traveler. I’m a psychology professor by day, but a wanderer on long weekends and school breaks. My travels feed my curiosity about places, people, and the small moments that tend to slip by unnoticed.

And who hasn’t fantasized about not returning home at the end of a trip? One of my quests is to bring the best parts of travel - curiosity, attentiveness, savoring, wonder - into my everyday life. Postcardalia captures these scenes and stories as well. We rarely send postcards from our everyday lives, but maybe we should.

In short, Postcardalia is a celebration of places, both familiar and far-flung, and an invitation to embrace all that can be learned about our beautiful world.

I’m glad you are on this adventure with me!

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Last month, my husband Sean and I enjoyed a lovely Italian meal at Pomodoro in Manhattan, famous to some as the spot where Kramer broke up with George on Seinfeld. Minutes after we were seated at our table, the server ushered an older, single woman to the table next to us. Typical of New York restaurants, the tables are crammed together such that it feels like one is on a big group date.

And yet, my husband and I would have noticed the woman anyway, even if she wasn’t the width of a pizza slice away from us. Over the last few days, we were intrigued by the number of elderly women we saw walking alone around the Upper West Side. This by itself is not remarkable, but when cast next to the grittier characters of the city, these women were notable in the way they seemed to own the streets. Their eyes did not dart side-to-side as they roamed. They strode confidently, despite many of them having movement limitations.

I wonder about the lives of these women, especially as I chase them in age. Did they always live here? What keeps them living in a place that, with its uneven sidewalks and bitter cold winters, is seemingly trying to boot them out? Do they feel the same fear I sometimes do as a woman walking the NY streets alone? (I think I know the answer to that last question.)

Although my Sean is famous for chatting up strangers, he did not strike up chitchat with this particular woman. He is, however, a trained observer, and he noticed the woman jokingly ask the waiter if he had a blanket for her tiny frame because she was cold. She devoured a three-course meal that would put both of us under. She had a copy of the Wall Street Journal tucked into her tote bag.

But Sean missed something that I noticed as we paid our bill and left. In the corner of her table was placed the book Do Something: Coming of Age in the Glitter and Doom of 70’s New York by Guy Trebay.

I never heard of this book, never heard of Guy Trebay. But I felt a strong urge to pick it up and read it. Yes, I have 100 books on my to-read bookshelf at home, but really what’s one more? I was so curious to know about this book the woman brought along as her dining companion.

The next day, I found my way to Shakespeare & Co Booksellers on 105th and Broadway and located the book featured amongst new titles. After reading the book’s subtitle as I held it in my hand, the mystery of the woman’s life story burned in me. By my estimation, the woman would have been in her mid-20s in the “Glitter and Doom of 70s New York.” Did she live here? What did she see? What stories are locked beneath her now elegant exterior and unexpected ability to eat a volumes of pasta?

I won’t get to know any more about that woman, but I now know a lot more about Guy Trebay after reading his well-crafted memoir. Trebay is a style writer for the New York Times and has written for a host of publications including the New Yorker, the Village Voice, and Esquire. And reading his book transported me to a place and time so very different from my own upbringing, but one in which I’ve always been fascinated.

Trebay chronicles his movement from a middle class early childhood in the Bronx to a new-money life growing up on Long Island. But the bulk of his story transpires during the early to mid-70s in the art and culture scene of Manhattan. Trebay introduces the reader to a host of artists, drag queens, dreamers, and assorted Warhol Factory figures who embodied the scene at a very colorful time in the city’s history.

I Googled every character mentioned in the book, which was essential for this girl raised a decade after Trebay in the suburby bubble of Scottsdale. This required dropping the book often to go down deep Wikipedia holes. But I spent even more time looking up various words Trebay uses, such as vedette and plinth and lintel. I complete the New York Times crossword puzzle every day, but I learned more words reading this book than I have in a long time, and that was very gratifying for me.

Trebay’s family history is complicated, and one result is the wild weeds sort of childhood he experienced. Out of parental neglect came the opportunity to experiment, take risks, fall down, get up again. He was, what my husband terms, a “free child.” And it is through this liberation that Trebay flung himself into adulthood with a great deal of openness to experience and eventually forged a career as a writer.

I contrast Trebay’s upbringing with my own, in which my parents took more of a hothouse garden approach. I only dreamt of moving to the Big Apple as an 18 year old dancer, and I sometimes wonder what might have been if I had taken that leap. But Trebay’s book transported me to that place and time in history and culture, at least for a moment.

The woman sitting next to us in Pomodoro might just as well have been from Akron who picked up the book to learn more about this city she is visiting with her bridge club. (A woman with stories of her own, to be sure.) But maybe she was really Mary Woronov, reminiscing on her years as a cult star in Andy Warhol’s Factory and recalling a life and time that only precious few knew firsthand. I know better than to underestimate the life of any older woman.

