Sam and I fly to France tonight to make a second pilgrimage back to the boarding school I went to half a century ago. But it’s more than a trip down memory lane. This time, I am aiming to make sense of the extraordinary history of the French village of Le Chambon-Sur-Lignon, especially as it […]
I’ve sent the final draft of my manuscript to the publisher and it has been accepted for publication. With that behind me, Debbie and I “snuck away” recently for a trip to Italy – a walking tour of the coast of Liguria and the hills of Tuscany. It proved to be a delightful and illuminating […]
{Update from both Sam and Debbie} First, an apology for the hiatus on our blog. Debbie will be telling you more about that. In the meantime, I want to tell you about our French immersion during March. It took three airplanes (we stopped in Barcelona and London), three trains, one bus, and one ferry to […]
I have not left my heart in San Francisco but I might have a weakness for the Fillmore/California Street neighborhood where we stayed in an Airbnb over the holidays. After ten days in this city some thoughts have coalesced but remain poorly defined. I want to like it here but I can’t. Or, I don’t want […]
Sam had his say, reflecting back on our Gap Year. It is always a pleasant surprise to learn more about what he is thinking. Now it’s my turn. My thoughts are not as organized or logical. I picture tidy file cabinets inside Sam’s brain, clearly labeled “Africa,” “France,” “Hunting,” “Lemurs,” “The Last Ferryman,” etc. Not so […]
{Dispatch from Debbie} Just start. Let it go. Serve others. Those were three of the things we heard at World Domination Summit 2014 in Portland, OR. Doesn’t sound like much. But these small phrases reverberate through my head as I unpack, attack a pile of laundry, go to the grocery store and re-stock the fridge. As […]
We have been back for a week. It has been a quiet return. I’ve been catching up on bills and creditors, recovering from jet lag and contracting (and then recovering) from gastroenteritis acquired here in the U.S. Debbie suffered a shorter bout in Uganda. The highlight of the week was a trip to Portland to […]
Writing those words makes me feel horribly spoiled: I am planning a digital detox while in Africa. You would be justified in asking why? To cleanse my Facebook-polluted brain? To “fit in” in a third-world environment where electricity and the Internet are not guaranteed? For convenience sake, because staying “connected” might be difficult? The answer […]
The long distraction of our impending trip to Africa is coming to a close. The mental rehearsals of packing and organizing are giving way to actual packing, selection and rejection of items, organization of papers and reviewing the weather channel with an eye on the next blizzard. The challenge of packing for hours of driving (from […]
I do not want to be writing this. I am having a down time. Some work I was hoping for did not materialize. I am eight months into the Gap Year. It has been a good eight months. It could have been better. I did not get done as much as I hoped to. My […]
