In the Hothouse

For many years, folks who know me well sometimes refer to me as the reptile. While I have not encouraged this nickname, I have come to understand that it is not wholly inappropriate. I don't tend to sweat very much. I tolerate very warm temperatures without great effort. While others are swimming in body soaking perspiration, my body tends to dampen only slightly even during intense physical activity which has prompted my friends – out of jealousy I am quite certain – to liken me to a lower strata of animal life. Which is why I was curious how I might respond to a taste of Bikram Yoga. Bikram is that version of yoga that requires you to spend 90 minutes in a room heated to 105 degrees and 40 to 50% humidity while you twist and turn and bend your body in ways that make you feel like a first cousin to a pretzel. Its benefits are legend ranging anywhere from stress reduction and enhanced flexibility to a sense of well being and injury repair. This is, of course, if you can steer clear of blacking out, crumpling over from dehydration, or succumbing to fits of nausea. I'm just sayin'.

I confess to being a bit wary of this experience. Lily has done it for a long time and, while she returns from class looking like she's been for a marathon swim, she swears she feels like a million bucks afterward. Since I have all the flexibility of a telephone pole, I concluded my time had come to turn over a new leaf and get my body to do things not previously witnessed by humankind.

We arrived at the bikram yoga studio and Lily, perhaps sensing my less than robust confidence at what would follow, generously found me a spot for my mat at the rear of the room where I could do my contortions in relative anonymity. And, as a bonus, there was a slight leak at the rear door that permitted the merest suggestion of cooler air to extend to my ankles. The room filled with persons that I immediately concluded were seasoned veterans of this discipline. I announced for all to hear that my goals were limited: don't die, and try beyond all measure not to leave the room, no matter how close to fainting you might be, no matter how nauseous. That latter issue is sort of an unwritten rule.

Our instructor was Amy Lane, a petite and energetic young lady who does several of these classes daily: a pro's pro. Amy Lane speaks at a pace that would shame an auctioneer. She belts out direction and helpful guidance at an alarming clip which, at first, seems so at odds with the uber-tropical atmosphere. But, Amy Lane is monitoring everyone with an eagle eye and a finely balanced sense of humor. Sadly, for me, I am so focused on just breathing and trying to bend my body in oh so unfamiliar ways, that I find myself watching other classmates to see what it is I'm supposed to be doing. I'm just trying to keep up here.

As my body swoops and stretches, bends and creaks, I find that I only feel like blacking out every now and then. My lightheadedness comes and goes. Man, it's hot. The trick is to stay under control keeping your breathing even and slow and not give in to open-mouthed gulps of air which, let me tell you, can be very tempting. Amy Lane says it's far better to suppress this urge for open-mouthed breathing lest your body lunge into a panicked fight or flight mode. Comforting. And, I find that whatever reptilian habits I may have inadvertently developed over the years are briskly out the window. Gone. I am shvitzing as I never have in my life. Even my ankles are sweating. When I reach down to grab them in one pose, they simply slide off my already liquified hands. Sweat is flying off me. My shirt, once a light gray when I entered this place, is now almost black and drenched. I reach for my water bottles and gulp what I can without losing the rhythm of the program.

When the clock strikes twelve – the moment when the 90 minute session is reportedly over – I suppress my almost overwhelming drive to urgently advise Amy Lane that she can stop now. But, I swallow that urge and melt into shavasana or corpse pose where you can lie still on the floor giving full surrender to your exhaustion. Amy Lane passes out chilled washcloths which, when resting on one's forehead and eyes, provide a sort of outsized pleasure that, in that moment, is pretty much what you want in life above all else.

I have survived! I am not dead; I did not black out. I am not nauseous. True, I am wondering what the quickest route to the North Pole might be, but I am more than relieved; I am energized by my modest success.

I will return! Isn't that what reptiles do?

