Tag Archives: writing

I turned 50 and this is how it went

29 Monday Aug 2016

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I turned 50 a few weeks ago.

I’ve never had a problem with birthdays and getting older until this year when things started sliding down like an uncontrollable mudslide. I am now wearing 3.25 power reading glasses, my lips are thinning to the point that it doesn’t make sense to put on lipstick and my middle is getting squishier. There’s also the night sweats and that Welcome to the Club letter from AARP. The aging process is a culmination of unkind memories of a younger self that are still fresh in my mind.

You see, I don’t exactly feel like I’m 50. I mostly still feel like the dorky kid in junior high school with frizzy hair who doesn’t have a clue about most things. Most of my life I felt like I was the late bloomer. I didn’t even get my driver license until I was in college, didn’t find love and marry until I was in my 40s and I have no idea what Snapchat is. So here I am at 50 and I haven’t caught up to it—haven’t caught up to the shell of a body I have right now that is slowing down when I feel like I’m just getting started.

There is now a new box to check to identify my age when completing a survey or filling out a form, and I begrudgingly check it. I am to forever be in this separate category, pushed into a group that separates me from my younger self when I actually self identify as a thirtysomething who still has questions and not a whole lot of answers.

But I’ll be damned if I was going to turn 50 while sitting in the office. We had a big vacation planned to Panama this year for my 50th, but I couldn’t spare a long trip away from the office due to some projects, so we pushed that trip out to September. And because of the weird layout of our offices right now, even though I enjoy a spectacular view of the preserve outside my window, the dismal part is that there is not a soul who works by me. There would be no one to bring in bagels or even a cupcake for my birthday. No, I would sit there all day as the clock ticked away my last moments as a 49-year-old while I answered email and worked diligently on work stuff.

Nope. Not going to have it.

So  I came home one day a couple months ago and announced to my husband and mother (who lives with us) and said, “We’re going to the beach on my birthday.”

Life’s a beach

Growing up in Oregon and being an August baby, I always had my birthday at the beach. My folks would load up the family van with every Coleman camp accessory imaginable and we’d camp at either Fort Stevens or Beverly Beach campgrounds on the Oregon Coast. Sometimes it rained—poured, to be exact—on our big green family tent, but mostly we were able to catch the few days of sunshine Oregon managed to eek out at the coast. Never mind a few days of rain. It was the sunny day at the beach we were gambling for.

At the beach - 1968

The birthday trips to the beach started as early as my 2nd birthday. A trip to Beverly Beach with family friends (the two adults to the left and the little blond girl and boy who were more like cousins to us.)  I’m the kid looking over my shoulder.

On the beach my brother and three sisters and I would  start playing in the sand, building sand castles and then looking for sand dollars. Eventually we’d get the courage to enter the frigid Pacific Ocean and we’d stay there for hours on sunny days. Less so on cooler, overcast days.

family at beach

Some days we didn’t even bother putting on swim suits. Ordinary street clothes were just fine. (I’m the one in the striped t-shirt on the right.)

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Me as a high schooler (frizzy hair and all), wearing my mom’s old college sweat shirt, sitting under the rain canopy over our campground picnic table celebrating another birthday at the beach. No Oregonian would be caught dead without a canopy.

When I got older and started traveling I quickly learned that ocean water doesn’t have to be cold. What? they’re not all like Oregon beaches? When I started traveling to the southern part of the country and even further south to Mexico, Central America and the northern most part of South America—right smack on top of the equator—I fell in love with warm ocean waters that lapped up on white sandy beaches.

And that’s what I was looking for on my 50th birthday this year: A birthday at the beach where the sun was out, the sand so blazing hot that you have to hop around on the sand as if you were walking on fiery coals, and, of course, water as warm as a bath. My husband and my mom and I traveled the 7-hour drive down south to South Padre Island, which is still in Texas and spitting distance to the US/Mexico border. It was the beach I wanted. No camping (the bones hurt at this age, remember?), but we stayed at a lovely hotel right on the sandy beaches of the Gulf of Mexico.

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That’s me on my 50th birthday at the beach on South Padre Island a few weeks ago. Matching the hotel beach towel was a bonus.

Being at the beach was exactly what I needed. My husband and I played in the waves, rode a boogie board and we even danced on the hotel deck to Top 40 songs covered by a live band. And we had Italian ice cream, so diet be damned. I AM NOW FIFTY!

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And then like most 50-year-olds, I got pensive

In the weeks approaching my 50th birthday I had been compiling a list of 50 Things I’ve Learned that I thought I would share with you here. It’s been helpful to reflect and maybe I have  learned a few things along the way.

