It’s really my daughters’ faults that have lead me, naively and hesitantly, to blogging.  I don’t precisely mean their “fault” faults (at least in this first blog); I mean their persistence, their caring, and their expertise.  They actually know about these things and think it’s critical that I do, too.  They understand my technological impairments and are willing to monitor me – for awhile.  It’s the “awhile” that makes me nervous; it’s when I have to swim without the floatie. I guess I’d better get all the help I can before they yank it out from under me.

Why am I doing this?  Because I might have a few nuggets of insight to share after becoming a septuagenarian.  I’ve never thought of myself as one of those.  It came very quickly.  It’s true now more than ever that the hurrieder I go, the behinder I get. Writing, maybe.  But Tech Whiz will not be in the list of descriptors in my obit, that’s for sure.

After 40 years of teaching and writing about parenting, family relationships, and building a strong sense of community and civic responsibility, I wrap up all those skills and go on the road.  I want to see if any of those things I taught actually had anything to do with the real world. In the past 3 years, I’ve been fortunate to travel to 7 other countries and caught The Bug.I loved the travel, the people, the countries, the traditions, the differences, the similarities, the geography, the history – most of it.  And I realized how narrow my worldview was.  So many places to see, so little time.  So much to learn, so little my capacity.

Then COVID came to the world.  I watched with horror and fascination and pride as we struggled and learned to adapt.  I realized that life was exactly what it is, and that we were all in it together. Our strength and our weakness would be in our individual choices about working together, helping each other, swimming upstream together.  I was in Hanoi, boarding a plane to Bangkok and on to Los Angeles when it was announced that both airports would require screening.  If you were coughing, had a cold or fever, you would be put in the quarantine line. I had a chronic cough.  Only because of a 2-hour delay in authorities implementing that policy did I make it safely back to LA and home just before our own shutdown.

I will blog about very near and (hopefully) very far.  I will share with you about places you may want to visit, small businesses you may want to frequent, museums you definitely need to see, food that you can’t miss, people you must meet, traditions you will want to honor.  I don’t plan to give you any retirement tips that come from personal experience, since I will save retirement for when I have a tombstone.

Thanks, Michelle and Becky:  you’ve dumped me in the water!