The Final Curtain

It was our last full day on what had been one of the more amazing adventures of our lives. We had returned from the Philippine wilderness to the mayhem of Manila. Our flight out would be the next day, but first we had an afternoon to wander through this city and we got to do this with Jesse and Laura. In the considerable heat and searing sun, we walked through city parks and gardens, ventured up to the old walled city, and headed back in the hopes of catching the sunset. We took in the beauty of this place and tried to make sense of it against the ever present backdrop of poverty that punctuated the scenery. With every lush promenade came the homeless sleeping wherever the shade permitted. Beautiful monuments and charming horse-drawn carriages were balanced by small, naked children wandering with no apparent connection to anyone or anything.

We headed toward Boulevard Raxos, a broad avenue teeming with life both from the crazy quilt of suffocating traffic and the ubiquitous vendors selling whatever might catch your fancy. We thought how cool it would be to watch the sunset from a rooftop bar in one of the shining towers dotting Raxos and, just steps beyond, Manila Bay. Our search was fruitless, however, and we went to Plan B: find a 7-Eleven, buy cold beer and snacks, and head to the sea wall that runs along the promenade overlooking the Bay. With our cocktail supplies in hand, we sat four abreast atop the wall, our legs dangling over the edge, and stared out over the armada of fishing boats as the sun slowly set. Cold beer, pringles, oreos, and pizza flavored chips. Perfect.

Pictures were taken, memories were rehashed: three weeks, 11 flights, 22,000 miles covered. Swimming, diving, snorkeling, hiking, adventuring. The happy hour supplies vanished, and the Bay turned from blue to orange. We would have an absolutely delightful evening that night in Chinatown with Colin and Shanti, but it seemed as if the curtain on our trip fell as the sun did over the Bay. The orange and red sky and the now orange streaked sea were not unlike our own solar fireworks display – a wonderful exclamation point on some everlasting memories.

Off the Grid: The Tao Experience

How do you know when home is far away? I mean, really far away. Distance is important, for sure. But, it's not all about distance, is it? It's also about a taste of alienation and uncertainty; it's about a culture shift and a departure from all the sensory benchmarks we have in our day-to-day lives. It's something that transports us far beyond the realm we know and take for granted.

Such was the case for us in the Philippines recently as we ventured not just out of Manila, but further and further up the west coast of Palawan, a slender reed of an island southwest of Manila in the lower region of the South China Sea. To get here, at least for some of us, required six flights, one van ride, and three boat rides. To the ends of the earth, I'm telling you. The boat rides were courtesy of the “bangkas,” essentially narrow wooden boats with bamboo outrigging and two wooden benches facing each other to carry their six or seven passengers. The sounds the bangka engines make are not unlike those of a 1994 Camaro whose muffler has long been missing – only louder. From Puerto Princessa to Sabang to Port Arthur to El Nido. And, all this was merely by way of prelude to our jumping off point to lands that, for all we knew, had been officially mapped for the first time just yesterday. There were no people along the way. No towns, no cars, no planes. Nothing. All we saw en route was the occasional flying fish rocketing across our bow earnestly in search of something. The landscape was primeval: small, heavily treed islands, some with jagged cliffs jutting out of the sea. It would not take much imagination to feel like you were back in the Mesozoic era. I would not have been shocked to see a dinosaur lurking on the shore.

Our hosts call themselves Tao Philippines, a group that takes hardy souls beyond the resorts, the restaurants, the conveniences and creature comforts that satisfy most tourists. We would climb aboard their own much larger bangka that could accommodate two dozen guests and a small staff and head generally north through virtually uninhabited islands in search of good times and memorable stories.  As the Tao literature openly suggests, this trip is not for everyone.  I mean we're talking no toilet seats here, no towels, and electricity as a novelty, not a given.  We're talking sleeping in open air bamboo huts with pads for beds and mosquito nets to crawl through.  And, hot water?  fuggedaboutit. 

 

And, our guide for all this? An irrepressible fellow named Ollie, a former fisherman from the area, now transformed into part jack rabbit and part entertainer. Relentless energy and good humor flow through Ollie's veins pretty much the way blood flows through ours. Ollie could leap around the boat in hair raising fashion whether over and around the outriggers or from lower deck to upper deck. Gravity is not his enemy.