  1. Always smile in an interview
  2. The best way to get help even when you’re really frustrated is to tell someone in customer service “I really need your help. Can you help me?” Works all the time. Especially if you sigh first.
  3. Never go on a cruise during Christmas break if you want to avoid children.
  4. Whenever buying something on the internet before you check out make sure to search for coupon codes online. There is almost always a coupon code to use.
  5. Getting Global Entry and Nexus is totally worth it.
  6. Take the time to go through your photos right after your trip so that you can edit and delete sooner rather than later. Because, let’s be honest, you’re not going to get back to them after that. And if you do wait until later, then you’ve got a big mess to get through.
  7. Good knives are worth the money spent.
  8. Keep a bowl in the freezer. There is nothing better than eating cereal from a bowl that’s been frozen. Trust me.
  9. Chiggers will always find me.
  10. Bandannas are a curly, frizzy girl’s best friend when she travels.
  11. Those shower caps in your hotel room make great covers for DSLR cameras when it’s raining outside.
  12. It’s OK to photograph in Auto.
  13. You really don’t need bridesmaids.
  14. Never end the year with unused vacation days.
  15. Buying clothes a size smaller with the hopes that that diet will work is never a good idea.
  16. Always document the items you give to charity. It all adds up and will help you come tax time.
  17. Tip your hair stylist well. He or she will always take good care of you and will move mountains for you if you need a last-minute appointment.
  18. Prayer is helpful.
  19. Writing is hard work.
  20. Smart people are those who ask questions because you can pretty much count on others in the room having the same questions.
  21. Never say never.
  22. Babies on airplanes aren’t as awful as everyone makes them out to be. That’s what headphones are for anyway.
  23. Having a good tailor will open up all sorts of possibilities with your wardrobe.
  24. Don’t workshop a highly emotional memoir at a writing conference without a box of tissues.
  25. Try to meet in person some of the people you connect with on Twitter.
  26. Go to your 30th high school reunion. The cliques have dissolved and everyone wants to hug everyone. People have been through lots of hard stuff by then and it’s all better.
  27. Try karaoke once.
  28. If you do karaoke sing something by The Eurythmics because there’s probably only, like, 3 different notes in the whole song. Hard to go wrong.
  29. Don’t paint/tile/renovate your house in a vanilla sort of way for resell purposes. Decorate it tastefully in a bold way that YOU like.
  30. Learning to sew (hand stitch and machine) is an important skill to have.
  31. Before going to the doctor make a list of questions and use that to guide a conversation during your appointment.
  32. When giving feedback (at work, or on Yelp or someplace else), remember that the person you’re talking to or about is a person too.
  33. It’s perfectly okay to not have the desire to have children.
  34. Smile at a person who looks like they’re having a bad day.
  35. Don’t burn bridges. You just may end up working at that company again or work with one or more of those people again.
  36. Let falling in love be the reason you try something scary…like scuba diving.
  37. Bookmark Snopes and be a fact checker.
  38. Exercise gets harder as you get older.
  39. Don’t be afraid to just shut up and listen to people who believe completely different than you. It’s amazing what can be learned and shared by people on both sides of an issue.
  40. Surround yourself with a variety of people and viewpoints.
  41. More people are charitable and kind than not. Remember that when things in the world seem awful.
  42. There are so many answers to be found on the internet.
  43. There are so many lies on the internet.
  44. Every woman should own a pair of red shoes.
  45. Talk to people how you would like to be talked to.
  46. Not everyone will like me.
  47. There is always someone having a worse day or life than me.
  48. It is totally worth the money spent to get great seats at theatre, symphony, opera, rock concerts.
  49. It is better to be true than right.
  50. People still like receiving handwritten thank-you notes.

 

 

Reaching for words

07 Sunday Sep 2014

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It was a rookie mistake. I had no idea that workshopping a very sad personal story would turn out to be such a bad idea. And by “bad idea” I mean there were tears in the workshop. Not from readers, but from me. This workshop was part of the Book Passage Travel Writing and Photography Conference I attended in Corte Madera, California last month and I was all prepared to be encouraged and motivated and receive really inspiring directional feedback. I wasn’t expecting the tissue box to be passed my way.

Workshopping an essay is not for the timid, and while no one would describe me as timid (ever), I hadn’t workshopped any of my writing since I took Creative Writing in college. All those creative juices I thought I was squeezing back in college almost immediately turned into lackluster business writing of emails and PowerPoints over the course of the last 25 years. No one that I know even writes documents in business anymore. We write in 24 pt. font on slides with bullet points where punctuation is optional. There’s no time to workshop a piece at the office and why would we? Most of the time we’re up at midnight throwing together the presentation that was due a few hours earlier and, to be frank, no one cares about the prose. I wish they did, though. I miss striving to write great prose.

GEMO or “good enough, move on” is the mantra, because there’s another assignment brewing. There’s no feedback of a written piece. No one in business brings together a group of people, sitting in a circle to make comments like, “But we want to know more about how you’re feeling—what did you think when you were told to lead the annual United Way fundraising campaign? Can you dig deeper?”

So that’s why I started writing about stuff I care about

It was just three years ago I decided that if I didn’t have an outlet for creative writing I would likely explode into a million tiny pieces. The emails and PowerPoints were never going to help me reach the Self Actualization pinnacle of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, so I opened up a WordPress account and started blogging. Blogs are “rough,” and a bit off the cuff and I could write on my own schedule, which is generally late at night after a long day at the office, or on the weekend while a pile of laundry goes unfolded, and dishes sit in the sink. And I admit it: there’s so much satisfaction with putting words down and hitting Publish.

There. Done. Move on.