This post originally appeared on thepsychologyreader.com.

And yet, one was born in 1988 and the other in 1964. One is my daughter Taylor and the other is me. And even though Taylor says she hears my voice coming out of her mouth more and more, and her husband has taken to chidingly calling her “Mary” at times, I spent most of her life in tune with the many ways we were different as mother and daughter.

But that all started to change in the last few years . . .

Childish mama dreams

As a young expectant mother, I assumed my daughter would be a mini-me. I was a quiet child, baby-of-the-family, who learned to charm and please to get along. Taylor, the firstborn in our little family, was a force. She set every agenda (which is still true today). She was quite conversant with the word no as a complete sentence (also still 100% accurate). She was willful where I was not, a leader where I tended to follow.

I ridiculously dreamed of a docile, “nice,” obedient child when I was pregnant with my daughter. What I got in the powerful package of Taylor was infinitely better, with one added bonus - she loved to read picture books just like her mother. Although our personalities diverged in numerous ways, we always loved reading together.

And just when I learned to celebrate our differences . . .

Fast forward a few decades to Taylor’s marriage last year. Shades of her mother started to emerge, as in the wedding-to-do Post-its covering her wall and bridal shower thank you notes that read like novellas. She retained, however, so many of her beautiful qualities, from her clear vision of what she wanted for her big day to belting out lyrics to the music she loves at the reception (her girl Britney, of course, NSYNC’s Bye! Bye! Bye! . . . )

But the real “my daughter, my self” moment happened while strolling the streets of the Upper West Side of Manhattan last fall, shortly after Taylor informed me she was pregnant. Whenever I visit her in the Big Apple, I make a point to check out the Strand Book Store on 82nd and Columbus. It’s usually my personal thing, just something I do on my own.

“Mom, can I come with you to the book store today so we can look for books for the baby?” Taylor asked, and my eyes instantly welled up. Her excitement as she picked up one book after another, exclaiming, “I loved this book when you read it to me!” is something I’ll never forget.

We left the store that day with lighter wallets, heavier bookbags, fuller hearts, and dreams about reading to the baby to come.

Taylor’s sweet son Hudson was born in April, and Taylor called recently to share something with me. “Mom, I am so embarrassed! I read I’ll Love You Forever to Hudson today, and I cried!”

Well, I’m guessing you know what Taylor’s mama did when she heard her say that . . .

This post was previously published on thepsychologyreader.com.

After finishing a run in New York City last month with my husband, I stumbled upon a streetside bookseller on Central Park West. Usually I simply breeze by street vendors in the city selling jewelry or I ♥ NY t-shirts, but I stop hard for books. My husband often tries to gently guide me by the elbow away from such tables while pleading, “Come on, let’s go.” His efforts are usually for naught.

He has some cause for worry, owing to an incident years back involving a Chinatown purse vendor in the city. Somehow our extended family, which included six children and his mother in a wheelchair, ended up being lured into a lower east side studio apartment furnished with nothing but knock-off designer bags. We left with no purses that day, just our lives for which we were thankful.

But this particular book display near the park caught my eye. One whole table was filled with old psychology books, with a seeming emphasis on Sigmund Freud and psychoanalysis. I immediately wondered, “Where did these books come from?” I envisioned the books were from the estate of one previous owner - maybe an upper west side psychotherapist who saw patients in the spare room of her classic six apartment. Please lie down on my couch, won’t you?

One book on the table was a later printing of Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams, which was originally published in 1900. Another was the two-volume The World of Psychoanalysis from 1965. Alongside older books was a relatively more recent 2009 Complete Guide to Prescription and Nonprescription Drugs. You can tell a lot about someone by the company of books they keep. It makes me wonder - What would my bookshelf say about me, should its contents find their way to some street book table in the future?

A Freudian might note that some books on my shelves are driven by the more parental superego (e.g., The Neurobiology of Learning and Memory) and others are pure, playful id (e.g., The Sober Lush). But a psychologist à la James Marcia might identify my professional identity status as in moratorium, meaning a full-on identity search is still underway.

After all, I have books like The Evolution of Consciousness sharing shelf space with All About Love by bell hooks. On my bookshelf, Why Trust Science piques my interest as much as Come Together, a book on sexuality in long-term relationships. In other words, if all my psychology books were placed for sale on a street in the Big Apple, there would be no indication the books came from just one person.

And that’s okay with me. One of my mentors used to encourage me as a new educational psychologist to “find my tree.” The trunk of the tree is supposed to represent one main psychological interest, and four or five branches of the tree are offshoots from that scholarly line. For example, the aforementioned upper west side therapist’s trunk appears to be Freudian psychoanalysis, with some branches such as psychopharmacology and childhood trauma jutting out.