Our shipmates were an apt assortment of just the kinds of folks you might expect to find on a venture like this one: Brits, Germans, South Africans, French, Dutch, Norwegians, and one Filipino. Everything from teachers, to business managers of various sorts, to IT systems or sales personnel, a TV producer, and one former prisoner. Eclectic. Most of us intermingled to trade personal histories and travel experiences, and share commentary on what we now all faced. Given the fairly limited space available to us on the boat, we would get to know some of these folks far better than your typical fellow hotel guest.

Our days were awash in leisurely amblings about the Palawans, stopping for snorkeling or strolls around empty beaches, as we meandered through our 150 mile course to our end point, Coron. Snorkeling was without fanfare or ceremony. When we stopped for snorkeling, you would just find some fins, mask and snorkel and jump overboard. And, what you might find was amazing. Take Secret Beach, for example. Aptly named. From the sea all one could see was what appeared to be a very small island ringed with tree-covered towering limestone walls. What you did was swim to it from the boat and find a small tunnel to squeeze through and then swim your way to the bright sunlight beyond. Emerging from this darkness revealed a place that many could justifiably mistake for the Garden of Eden: a rounded interior surrounded by the same towering walls we saw from the outside, but with a level of quiet inside at odds at with what we had left behind moments before. Raising your head, you could hear the echos of your voice and others'. There was no breeze, no sound, just a pristine beach and placid water with a wild assortment of coral formations underneath.

Other times, we would find ourselves snorkeling in distractingly shallow water seemingly barely escaping the beautifully colored, but razor sharp coral beneath us dotted with the gorgeous but deadly black spiny sea urchin with their sharp needles unmistakably aimed at our bellies. We would slide by holding our breath, afraid to breathe lest we invite painful scrapes and stings.

Back on the boat, the time would pass with reading, dozing, or chatting, with everyone finding their own comfortable niche on the boat. Lily would find endless inspiration for painting. Chef Toto and his staff, working out of a cramped walk-through kitchen in the rear of the boat, would ply us with three meals a day and mid-day snacks. And, Toto did not disappoint. We're talking squid adobo, fried calamari, curries, beans, rice, watermelon, suckling pig (with its incredibly crispy skin), all washed down with a spicy ginger tea or a cold San Miguel. Other times it might be carved out coconut with papaya, mango and porridge or an amazing assortment of vegetables and fruits. The succulent and sweet mango alone was worth the trip. Whatever we might not have in the way of creature comforts was quickly forgotten when Toto's dishes were wheeled out for us.

Civilization did make an appearance every now and then, mostly in the guise of tiny fishing villages that would appear sporadically. When we would stop at these villages, the boat would get close to shore, and we would either swim or get ferried ashore. At one such place, we were greeted by groups of young, impossibly cute children who would flock to Ollie as kids might to the Pied Piper. When their attention turned to us, they would giggle and swarm to see their images shared with them from all the photos our group would take of them. For the younger ones, these photos were like magic. They don't see too many of these. At another site, we were invited to play in a volleyball game in which the young ladies of the village were on one side and us on the other. Alex, sensing damsels in distress, gallantly took their side. When his spikes won points for the girls, the girls would start chanting, “handsome, handsome” at their new hero with equal parts squealing and laughter. Later, in a basketball game on a rough hewn court, every time Alex scored a basket, the same chorus would break out from the sidelines. I have a feeling Alex won't let us forget this any time soon.

On our last night, in a fitting burst of craziness for this adventure, we were treated to a homespun disco complete with karaoke. They had a book so weathered you'd swear it had been through wars and countless typhoons that listed thousands of songs you could choose to cause you maximum embarrassment. And, select we did: No Woman No Cry, Don't Stop Believin', Viva La Vida, I Want It That Way, Wonderwall, and, of course, Sledgehammer. The ensuing cacophony – and, really, there's no other term that better describes it – roared through the night in a manner worthy of frightening all but the most intrepid children and cats. All of this was nicely fueled through a heady mix of rum and pineapple juice. Nothing was held back. It was great fun and only embarrassing the next morning.