I move fast. It’s how I’m wired—I’m impatient with the world and impatient with words. Feedback on my blog? Oh, I’d love it. Really. But I don’t elicit it. That would require time. And waiting. And the responsibility to dig deep. At least I’m one notch better than business writing, but not much, which is why I really needed feedback.

How I ended up workshopping. And crying.

You can’t be in management in business without learning to give feedback and get feedback, which means I have pretty thick skin. So, the desire for feedback led me to the workshop at the Book Passage Travel Writing and Photography Conference. There were seven other brave souls who labored over their own pieces we eventually dissected along with our faculty leader/moderator over three mornings. The feedback was always constructive and gentle and every single piece of advice I received was perfect in making my essay better.

I just didn’t realize that it would, well, make me cry.

The essay recalled the events of finding out my friend’s death the morning after I had exchanged “I love yous” with a man I was rendezvousing with in romantic Bath, England. Revisiting this lovely/awful mashup rubbed me raw like Meryl Streep’s character in Silkwood where she is getting sprayed down with fire hose force while someone is coarsely scrubbing down her skin in the shower after she had been contaminated by radiation. That kind of raw. When you’re that exposed and tender with emotion someone could have suggested that I should have used a different font for my essay and I would have sobbed.

I always want my travel essays to take the reader back and really be there in the location, but I forgot that it takes me there too. It broke my heart all over again, which is probably why I never went that deep in the first place. At first I was okay when the instructor began to talk about what he liked and then questions from the group arose as to why I didn’t write more about the details of my relationship with my friend, how much I knew about her illness and what she knew about this man I was meeting in England. Water in my eyes filled up the more everyone probed about my friend. Was I having a tree allergy, perhaps? Sure, that was it.

The woman to my left saw the puddles of water in my eyes and said, “Can I give you a hug?” and that’s all it took to release the dam holding back my tears. I lowered my head as if to pray and covered my eyes under my glasses, thinking no one could see me cry. Horrified to think that they all thought I was upset over the feedback I stuttered out, “I’m sorry. It’s not the feedback. It’s not the feedback. It’s all great. I just didn’t expect this.”

I had no intention of diving too deep into this mashup of romantic love bursting at the seams with the excruciating pain of the death of my best friend. I lived it once already, wrote about it two years ago and just figured I’d make it better in this workshop. No big deal, right? I supposed I would just casually snorkel near the surface and keep it safe. I didn’t know I’d be strapping on the tank and going deep below the surface to see what was in each cavern or see new creatures and coral I couldn’t see from the top.

Sometimes you need help to reach

Helping you get there—to get deep—is what workshopping groups are supposed to do (and what mine did for me last month at the conference). Each member of our group provided me an outside viewpoint that woke me to new words I couldn’t get to before. For me, reaching for words alone is like sticking my arm in a hole in the ground that’s only three-inches deeper than the length of my arm and my fingers are wriggling and stretching to try to pick up words lying there like a pile of plastic red, blue and yellow Pick Up Monkeys I played with as a kid—monkeys with their arms curved like hooks so they can link one to another in a long monkey chain. But my arm isn’t long enough and I can’t reach the monkeys. I know they’re there but they’re just out of reach. If I could just get one of them I could grab the rest of the pile. So I lie there on the ground with my arm stretched out as long as I can muster and wriggle and wriggle my fingers in hopes of grasping a word that will link to another and another in a long chain. I usually give up and just move on. But a workshopping group doesn’t let you  move on.

Words are often unreachable and for me, it takes others to help me reach a little further even if it’s painful. That’s the joy of workshopping—you get to where you need to be, even if it does make you cry a little. Just because time has passed doesn’t make visiting the past any easier. Getting to the right words takes time, patience, a long arm, some great folks to provide feedback to point you in the right direction, and maybe some tissues.

But next year I’m not going to make such a rookie mistake. Maybe I’ll save the deeply emotional pieces for one-on-one feedback, so if I cry it won’t feel the need to be so apologetic about my tears.

I think next time I’ll just bring an essay about birds.

Do you ever struggle for words when you write? How do you break through that? And have you ever workshopped a piece that brought you to tears? (Because if you have, that would make me feel a whole lot better.)

 

Letter to my readers: Some people at TBEX taught me about writing. The good kind.

16 Sunday Jun 2013

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There's not room for two big egos in this photo.

There’s not room for two big egos in this photo. (Instagram)

Dear Readers,

I started this blog almost two years ago because I wanted to practice writing and get good at it. I didn’t mean for it to turn into a travel/food/my falling in love with my long-distance suitor stories/sometimes rant blog. Some of you are my family and friends and even coworkers who either felt pressured to subscribe or had a real sincere desire to find out what makes me tick. Some of you also follow my other blog The Accidental Birder because, frankly, you probably got tired of my pestering you to follow my badass birding adventures around the globe. To you, I apologize for the abhorrent writing you’ve had to face and the random and inconsistent posts.

Sometimes I vomit out too many adverbs on a page. And other times, I’ve hit “publish” and then gone back three times (at least) to clean up the mess. I know that, and the first step in overcoming any problem is admitting it. The second step, I’m certain, is to go to a conference for bloggers to get some rehab, which happened to be TBEX (Travel Bloggers Exchange).

