Yes, it really looks like that.

Cindy (My wife, for those of you who do not know me.) and I are back from a couple of weeks away. Two weeks in Italy – Venice and Rome. And a few days with my son in his home in Spain – a place you likely have never heard of called Zaragoza, halfway between Barcelona and Madrid.

For ordinary people like me, trips like this do not come very often. When they do, you see so much that is new. You do not just see, you experience, you feel. So much goes on, and it is hard, when you come back, to know how to talk about it?

“Did you have a good trip?” people ask, “Yes.” you answer. “Tell me about it,” they say. I don’t even know how to begin.

Part of it is the way I like to travel. I am not a checklist traveler. I don’t like flitting from place to place every day. I like to settle, to stay long enough in one place to begin to feel a part of it. I like coming out the door to the same little corner of the world and learning where the local bakery is, finding a place to have coffee. I like to wander, get a little lost, feel a little lost. I like not being tied to a schedule and giving myself time to stumble into things and peer a little into the soul of a place and people.

Travel that way and a place seeps into you. And all of it, or most of it, is different than the ordered life you have at home. You come back changed, or at least I do. What to talk about? The things I have seen? I saw history I could feel, and spiritual spaces and tiny corners that don’t appear on anyone’s tourist map. I saw the underbelly. The food? OMG the food! It was spectacular. Simple. Fresh. And eaten at a pace that has me questioning a lot about how I eat. There was a spiritual element to this trip. I visited 14 churches and basilicas. We worshiped in the only Methodist church in Venice. Only four others were there, and yet a profoundly moving experience. I fell in love with how many people came, all day long, to pray. I came home, moved. It was a relational experience, with more time spent talking with my wife and my son than I normally have. I learned a lot. About the people I love and about myself. There’s a societal and cultural element. We often talk about America as being “Great” and there is a lot to love here, but immerse yourself in a place and you understand how short we fall in so many ways, and how much we could learn from other countries and cultures. There was a creative element to it all. So much of what I saw and felt had me thinking of creative projects, art and writing. I made lists enough to keep me busy for a long time, knowing I would forget if I dod not write it down.

Too much perhaps. I am, as regular readers know, a slow processor, and after two weeks or so of everything being different, I come back still sorting things out. What to share. How to share it? It will be leaking out in my words and art and work for some time to come, I am sure. I am just not sure how.

“How was your trip?” Like all such journeys should be. Life-changing. I just have to figure out how.

Be well. Travel wisely,

Tom

PS: This comes largely from a journal entry this morning.

PPS: The photograph was taken from the Rialto Bridge.