Karaoke aside, what Tao Philippines offered us was special. What we lacked in creature comforts was made up in full measure by some astounding sights, tastes, and, best of all, memories. We were far from home, for sure. As Dorothy once so indelibly remarked, “Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore.” I thought of that line more than once on this adventure.

We were off the grid, alright. But, there was no place we'd rather be.

Swimming With The Jellies

I don't know who created the notion of the “bucket list,” but I love the idea. It says so much about us – our dreams, our idiosyncrasies. For many, it's the pursuit of an experience that is so at odds with our daily lifestyle that we think of certain goals as almost unattainable. Maybe it's a trip to an exotic location or an epic meal at a world-class five star restaurant. Maybe it's getting onstage and starring in a community theater production. Maybe it's learning to play the piano or, for others, skydiving. At the risk of over dramatizing it, a bucket list provides, in its own way, a tiny window into the soul.

In our case, a shared bucket list item for Lily and me has been a visit to Palau, an emerald green bejeweled set of islands that sits millions of miles from everywhere in the western Pacific Ocean. Why Palau? Because it is the home of Jellyfish Lake, a volcanic lake up in the hills that is home to millions of jellyfish – the non-stinging variety. The idea is that you jump off a pier with your snorkeling gear and find yourself surrounded by teeming, pulsating jellyfish which create a tickling-like massage experience that may be unique on planet earth. That's what we had read anyway.

For the life of me, I don't know how I came to become so enamored with this idea. As a kid, my family would travel to south Florida from time to time. It was here that I was introduced to the Portuguese Man O' War, a beautifully translucent blue jellyfish with, what I led myself to believe, was an excruciating and mortal sting. My father and I would walk along the beach, he with a piece of sharp driftwood in his hand and me with a look of abject horror, as we went out on a mission to kill these outwardly beautiful creatures – to literally pop them like a balloon – before they got us. Later in life, both Lily and I would experience the painful, red striations that are the universal tattoo of the jellyfish that just added to their legend as things to be avoided at all costs. Kind of like the plague. And yet, despite this uninterrupted history of freakish fear and terror at the thought of all things jellyfish, I not only begrudgingly tolerated Lily's idea, but I embraced it with a passion. Life is so strange sometimes.

When we told folks of our plans to swim with the jellies, the reactions were both amusing and predictable. Most folks would instinctively curl their lips and wrinkle their noses and let out an extended “eeuww!” Others would hurl epithets like “weird” or “creepy” or some colorful combination of both. Our neighbor, Jan, said (with just the slightest hint of exasperation), “Why don't you just fill your bathtub with jello and jump in? Why go halfway around the world to do this?” Okay, okay, I get it. It's not for everyone!

Our visit to Jellyfish Lake was part of an all-day excursion to the southern region of Palau. It would be our boat with a guide and just the two of us. We would visit three or four snorkeling sites, apply soothing (and comical) ocean-bottom mud at what they call the “Milky Way,” and wander secluded beaches. But, in our minds, this was just prelude to the unchallenged star attraction of all this, Jellyfish Lake. To get to the lake, we needed to hike up steep steps, climb over some volcanic rock, and then do the same down the steep path to this mysterious and secluded lake sitting in a totally uninhabited primeval jungle environment. When we arrived, we were the only persons there. We got our snorkeling gear straightened out, and we jumped in.

I expected, of course, to be immediately engulfed in a blizzard of jellyfish. But, we weren't. The water on this day was bathtub warm, but seemingly without any visibility beyond our noses. And, no jellyfish! Joe, our guide, had told us that the jellies move around and are mysteriously affected by changes in the lunar cycle. He urged us to press on and swim to the center of the lake. As we neared the center, everything changed. At first, it was just the spotting of a jellyfish and then two or three. The water cleared. And then, it was as if the curtain rose and we were permitted to enter a region of planet earth reserved for a select few. The handful of jellyfish we had seen now turned to hundreds and then thousands. They were everywhere. And, they were so beautiful. With the sun's rays reaching down well below the lake's surface, it was as if some of these jellyfish were in a celestial spotlight eager to perform. There were different sizes, none much bigger than the spread of the fingers on one's hand. They were domed on one end with their thick tendrils laying underneath. Imagine a large mushroom cap with stunted multiple stems reaching down below it. But, instead of the mundane earthiness of the mushroom, see instead a translucent figure that lets the sun shine through and which gives it a most definite feeling of lightness, delicacy and grace.