When people and speakers think you’re weird. And that’s okay.

I was over the moon on my first day at TBEX. It began wonderfully with the writing workshop, led by Pam Mandel, Andy Murdock and David Farley. We broke into small groups of about 12 people and I got a chance to read part of one of my Accidental Birder posts. The look on David Farley’s face when I explained that I’m a global birder was priceless. You know that look someone gives you when they’re not sure you said what you said? Like you were speaking in tongues? I got that look. Turns out I got a lot of those weird looks all weekend. Yes, y’all. Looking at birds around the world. It’s a thing.

Looks like I’ve got my work cut out for me.

Pam Mandel, David Farley and Andy Murdock help us not suck as much at writing.

Pam Mandel, David Farley and Andy Murdock help us not suck at writing.

My second small group session during the workshop was with Pam Mandel and we didn’t really workshop anyone’s writing, but rather workshopped ideas and challenges. I received sage advice on how I might tackle my latest adventure in Ecuador where it didn’t exactly turn out so awesome. You, my dear reader, don’t know that yet—the part about Ecuador not being so awesome—because I haven’t had the nerve to write it. I’ve only shown you super fun stuff like the custom-made red boots I got in Quito.

If there was one thing that impressed me most, it was the genuine advice and feedback I received at this workshop and in their follow ups with me. These are the connections that are the most meaningful at a conference like TBEX. I only wish this could have been an all-day workshop.

When people are surprised you don’t make money at this. That’s okay too.

The other workshop I attended was the Instagram walking tour with Katja Presnal. As we were walking around Toronto in the crazy heat and humidity I was having a nice chat with a woman about my Accidental Birder blog when she asked, “So how do you make money at that?”

“Uh, I don’t.”

I thought everyone did this for the love of writing and have regular careers and never have a tidy home.

It wouldn’t be the last time someone would ask me about the business side of my blog. And guess what—there is no business side of either of my blogs.

So, it turns out there were Monetizing sessions at TBEX. I thought that was another conference. (No, not really, but it kinda felt like it.)

Meanwhile, back on the walking tour….

Apparently, reading small print like, “It’s a walking tour so wear comfortable shoes,” got lost on me. Also, rules like “keep up with the group” seem to be important. I got turned around and separated from the group so I walked back to the hotel and noticed that the CN Tower had been stalking me.

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CN Tower is totally stalking me. [Enter creepy music.]

This is how old people party. Or not.

So readers, I hate to report that I didn’t go to any of the parties. Instead I spent the evenings with Steve, the husband, because we’re that weird couple where each lives in a different country. Toronto was a rendezvous point and to be honest, I’m just kind of too old for those parties. But I heard they were really fun.

Did someone lose her shoe? That must have been some party the night before.

Parties so fun that someone lost her shoe. That must have been some party! (Instagram)

I should have been tormenting you differently

Back at the Toronto convention center ranch of 1300 bloggers I stuck to the content track at TBEX, which gave me really good tips and direction to improve my writing, photography, content development, and to be quite honest, make it easier for you to follow along. I even learned, ala Mike Sowden, how to torment you and make you want to read my blogs to the end. I have no idea if you finish reading any of what I’m posting. I’m lucky if I get three comments and I’m assuming those people have read to the end. I think I’ve been tormenting you all along, but not in the way Mike suggests. Sorry about all the bad writing tormenting. (<–See? even this sentence is bad. Ugh.)

See anything good?

I also met some lovely people, one of whom happened to be another birder, Laura Kammermeier of Nature Travel Network. On the first day we had lunch with my husband (the real birder) where we shared stories and adventures. Laura’s insights on the difficulty in networking were spot on when she said:

I don’t know how to break into this group here at TBEX. In the birder world you just go up and say, ‘See anything good?’ and that starts the conversation. Here? I don’t know.

Yeah, I couldn’t figure it out either. Gosh, 1300 attendees is a lot of people and kind of difficult to connect. But there was a really cool sculpture of birds right outside the convention center. Thanks Toronto, that was a swell welcome for us two birders. Made us feel kind of special. And smart because everyone else was calling them just woodpeckers. But we birders were geeking out about it and, of course. knew what species they really were.

In case you didn't know, that there is a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker.

In case you didn’t know, that there is a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker (the other one was the Pileated Woodpecker). You totally want to party with me, right?

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By the way, there was a GOB of construction going on in Toronto. (Instagram)

A cheap date. (Not in the sense that she’s a trashy girl.)

Did TBEX meet all my expectations? Kind of. But it was sort of a cheap date and I got what I paid for. I bought my conference ticket ûber early and paid under $100 for it. I maybe passed out seven of my cards with my blog info because they were people I genuinely wanted to connect with. I didn’t speed date. I don’t even know what the Marketplace thing was. And as I mentioned above, I didn’t do the parties. Or the after parties. I just stayed the course with the content track and felt like I took advantage of 1/5 of the conference, which was okay. TBEX was a cheap date and that’s fine. If I want more out of a conference I will need to invest a little more for that. I don’t need all the other stuff the sponsors were paying for—the parties and the monetization breakouts. Not saying they’re bad, but it just wasn’t my focus.