My own trunk might be best described as “Psychology? Yes!” and the branches include many areas in psychology: educational, positive, health, developmental, cognitive, social, statistics, this list goes on . . . I used to be concerned that I lacked focus, a line of study that I can call my own. But now I know that curiosity and love of learning are the deep roots of my real tree that supports many limbs of wild interest. And that’s why I can’t resist any gathering of books on the streets of the city.

This post was previously published on thepsychologyreader.com.

I recently had a quick getaway to Borealis Basecamp, which is located about an hour outside of Fairbanks, Alaska. My lifelong friends and I were there to celebrate one of our crew’s 60th birthday and, of course, chase aurora borealis shows.

These gals are my learning network. Together we have traveled far and wide to learn new things while enjoying each other’s company. We have gone on long distance hikes in Ireland, France, Spain, and Portugal. We’ve hiked the Grand Canyon three times together. We feverishly share books, most recently Lessons in Chemistry. This trip was one more opportunity to add to our collective knowledge banks.

And sure, I learned a lot on this trip about the aurora borealis, (perhaps most notably that’s it’s not as easy to spot as shown in the movies!) I learned interesting facts about the boreal forest biome in general as well as the Alaskan pipeline. I learned about the sport of sled dog racing and the lifestyles of caribou.

But perhaps the most powerful learning was not factual in nature. On one day we went on a 6-hour snowmobile tour, which, before we left, I calculated would be about 5 hours and 59 minutes too long.

I wasn’t far off. I am a careful person by nature, and fear had it’s death grip on me as I tried to maneuver the machine without toppling over into a snow bank at best or a tree at worst. But my friends helped me with tips such as leaning away from a fall and using the palm of my hand on the throttle. They coached and cheered me on.

I had a flash of how I encourage my students all the time to take risks and be unafraid of mistakes. I soon realized that I often do so from a lofty perch. This experience reminded of how much I live in my comfort zone and how branching out and trying new things can make me stronger. How pushing myself in this way can help me handle more mundane fears in life, such as initiating a difficult conversation or saying no in certain situations.

I would lie if I said that I learned to love snowmobiling and mastered the beastly machine. I did not technically like a lot of it. But now that it is in my rear-view mirror, I am extremely glad I did it. This is an example of the vast hidden curriculum of traveling with my adventurous learning network.

This post originally appeared on Glendale Community College’s Write 6X6 blog.

As we check out of the country inn where we’ve been staying to see fall colors, I laugh at my husband Sean’s wardrobe choice. He jokes that he won’t wear tennis shoes with his jeans because he hasn’t “given up,” and yet here he is sporting a Captain America t-shirt. It fits with his crisply-shaven jaw and Dentyne smile, but he’s 57 years old, y’all!

As we drive to the airport, I reflect on the last few days in the countryside with “Vacation Sean.” Free from the pressures of work life, he morphs into another being. He leaps out from behind corners to scare me. He bends over a little too much on purpose to expose butt crack. “Anybody got a quarter?” he jokes.

And he buys strangers drinks. One such stranger in a country dive bar insisted that Sean was military. Sean shared he is a police officer (which actually is quite the euphemism for the work he does). The tall, bald man with a pointy long beard boomed back, “Well, I’m a felon!” which we also think under-sold his true story. But, the police chief and the former inmate had some good laughs and almost became Facebook friends, save my interference.

On the way to the airport, Sean does what he always does on long car rides – dramatically presents his hand to me to hold. After a few minutes, he’ll kiss my hand. Every time.

As we check our bags at the airport, we start to hear loud noises. Soon it becomes clear that a man is yelling at his wife. It’s hard to make out exactly what he is saying, but the word “bitch” is audible. The noise of the fracas elevates and falls. But, as I turn to look at Sean, I only see tension rising.

I see his eagle-focus stare. The ropy muscles in his neck contract, and yet he is very still. His muscular chest is following his steady but quickened breaths “Do you need to do something?” I ask. After 36 years together, we’ve been in this exact situation before.

Perhaps because he looks like Captain America, a woman approaches him and asks, “Did you see that? He almost pushed her down the escalator!”

More violent yelling, and we hear a child start screaming for the first time. Simultaneously, we both heave out some form of “Oh no!” and I start to cry. Sean, just keeps watch. “Let’s just stand over here for a bit,” he says. Not only is Sean a protector, he was, at one time, that same scared child. He assures me he will step in the instant it’s needed.

When a police officer finally arrives, Sean introduces himself, again, as a “police officer” and offers a summary of the situation. The officer thanks him for the information and also for his service, and Sean replies, “Be safe.”