I was giddy and I was awestruck. I felt stoned. I would reach out and gently touch these marine life wonders or cup them in my hands. They were soft, softer than a baby's cheek. They were tinged in a brownish orange, but you could see right through them. And, when we found ourselves surrounded by thousands of these lightly pulsating life forms, I felt like we were in the midst of an incredibly choreographed ballet that, in that moment, was just begging for a soundtrack.

Did we ever get so invaded that we felt the massage-like experience we had read about? Sadly, no. But, what we saw and what we felt was nothing short of magical – even spiritual -- that will forever be hard to replicate.

We'll have to dig deeper into our bucket list for that.

The Skinny on Eleuthera

Eleuthera is a topographical string bean. Achingly thin, it stretches its long, green crescent self north and south in the heart of the Bahamas, about 70 miles east of Nassau. With its arched northern end, complete with an extended skinny “nose,” and its flared and curled tail at the south, Eleuthera conjures up a seriously anorexic seahorse – if you can imagine such a thing. It is so narrow in width, one is tempted to conclude that not just a hurricane would make this place nothing but a memory, but that a modestly robust high tide might do the same.

Like everywhere, I suppose, Eleuthera has a rich and picturesque history. Folks disagree whether Columbus actually did anything more than a drive-by, but what is clear is that for centuries the island was the home to Arawaks. This was, of course, until the Spanish came, decimated the population and sold whoever was left into slavery – mostly for the mining operations in Hispaniola. Shortly after the American Revolution, British loyalists fled here along with their slaves. As a result of what became a rather insular population, Bahamians who live here derive their last names from the slender roster of those who survived – almost everyone here shares about a dozen names, almost all derived from their British slaveholders.

Eleuthera is really a land divided into three parts: north, central, and south. It's not so much that the three areas are so distinguishable from one another by geography, culture or lifestyle, but rather because the 100 mile long island has pockets of civilization at those various points, like Harbor Island in the north and Governor's Harbour in the middle. The former is a place where money is making its mark. As some have said, it is in jeopardy of becoming “Nantucket-ized.” Elle MacPherson, Mariah Carey and Penelope Cruz apparently wander about here, but we did not see them. Perhaps they didn't get the word we were coming. (Or, actually, maybe they did.) In between is a vast nothingness dotted a bit by tiny settlements or a pineapple farm or leftover concrete observation towers from WWII, or, of course, some amazing beaches. Most notable among the beaches are those that revel in their star-like quality as pink sand beaches. Imagine not sand. No, no – that would be far too easy and would render a sensible description of what we found far too mundane to capture its essence. No, imagine instead walking on a surface that has the same tactile sensation one might have by walking barefoot on a TempurPedic mattress: spongy, dense and almost indescribably soft. The granularity one expects to get back from sand on contact is practically gone, especially as one approaches the water's edge. Here, the sand is liberally sprinkled as if with cinnamon powder, but which is instead the remnants of red animal life – formanifera – whose legacy is to create a stunning visual and tactile experience for the ages.

Not all beaches here are like this. It is just as likely you will stumble across a rock-filled beach or one filled with sharp-edged coral. Among the latter is the famous spot nearing the north end that sports what they call Glass Window Bridge. Eleuthera, which is never at risk for being called “wide,” narrows itself to the extreme where the island is essentially a few feet from “coast to coast” if I may use that term here. The bridge spans the meeting of the Atlantic and the Caribbean: the sapphire, roiling, wavy Atlantic to one side and, literally a couple of feet away, the iridescent turquoise calm of the Caribbean separated only by a mass of coral heaving out of the water. Depending on the tide, you can picture yourself laying down under the bridge and having your arms span both bodies of water. But, the beach here is not one to be traversed barefoot. Not unless your feet are made of steel – and maybe not even then. The coral is jagged and unforgiving. When climbing the rocks here – in flip flops, of course – it was tempting to occasionally reach out or down to keep from tipping over. Not wise. Unless, of course, you're wearing the kinds of gloves normally found in cooler climes, which we were not.