I took pages and pages of notes, so I know I learned a great deal. Most importantly, I learned to not just slap up crap on my blog just to stay consistent. It’s more important to really work through a piece, edit, sleep on it, and edit some more. So that means I may not post something weekly. It just might even be once a month. I don’t know yet. I liked working in a rhythm, but I was only making incremental improvements in writing, not monumental steps.

You see, it’s about you, not me. That’s a tough thing to learn and rather counterintuitive to personal blogging if you think about it. Blogging started about me, but if this is going to be about engagement I have to respect your time as well and give you something for your time, like something interesting to read. Or something you learn. Or at least one embarrassing photo of me.

And then I’m sure you’ll always finish my posts to the end.

Warmest regards,

Lisa

A letter to Longfellow: I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day

23 Sunday Dec 2012

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Dear Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,

Henry W. Longfellow*

Henry W. Longfellow*

Sir, the pain you felt after your second wife Fanny died in that horrible fire is unimaginable. You raced to her side to help squelch the flames only to lose her later, and because you were injured yourself from the fire, you couldn’t even attend her funeral. Then add to that the pain you suffered from your son’s injury in the Civil War, it must have been unbearable. The sudden loss of family—especially when their time has not come—is the kind of grief no one should have to endure.

Since your passing, we’ve seen too many wars—two of them World Wars. We’ve had enemies attack us twice on our own soil with the last one being the destruction of two towers in New York City where nearly 3000 people died in a matter of a couple hours. And most recently there is deep heartache of parents who are laying to rest their little ones who were gunned down in their classroom. It all seems senseless to me. But I don’t know why any of it should make sense.

Grief often feels like the enemy. It comes in to attack us and take us hostage, and though I didn’t bury a child last week or lose a spouse or child at war, I have been walking around with a heart full of sadness and despair, wondering how I can exist in this world that is full of darkness. I felt much like you wrote in your poem Christmas Bells:

“And in despair I bowed my head;
‘There is no peace on earth,’ I said
‘For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men

So dear Sir, I was at church today. There were no bells—we don’t have bells at my church—but I did feel something from the Christmas music and the spirit of peace and love that was there. So even though there weren’t any bells, I could hear them in my mind. It was this:

“Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
‘God is not dead; nor doth he sleep!
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men!’ “

I really don’t know how the Right will prevail and I really don’t know how the Wrong shall fail. It seems like every day the Wrong prevails more and more. These moments that overwhelm us in the media try to crowd out any sliver of joy we might seek. Lives are destroyed, families are shattered, but I do have hope that misery and grief don’t have to paralyze us.

So this little note is just a thank you for writing your poem about hope. Because without hope, despair wins and so does Wrong. I am grateful for the bells of Christmas Day to help remind me that we can have peace on earth and good-will to men. My prayer is that those who are directly impacted personally by recent tragedies will find the bells comforting as well.

Kind regards,

Lisa

*The photo of Henry W. Longfellow is in the public domain. (The copyright has expired.)

Browsing Paris

21 Sunday Oct 2012

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Seven hours. That’s all we had.

Our plane had just landed at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris and we had two choices: A) Sit around the airport for seven hours or B) Get into Paris somehow to see something. Anything. And get back in time to catch our flight to Venice.

We went with B.

I’m generally a planner and I follow rules. Both planning and rules seem to keep me out of trouble and keep things “safe” for me. They also, I’ve learned, spoil adventures and don’t leave much opportunity for serendipity to call on me. So this time adventure trumped “safety” because I wanted my mom to see Paris–even if it was just for a few hours. We were on our way to Venice to begin a 14-day Mediterranean cruise and it was just too tempting to not let her see one of Paris’s storied landmarks during our seven-hour layover.

I had been to Paris before on business but my mom—this was her first time. So we had a mission and our adventure was bound by a clock, which made the whole thing a little bit more exciting.

The always crazy Charles de Gaulle Airport

I love Paris, but I have to tell you, the airport just wears me out. For some reason, Charles de Gualle airport is a serpentine of stairwells and hallways you have to navigate through. And it doesn’t help that the airplane I generally arrive on doesn’t even drop me off at the actual airport building, but somewhere in the middle of the tarmac.

Down the steps of the plane onto the tarmac. (Am I the only one who thinks she’s going to fall down the plane’s stairs?) Then on to a shuttle, then through a door, up a small staircase, then down another hall, down another staircase then up another staircase, then down more hallway. Every time this happens to me I’m convinced I’m going the wrong way and will end up in the employee locker room.

Can someone tell me why this line isn’t moving?

Once we saw Customs and Immigration we were relieved to find that we were indeed in the right place, but the line wasn’t budging. No one moved. We were in line for nearly an hour (tick tock, tick tock) and we were losing time on our adventure. There was only one immigration officer’s booth open and he wasn’t moving very fast either. After the hour passed the line started moving again. (It was around lunch with very few workers at this time. Just keep this in mind if you try this on your own, kids.)

One reason to love the French: The Air France Bus into Paris

Because I did my research ahead of time I learned that once we went through immigration and checked our bags in for the Venice flight all we had to do was make our way to the Air France counter between terminals 2E and 2F and we could catch a bus into Paris. It had been two hours since we landed.