As we get to the security line and Sean takes off his fancy shoes, I’m actually glad he hasn’t given up on dressing like a superhero on vacations, and I’m grateful for the invisible cape he signed on to wear at all times.

This post originally appeared on myloveoflearning.com

The lure of grape from local vineyards was slightly on my radar on a trip to Virginia with my husband Sean. One night in particular, we found ourselves around a fire pit at our resort. I assured Sean I didn’t mind if he had a drink around the fire, although I had a passing moment of desire.

But, I didn’t want to break my non-drinking streak. A few years ago I decided that alcohol was doing nothing good for my body and mind. I said goodbye to the drink and (mostly) haven’t looked back.

We checked with a nearby couple to make sure we weren’t stealing their space. They assured us it was not their fire, and we invited them to join us. But, being COVID season, they politely, and appropriately, begged off.

Soon after, another couple could be heard approaching from far away. They came barreling toward our fire and asked if they could join us. They pulled up chairs before we could respond, drinks spilling out of their hands as they plopped down.

The gray-haired man in a too-tight white tee explained inside of a minute that he was a government contractor. Before long we knew the story of how the couple first met, their current living situation, and just how much they needed “another goddamn drink.” The man asked what type of wine Sean was drinking and proceeded to go to the front desk to demand a bottle. He tipped the employee who brought the wine to our fire pit and bragged to us that he can pay anyone to do anything.

The waiflike woman watched her partner intently with legs crossed and one platform shoe wildly swinging. She popped up once to say that she is not just an average event planner, but that she works with “thome very pamous feople.” Then, she asked what I was drinking, and I explained I was drinking club soda.

“You’re not drinking?” she slurred, as the man kept telling us all about his ultimate dream to live in a pod in African desert. She interrupted a command to Sean: “Put a drink in your mouth and then kiss her and put it in hers!” Sean and I just looked at each other and laughed.

Well into the story of the man’s life, Sean and I excused ourselves to the restroom. On our rendezvous, we decided we needed to extricate ourselves from Drunk and Drunker – now!

We went back prepared to say our goodbyes as the man launched into yet another story about himself. I stifled the Samuel L. Jackson quote from Pulp Fiction: “I don’t remember asking you a goddamn thing!”

As he spoke, the woman’s head started bobbing up and down, and she started moaning, “I need to go to bed.” The man looked at her briefly but didn’t miss a beat, so engrossed was Narcissus in his tale. Sean and I watched the woman slowly but surely power down until she was passed out in the chair. We then both said to the man, “You need to get her to bed.” He said, “Uh, yah, okay,” and we made our escape.

This post originally appeared on myloveoflearning.com

At age seven, my daughter Taylor created agendas for her weekends. She always laid out her clothes on school nights, and she never forgot to do her homework. So when Taylor and her friend came home from the pet store with a fish in a baggie it was an uncharacteristic “leap” for her. “What were you thinking?” I shouted, as I considered the fact we had no fishbowl in the house. Or fish food. Or little fishbowl toys, “I named him Joey,” she said as she looked up at me, tears pooled in her blue eyes.

What lives on in family lore is “how Mom freaked out when Taylor brought home the fish.” What is less remembered is how we grabbed a Tupperware bowl and made a makeshift home for Joey. That we must have done something right because Joey lived longer than any earthly fish should live. The lessons under the surface that things generally work out and that it’s best not to get too worked up about things sometimes take longer to learn.

After this blip in Taylor’s orderly character, she returned to form as she grew older. She finished college in four years and landed a job right after graduation. She continued to arrive 30 minutes early anywhere she needed to be. At her job she would finish in four hours what she was expected to do in eight. And she was setting goals, the most prominent to move to New York City.

Taylor, the ultimate NY Rangers fan, outside of Madison Square Garden

In our phone conversations over the summer of 2013, Taylor went from saying, “I wish I could move to New York” to “I want to move to New York in November!” She quickly saved money, quit her job, and bought a plane ticket. Without a job in New York. Without seeing her rental in person. Without knowing hardly anyone. Did I mention she didn’t have a job?

“What were you thinking?” bellowed by me — this time over the phone line — had the same effect on my then-24 year-old daughter. But this time Taylor did the scrambling: She arrived in New York on November 16^th and started work on November 18th, she celebrated “Friendsgiving” with a pal from high school who lives in the city, and she is every day arriving 30 minutes early to a job she loves. Clearly I had learned nothing from Joey.

A popular self-help book encourages women to “lean in.” But for some women like Taylor, the better mantra might be leap. A well-timed leap might make the difference between a life of mediocrity and one filled with a fish named after a cute boy. A life of gliding on the streets of New York chasing dreams. The companion book for mothers might aptly be titled Trust.

This post originally appeared on myloveoflearning.com