A word about the roads here. As narrow as the island is, there are not many. The heart and soul of the road system is Queen's Highway which, like a virtual spinal column, threads its way from the north end to the south end. It has two lanes. A very narrow two lanes. For ninety percent of its length, there are no lights. So – should you happen to find yourself out at night to dinner, let's say, you must work your way back to your hotel or house hoping your windshield is reasonably clear while all the while watching for feral cats, clueless dogs, folks who tend to walk inches from the road in dark clothing, and the oncoming brights of the occasional car that leaves you momentarily blinded. All this while trying to remember to stay on the left side of the road. A bit challenging. There are other roads, some of them actually paved. But, the Eleutherans seem to have a love affair with the pothole, some of them crater-like. I'd love to have the monopoly on automobile shock absorbers here. And, the signage. Ha! With the exception of signs for the airports, which are plentiful, any correlation between the map you're holding in front of you and wherever you happen to be is purely whimsical. To be fair, however, I did consider that in the U.S., where we have an instant and unceasing need to know everything right now and often, it is possible that we have become way too accustomed to an overload of signs whereas our more laid back Bahamian neighbors are apt to be pleased wherever they happen to be even if they don't know exactly where that is.

One last word, this time about the food. We have found over the years that Caribbean cuisine is often not the best. Maybe a bit too tilted to the black bean or the heavily fried whatever, I'm not sure. But, we were practically ecstatic over what was laid before us in our stay on Eleuthera. Yes, there is an entire culinary universe based on the conch: conch chowder, conch salad, fried conch, grilled conch, and, of course, conch fritters. I am surprised there is no conch marmalade or a conch-tini on the cocktail list. But, there is so much more. The place we stayed, the Sky Beach Club, had a kitchen that killed. Everything from vegetable risotto to barbequed pork ribs and an array of fresh seafood dishes, including lobster and crab. Other places had sumptuous salads for lunch and tapas for dinner. Very elegant and very varied and very professional, I must say.

You can go to Eleuthera for the snorkeling or diving or fishing or surfing. Or, like us, you can go for the beaches, the sunshine, the Cuban rums (Ah, Matusalem) and an escape from the crowds. You decide. There is no wrong answer.

Walking on Water

Venice is an assault on the senses, but in the best possible way.  Yes, yes, tourists crowd the streets and piazzas as ants cover a pool of honey.  And, yes, there are more eateries and shops per square inch than anywhere else in the civilized world.  But, if your mindset is right, and you've had just the right balance of wine and gelato, you can look past the mobs and merchandise and see the beauty and uniqueness of that Gothic and Byzantine architecture that has moved millions for centuries. 

It is often written that Venice was created out of fear that the crumbling of the Roman Empire would leave the mainlanders easy prey to those nasty Huns and Visigoths. Establishing an offshore, less approachable, community would be a good idea, or so they said. What the history books too seldom recount, however, is that there was another scheme afoot, one more subtle and devious in its design. In fact, Venice was created to instill a sense of humility in what was apparently way too many narcissistic and arrogant navigators of the time. Oh sure, these fellows could navigate the Mediterranean with ease; they could do that blindfolded. But, just let them try to navigate on foot from the Piazza San Marco to the Campo della Madonna dell' Orte. Very humbling. Just when you think you've nailed the perfect route, there's a canal keeping you from getting from here to there and, as GPS devices around the world will tell you, you need to constantly “recalculate.” There are no straight lines of passage in this bewildering city. One must be nimble and flexible in one's approach if one is to avoid a healthy dose of exasperation. Specifically, the phrase, “as the crow flies,” really has very little meaning in this water-filled kingdom.