Five hours left in our adventure.

Catching the bus into Paris couldn’t have been easier and it was only €24 RT for each of us (and by the way,1/2 price for kids under 11 years). We found the Air France counter, paid our fare and hopped on the bus (which leaves every 30 minutes) for the hour-long bus ride into central Paris.

This is what I look like after a long flight from the U.S.

Hey look! It’s mom at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris!

The driver dropped us off at the Arc de Triomphe where my mom and I shot photos of each other, visited a typical Paris café and she had French Onion soup while I had quiche—so cliché but oh so French! After our lunch we wandered around the corner, admiring all the Parisian street lamps, the architecture and the bakeries—yes the bakeries! We each bought a pastry and then decided we needed to catch our bus back to the airport.

Two hours left now.

The cute Parisian cafe where we had lunch

We weren’t rushed, we weren’t worried. We were simply caught up in our little slice of Paris. It was kind of like visiting a library where you flip through the book while you sit in the comfy chairs but you’re not committed enough to check it out of the library and walk out the door with it. We were just browsing Paris.

Right when we got to the corner where our bus dropped us off our bus to take us back to the airport just arrived. We got on and took the hour-long journey back to the airport. We went through security again and found our gate just as they were calling our names to check in.

We checked in at the desk and then plopped ourselves into two chairs next to each other. And then my mom said, “That was really fun!”

Mom, let’s go back to Paris sometime and really spend some time there. Paris isn’t a seven-hour kind of place.

Four rather solid excuses for not blogging

02 Tuesday Oct 2012

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I know. I have some explaining to do. And I really don’t even have a good reason for my absence of over a month.

There I was back in August, cranking out some of my best writing—and I even managed to get Freshly Pressed—and what do I do?

I drop off the face of the planet.

It was a year to the date of blogging where I posted every week (in fact, I have two blogs–this one and Accidental Birder, so that means sometimes I was posting twice weekly), and I totally up and stopped. (screeching car sound)

The husb, Steve, calls it my blogcation.

Maybe.

The “Why”

Here are four possible theories on why I didn’t blog for over a month:

Sometimes writing is scary. My last two blog posts (It’s About Travel, Saying I Love You and Death and Channeling Sting’s Fields of Gold) were, I have to say, some of my better pieces of writing and for me, was a little (how shall I say?) revealing. Writing with that kind of honesty is new to me and I learned that it’s quite difficult to do. I felt a little weird like I did in Junior High School drama class when I had to get up on stage and act. It’s emotional and you have to do it in front of people. I dropped out of drama class on day 3, by the way.

My husband lives in Canada. I betcha didn’t know that. My husband’s business, which he just started, is in oil and the oil is in Calgary, Alberta. My career right now is taking place at a Fortune 100 Company in the U.S. For now, the right thing is to hang on to my job here in the U.S. until my husband’s company gets some legs. So, yes, we have a commuting marriage and it’s a little sad that I won’t see him as often. Alas, my muse is in Canada.

(Plus, he did the dishes a lot and cleaned the house and I’m doing all that stuff now. I won’t lie. I’m not good at all that. Did Hemmingway or Faulkner have to do the dishes? I doubt it. I learned this weekend from a friend that Proust sat around in his bed for years as he wrote. How come I can’t do that?)

Distraction #1: I’ve been redecorating. I’m queen of being distracted and there’s no better distraction for me than to shop. Since it’s just me and the cat puttering around the house I decided to get new furniture. It started with needing a new couch. The fabric just gave up after 12 years and all those worn out holes made me feel like I was living in a third world country. (I’m also queen of over stating things.) But the couch led to a chair and another chair and a coffee table, console table, lamp table and of course then a new lamp.

“What recession?” she says.

Behold! The new furniture

Check out those awesome candlesticks!

All this redecorating hardly helps me feel like Walt Whitman or Henry David Thoreau. (Though, maybe more like Proust now.)

Distraction #2: I’m up to my eyeballs in digitization. I came home from work late August and there was a big box waiting on my porch. I thought it was a birthday present. (My birthday’s in August. What, you forgot?) I tore it open and it wasn’t a birthday present. Instead, what I found was a box full of hundreds of slides and an unopened slide transfer machine I bought my mom for Christmas from Brookstone almost two years ago. My mom never got around to transferring the slides to digital so I just gave her a heavy sigh one day over the phone and said, “Just send it all to me and I’ll do it.” That was over six months ago. I have to be honest, it’s been one of the funnest things I’ve done and as I was posting them on my family’s private Facebook page this past month, my brother and sisters and my mom were all having a blast commenting and sharing stories. It was better than birthday and Christmas combined for me!

One of my favorite photos I transferred. That’s me, my older sister and my mom at Grand Teton National Park circa late 1960s. Dad’s taking the photo.

So, instead of writing I’ve been spending my blogging time going down memory lane. (And I’m only halfway done.)

Being okay with it all

I’ve pretty much decided that it’s okay that I didn’t blog for a month. Sometimes I need a break and I imagine you, dear reader (I’ve always wanted to write that), need a break from me.

Now, I’ve got to order some new pillows and an ottoman to go with that furniture. You don’t mind, do you?

Aside

Finding the Right Guide is No Accident: Interview with a Panamanian Bird Guide

10 Sunday Jun 2012

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Here’s an interview with Beny Wilson, which I wrote for my other Blog, Accidental Birder. Beny is a fantastic guide and read here his story of how he started birding through an inebriated neighbor, how he learned that by staying back to help an 81-year-old who couldn’t keep up brought him great emotion, and why he feels hiring local guides over international guides is important. He’s a great story teller and makes my job as an interviewer easy. Thought you would enjoy!

Click here to go to the story: Finding the Right Guide is No Accident: Interview with a Panamanian Bird Guide.

Beny Wilson, Panamanian Bird Guide

Via Finding the Right Guide is No Accident: Interview with a Panamanian Bird Guide.

A Scotland Rendezvous

07 Thursday Jun 2012

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A Scotland Rendezvous, Chapter 1

As the plane was lifting off from the Charles de Gaulle tarmac–my second connection on this trip–I thought,  “Well, there’s no going back now.”  Actually, that was the exact thought I had when the plane left my connection in Cincinnati. And the same thought when the wheels came up when leaving my home town in Salt Lake City the day before.  Three times I had the opportunity to bolt and I didn’t.

I was heading to Scotland–a country that wasn’t even on my bucket list. Pretty much all I really knew about Scotland was shortbread cookies, kilts and Highland dancing. I hadn’t even seen Braveheart and I wished I would have studied up on the country before this trip, but it was sudden. In fact everything about this trip was sudden.

I leaned against the window and looked out at rainy Paris thinking about how I can’t turn back when the man in the middle seat next to me asked, “Are you going home or visiting?”

“I’m visiting.”

“Seeing friends there?” he asked.

“Well, not exactly,” I fessed up. “I’m actually rendezvousing with a man I met online.  We’re meeting in person for the first time.”

The other man on our row who I now realized was traveling with middle-seat man then joined in the conversation.  “Oh, that is so Carrie Bradshaw! I want to hear!”

Even though my life wasn’t exactly–okay, not even close to–Sex and the City, I went on to explain how over the past six weeks I had been corresponding with a Canadian man who was studying at the University of Dundee.

Telling my story to my seat mates helped lessen my anxiety, but only until I landed. I nervously went through Immigration and Customs and then I stopped by the Ladies Room and checked my makeup, brushed my teeth and then looked in the mirror one more time and took a deep breath. I wondered what was going to happen next.  Was he going to  like me? Was he going to be disappointed?

I finally mustered up my courage and made my way toward the doors where I exit immigration, leading to where loved ones meet and where my Internet suitor would be. Standing there I thought, “Now my life is going to change.”

I looked for him.  I couldn’t see anyone who resembled the photo I had seen online. I stood there, knowing that I just needed to be patient.  This is not something to rush into. Then I thought, “Shouldn’t there be music swelling just about now?” At least that’s what I thought because isn’t that what happens in every movie with Julia Roberts?

And then I saw him–a man rushing in as though he was missing his train. He had flowers in hand and we both recognized each other from our pictures. We gave a stilted hug, chatted about the long flight, then he grabbed my bag and we walked out to his car.

His name was Steve and he drove me from Edinburgh to Dundee while we nervously talked as I looked out the window, which would normally be the driver’s side where I come from, but Scotland is one of those countries where they drive on the left.

Sheep in Scotland

I was taking in the timbre of his voice and noticed how Scotland looks just as I imagined:  Rolling green hills and the occasional sheep. When I write I always try to avoid the cliche, but when I travel I always feel satisfied when I run into the cliche, so that I know I’m not lost and have landed exactly where I intended.

We eventually arrived at his flat and he took my bags upstairs. It was Easter Sunday and the church bells were ringing all over Dundee. Or maybe that was my movie-script version of what was happening with me. I was smitten.

Go on to the next chapter.

Delta Airlines, I had no idea you were stalking me on Twitter

30 Monday Apr 2012

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I’m a big letter writer.

Back in the day (hate saying that, but it seems so long ago) I would often write Letters to the Editor. My first Letter to the Editor was to Newsweek magazine when I was in Junior High School. And would you know, they actually published my letter in the front section of their magazine several weeks later. I was a rock star in my Junior High for about, oh, 5 seconds after that. (I mean, who in 8th grade reads Newsweek?)

I’ve written several Letters to the Editor here where I live and two of them have been published and a third, in fact, was published as a feature editorial with my own byline. I was writing to the editor to voice my dismay at the lack of manners the audience had at a choral and symphony performance. Imagine my shock when I opened up my newspaper and found this!

And then there are my little letter writing campaigns. I’ll write my congressman, write the Home Owner’s Association, write my utility company. You get the picture. I write a lot.

I’m not a complainer. Really, I’m not. My parents simply instilled in me to have a voice and use the means around me to make certain I was heard or at least had a chance to be heard.

My letter writing has slowed down a bit. I’ve become extraordinarily busy with life, with work, and perhaps no one has been bugging me lately. Except for Delta Airlines. They’ve made it virtually impossible to resolve issues on their website.