And so the legacy remains. Today, Venice is a city that among its many wonderful qualities is home to the tourist, head arching upward, eyes dazed, camera lens cap dangling, map unfolded, with an expression of puzzlement and slack jawed resignation wondering, “where the hell are we?” We see all too many shopkeepers being asked for the 14,000th time that same question by these lost souls seeking no more than another Murano glass shop or perhaps the comforts of their hotel rooms. You can tell the shopkeepers immediately; they're the ones wearing the world weary, bored expressions seemingly on the verge of screaming something they might later regret. It is a tableau that M.C. Escher could only dream about. It is all because the city was designed by charter members of the Satanic School of Navigation.



But, I digress. Venice is sinking, we are told. In fact, one recent study concluded that it is sinking five times faster than previously thought. In certain parts of the city, depending on the tides, water overflows walkways and, in some areas, slightly raised wooden walkways have been created to keep everyone’s tootsies dry. In autumn and winter, even the Piazza San Marco -- the geographic heart and soul of this city -- is underwater at high tide. To complicate matters, Venice is moving slowly eastward toward the open spaces of the Adriatic in what perhaps may be its own feeble attempt to escape the millions of tourists that possess it daily. When these overflows occur to the ancient walkways of this city, you can reasonably argue you are walking on water, or something akin to that. 

 

And, so, you ask, if the water poses the problem, then make it your friend, right? Inspired by Lily’s sister, Ann, we decided to see Venice by kayak. After all, who needs vaporettos or gondoliers? Ann, at least, had credentials for this adventure. The rest of us? Not so much. It was not the city’s canals that gave some of us pause; rather, it was (or, at least in our minds it was) the seemingly vast expanse of water we had to cross to get from Certosa, an island across the lagoon from Venice, and also home of Venice Kayak, to the city proper. And, the knowledge that our adventure would have us paddling for three hours. Timing our sprints to dodge the constant onslaught of the high powered vaporettos, we made it to the city, and breathed deeply. From here, the magic began. Wending our way up the residential, non-touristed, areas where the locals live, you could almost hear a pin drop. The only sounds we heard were those of giggling school children and occasionally the sounds of workers unloading goods from their boats. The canal water was not just calm, it was perfectly still allowing clear reflections of the ancient buildings lining the route. Our guide, Loretta, would approach each “intersection” and yell out our approach to potential unseen traffic around the corner lest we be steamrolled. We passed under bridges, some so low I had to duck my head to avoid scraping my nose against the bridge’s underside.



As we proceeded through more touristed areas, people looking down on us from the bridges and walkways would gaze at us with amusement in their eyes, or delight, and some with looks of bewilderment as if to say, “you’re doing what?” Often we would be met with a chorus of “ciaos” from those ashore. Apparently, this is still somewhat a novelty here. No folks, it’s not a gondola, it’s not a vaporetto, it’s a kayak! And, so it went as we made our way down the Grand Canal, under the Rialto Bridge and down toward Piazza San Marco. We even had to hold up to let a monstrous cruise ship, at least ten decks high and the size of Wyoming, pass by us before we could begin our trip back to base. Did we bump into walls and other boats along the way? Sure. Was it not until we were through at least a third of our journey that I was advised I was using my paddle backwards? Yes. Did my back ache and my hands get scraped by a totally unorthodox paddling style? Sadly, yes, this is true.



But, we were walking on water and it felt wonderful.

Going Home

Deep in the last century, Thomas Wolfe wrote “You Can't Go Home Again,” and, of course, he was right. The thousands of pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that was our lives have long since been scattered to the winds never to be reclaimed, at least not in a way that we remember them. Too much has changed, too many people from those days have moved on, too much has been forgotten. But sometimes, if we're lucky, we can catch a glimpse of what was, and sometimes it can seem incredibly real and incredibly immediate. Such was my good fortune recently when I visited my boyhood home in White Plains, New York. What I hoped would be a glimmer of my past turned out to be as close to time travel as anything I am likely to experience in my lifetime.  