Over the weekend we needed to get a receipt from one of Steve’s flights he took a couple of months ago as well as the one earlier this month. (Steve likes to delete the receipts/confirmations he gets from the airline. sigh) We contacted Delta through their website and they sent a receipt for the April trip, but then wrote that in order to get a receipt for the February trip we had to pay (are you sitting down?) $20.

Completely dismayed, I walked out of the room in a huff. And then I thought, “Hmmm. I think I shall tweet about this!”

Not even 60 seconds later I got this message back:

Okay, so I have to confess: THAT IS REALLY COOL! (And I hardly ever use all caps.) It’s cool because it happened so fast and they wanted to actually help me. Not come up with another revenue-generating solution for themselves. Long story short, Delta Assist was able to help me and got me our receipt and I didn’t have to pay the $20.

So, I’m learning that the usual tools on the website for contacting customer service are not nearly as effective as tweeting, though I feel like using Twitter is a little manipulative. Delta knows the same thing that I know–that having loads of followers isn’t as important as who you have following you. I don’t have a lot of people following me on Twitter, but that’s by design. However, Delta does know that I have followers who have lots and lots of followers and there are a few following me who would be considered influential. Not to mention, I threw in a tasty hashtag (#travel), which I believe got them squirming a bit.

Just so you know, after Delta Assist helped me, I tweeted out a nice shout out.

Parting advice: Be nice, be adult and always say thank you. And don’t ever abuse the process. Sure, there are yahoos out there who will a) complain about everything and/or b) think they’re clever in their hateful attacks. Remember that once you say it you can’t take it back. Even if you delete it later it’s most likely already spread.

Question: Has the Twitter channel ever been a conduit for helping you resolve an issue with a business? Post comments below.

Hello Panama!

22 Thursday Mar 2012

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I love Panama! Let’s move here!

Steve says that I say that for most every place we visit. I wanted to move to Cozumel, Mexico. And then I said that for Belize. Also said it for the Okanagan Valley in BC. But this time I mean it! Retiring here is very awesome for those who want a very cosmopolitan city, warm weather, inexpensive living and, well, loads of birds. We like the birds, natch.

Here’s the view from our hotel in Panama City

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Our first day we hired a man for a tour of Panama City. Fernando first took us to see the famous canal and gave a good oral history along the way in his comfortable air conditioned Montera SUV.

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We heard that the LDS Temple was nearby so we asked Fernando to take us there. In fact, it’s really close to the canal locks, so it wasn’t too far and Fernando had heard of it.

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Our next stop was the Amador Causeway–a playground for multi millionaires. That is, there are loads of yachts parked, some four star restaurants and spectacular views of the city. We took a few photos and had some pretty awesome gelato before we hopped back into Fernando’s air conditioned car to escape the humidity. (Hey, it’s tough when you had just left a big snow storm the day before.)

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Next, Fernando took us to San Felipe, the old Spanish Colonial city of Panama, which was built in the 1500s. We basically just drove through, as traffic was crazy. It’s undergoing a bit of an upgrade with a lot of renovating going on. As Fernando put it, “first it was the wealthy who lived here, them the middle class and then the poor. Now they want the poor to move out and they’re making it better for the rich.”

I guess they’re going full circle.

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Next poor Fernando fought through lunchtime, traffic to drop us off at the Allbrook airport where we would catch our AirPanama flight to Bocas del Toro.

That flight to Bocas del Toro was a bit of a curiosity. We landed on the mainland and we were supposed to be going to Isla Colon. For a minute I thought we had gotten on the wrong plane. But they then assured us that this was just a stop where a few passengers got off and then a few got on. And then up in the air we went again for an 8 minute flight to the island. Crazy.

Bocas del Toro reminds me a little bit of Ambergis Caye in Belize, but with fewer great restaurants and fewer nice hotels. A van took us to our lodging further away from the main town. It’s actually quite nice, as the lodging around the main town seems like its 80% hostels.

This morning I had one of my “impatient traveler” moments when there wasn’t any scrambled eggs in sight at the breakfast buffet. I have to remind myself that this isn’t the Marriott. This is Latin America and really a third world country when you’ve left Panama City. Things don’t roll they same way they do, say, in Hawaii.

So, I allowed myself to scowl for 30 minutes And then cheered up once we caught our taxi to town I search of a dive company.

Okay, here’s a hilarious thing about Panama: your cab you call isn’t just your cab. He can pick up other passengers who put out their hand. That happened to us twice today.

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After our two-tank dive (only $56 for a two-tank dive!) we grabbed a snack and caught our cab (and other passengers) back to our hotel where we hung out at the pool for awhile. We eventually lingered back to our room, showered and then headed to dinner at a little grill over the water. Burgers, ceviche with plantain chips and a Coca-Cola Light for me.

Speaking of, it’s now lights out. I’m tired.

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I typically blog on this site once a week. While in Panama you may see more frequent updates. Oh, and bear with me. I didn't bring my laptop and instead I'm using my iPad. It goes a little slower this way. Plus there will be typos, which no doubt you have noticed.

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