It has been on my bucket list for some time to return to my old home. I'm not sure why, really. Likely a nice blending of sentimentality and curiosity. As it is for so many, the home in which we spent our childhood has a special place in our hearts. The memories are sweet; there's a certain serenity and warmth associated with it. We were young and felt protected. And, with those thoughts in mind, I wrote a letter to the occupants not knowing who they were. After all, my family left the house a half century ago. In the letter, I introduced myself, explained my interest and included copies of some old photos showing me as a child in front of the house to prove my bona fides. I was delighted with the response which was both prompt and enthusiastic. What I had not bargained for, or remotely considered, was that the folks to whom my parents sold the house a half century ago still lived there. I was stunned. And, that fact added to my urgency in making the visit that I had long hoped for. Lily and I had a long planned visit to the New York area to visit close friends and the opportunity to re-visit the past now beckoned.  

We headed up to White Plains with our friends, Tom and Ellen. Our path took us up the Bronx River Parkway, a scenic, bending and generally lush path through Westchester County that I recalled with such great fondness from my youth. We passed through Mt. Vernon, Bronxville, Tuckahoe, and Crestwood each mile seeming more and more familiar to me. When we ducked in to White Plains, there was so much I did not recognize. The city has exploded from what was once a nice suburban outlier to now a thriving metropolis with soaring towers, wide boulevards, and a host of gleaming new buildings. Ah, but the street names were the same, and as we worked our way from downtown to my old neighborhood, I ticked off all those very familiar, but long lost, guideposts: Main Street, South Lexington Avenue, Martine Avenue, Post Road, Bryant Avenue, and then Ogden Avenue. As we approached my old block of Ogden Avenue, I was caught up in a euphoria we don't often get to enjoy. And, when we reached the block on which my old house stands, I realized I was holding my breath. How do you explain to someone what it's like to have memories come to life? To take form and move and not just be imprints that you have held inside for decades.  

I got out of the car and was met by Amy, the daughter of Irving and Rita – the home owners. I must tell you that when I entered the house it took my breath away. I touched the walls as if they were life forms, not just wood and plaster. It was all the same as when we left it. Yes, the walls were different colors, but the structure was the same. It was an emotional moment for me. Irving and Rita spoke of Sam (my father) and Susan (my sister) as if they had seen them just a week ago, like time had never passed. They invited me to take the tour, and, as I did, I noticed certain things. There was a wall sconce in the living room that was there when we lived there. I used to remove the light bulbs when my parents weren't home, use the sconce as a basket, and would crumple up a wad of paper as a basketball and play games that were feverishly real to me. I pointed to the old cabinets in the living room which were still there and laughingly said that one of them was my folks' liquor cabinet. They advised me it was theirs as well. In the back, behind the living room, was what we called the TV room, and it was still called that so many years later. They asked me if I remembered the dining room wall paper, and I did. It was coral with images of a white leopard. That paper was gone from there, but they opened the hall closet and there it was – the same wallpaper – lining the closet. Upstairs, my bedroom was exactly the same as when I left it, except for the furniture. The wood paneled walls, the cabinets, the shelves – all the same, never altered. I sat on the bed and looked out over Ogden Avenue and a thousand micro-memories flashed through my head like so many life-filled electrons jabbing at my memory bank.  

Even the bathroom, now one of the most changed rooms in the house, brought back a memory long lost to me. When I was a boy, I was plagued by a bronchial condition that often would compromise my breathing. It provided me with the scariest of moments I can recall from my youth when I was not sure where my next breath was coming from. In those dark moments, my parents would usher me into that bathroom where they had turned on the shower to create a steam room atmosphere in the hopes it would ease my breathing. In one such episode, I recall being there with my father and I told him I couldn't breathe. He gave me a long kiss which I realized years later was because he thought, in that moment, he was losing me; that I was dying. I hadn't brought back that memory in decades, but there it was.  

On the way out of the house, I stopped to acknowledge the Japanese maple tree in the front yard. We had planted that tree so many years ago, and, as a child, I watched it grow as I did and marveled when it surpassed my height on its way to a glory I could only imagine. Now, it is fully mature. It towers over the yard with a massive trunk and boughs reaching upwards, far away. In what I can only characterize as an impromptu moment of perfect blending between sentimentality and anthropomorphism, I found myself giving the tree a hug and giving the bark a kiss. Clearly, I was lost in the moment.  

I said good-bye to the wonderfully gracious Irving, Rita and Amy and returned to the real world.

But, what a memory.