I am up at 7:30, sitting on the stone pier in Collioure.  The water is flat and calm, the sun already farther above the horizon than the ancient clock tower rising solid against the powder blue sky. Pigeons strut about nervously, joined by twittering brown thrashers.  I hear the street cleaners making their run to wash and polish the cobblestones, as they do every morning.  The muted rumble of their engines ebbs and flows as they work their way up and down the lacework of alleys, edging ever closer to my solitary perch. The young man in ubiquitous ocean blue shorts and a navy shirt is methodically setting up the umbrellas over the chairs outside his restaurant.  Otherwise, this port is still and reverent, holding the glory of a new day.

During the past week, Collioure began to fill with tourists, mostly European, mostly French, but it is still not high season.  Only a half dozen boats are tied to buoys in the port, but shops that had been shuttered when we arrived are showing signs of life.  Yesterday, Sunday, the main plaza filled with people watching a circle of dancers in traditional Catalan garb step and hop to the polka-like music. Even the weather seems to know it is time for the tourist.  The days have grown warm enough to brave a swim.  The wind has retreated back to Africa or wherever it originates. But this fresh, clean morning is mine, or so it feels.  Most of the world is still asleep.  How is it that all of eternity fits so comfortably in this tiny, awestruck moment?

And such a brief moment it is.  Even as I type, the vans delivering fresh produce to the corner store begin to arrive, the roar of their engines disrupting the stillness.  The chairs on the wide esplanade are now neatly arranged around the small round tables.  The green, blue and red umbrellas are tied open.  I hear the low, distant clammer of the morning train, a beeping of the construction machinery starting up, the clanging of storefronts opening, and the bugle blowing revelry for the soldiers who train in the ruins of the fort high above the port.  The town is throwing off sleep. 

The cool early morning sun is disappearing, growing hotter as it rises above the fog, a smudge of gray along the horizon.  In five minutes I will be hot, the delicious cool morning breeze a thing of the past, just as my silence is now vanishing with the arrival of the street cleaners, the early morning swimmers, the first joggers, the conversations and greetings between employees arriving for work, the inevitable forward motion of time.

As my still cool morning slowly dissolves, a window in my mind, briefly opened to the sacred, silently closes.  I hold its opening and closing lightly.  Nothing shuts the window more tightly than grasping.  Tomorrow, if I rise early enough, if I sit still enough, it may open again, although it can be fickle.  It opens and closes according to the rhythm of some grace or science I do not understand.

The man in the blue shorts is smoking a cigarette now, leaning against the stone wall of his restaurant surveying his completed task, nodding his head in good morning to the trickle of his fellow shop owners moving through the memorized choreography of their morning.  The ocean sparkles with flashes of sunlight, diamonds tumbling on a rippled sheet of velvet blue.  The sun is hot.  The soft lover’s kiss of morning is a memory.  The window has closed.    

Like this morning, our sabbatical is coming to an end.  We are coming home, and it feels as if another window is closing.  We have our plane tickets (thank you Bob and Sabrina). We have our train tickets, two of the last three available.  We waited until the last minute, almost waited too long.  Was that intentional, or denial, or both? 

I feel this trip more than remember it.  I feel my rain-soaked body exhilarated in the primordial brilliance of the Milford Trek. I feel the electrical sting of touching infinity on the top of a boulder I should not have climbed, staring in triumph and awe at the impossible heights of snow-covered Mt. Cook.  I feel the warmth and intimacy of a quiet, star-studded night curled up next to Melissa in the back of a camper van, our breathing, like our heartbeats, synchronized.  I feel the loneliness and despair of the Killing Fields, the wide-eyed wonder of Angkor Wat, the dreamy semi-consciousness of drifting supine on a kayak on a river in a jungle.  

We lovingly shared our last week and apartment with Nick and Altinay.  Yesterday, after a long, wandering walk into the hills, we spent the afternoon swimming before dozing on the beach, the warm rocks a perfect contrast to the cool ocean breeze.  Around 7:00, with the sun hanging above the hills as hesitant to set as we are to leave, we walked along the sea wall to a bar terraced into the rocky hillside and ordered Mojitos, a Long Island Iced Tea, and a Dark and Stormy.  A few swimmers paddled in the water out by the sailboats moored to buoys.  At our feet dangling from barstools, the gentle swells seeped between the crevices in the jagged rocks and tiny fish floated effortlessly in the swishing current. We toasted the day, the view, the endless blue ocean that melts into an endless blue sky.  Altinay said what our hearts were feeling, “I live my life for this kind of blue.” 

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Later that evening, after dinner, we sat on our rooftop quiet, happy, and drenched with the delicious fatigue of a packed day, a day too full to hold.  Twilight loitered like a love-struck teen by his girlfriend’s locker. A tree on the far horizon at the top of the hill above the vineyards began to glow, backlit by an unseen spotlight. Moments later, our eyes fixed on this anomaly; the full moon, huge, bulbous detached itself in slow motion from the horizon.  Altinay means “golden moon.”

We are coming home to family, to friends, to a memorized rhythm of time that we hope will not mesmerize us.  We are coming home sated with joy, tenderized by unearned beauty, full of time and memories and love.  

The dog walkers have arrived. My computer is too hot in my lap. It is time to buy croissants, return to the apartment, and greet Melissa, Nick and Altinay. The morning is well past. Yet, as I walk up the alley to our apartment, fishing for the keys and biting into the soft, lightly crunchy goodness of a croissant, I smile at my foolishness.  There is no window, no separation between the sacred and profane.  My quiet, beautiful morning did not disappear.  It is all around me all the time.  There was never a time when it was not, and there will never come a time when it is not.  The illusion is the window, my words on this page, their naked inadequacy in the face of a golden moon.

Still, I am sad to leave.

Before launching into this post, a warm, loving hug to my dad (rest in peace) and my father-in-law. I love you both. Happy father’s day, one dad to another.

A week ago, Josh completed his semester abroad in London, said goodbye to his host family, had a final pint (or two) with his mates, and caught a flight to Barcelona.  Melissa and I had hoped that all three of our children would, simultaneously, spend some time with us at the end of this sabbatical, but our three children are not really children anymore.  Their lives, like meteors that briefly orbited the home planet, are beginning to break free of our gravitational pull and explore new trajectories.

Josh, however, was up for a few days with the parents before heading back to his Seattle world.  He is kind to us that way, indulging us.  When I told him I had found some good flights from London to Barcelona, he said, in all seriousness, that he would “just get a bus.”  Josh hates airports.  I can relate. I bought him a plane ticket.  

Melissa and I caught a train to Barcelona to meet Josh.  His flight did not get in until almost 11:00 pm, which left Melissa and me with most of the day and way too much of the night to explore this incredible city. Barcelona is Paris, London and Los Angeles tossed in a salad, at least the tiny slice we saw.  Our hotel sat at the intersection of three distinct neighborhoods: the Gothic Quarter, a labyrinth of narrow alleys anchored by a soaring Gothic Cathedral; El Born, a kind of medieval New York, a twenty-four-seven haven of trendy bars and restaurants; and, an unnamed beach community complete with open air markets, Venice Beach Bros in sleeve-less tees and a host of people hawking every conceivable tourist trinket.  

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We spent the day walking the Gothic Quarter, making it to the roof of the Barcelona Cathedral and continuing on to the famous (or infamous, depending on your artistic sensibilities) Gaudi Cathedral, officially known as the Basilica of the Sagrada Familia. This monstrous structure resembles a cathedral only in the most abstract way.  When I first glimpsed its drip-castle-like spires piercing the blue sky, my mind struggled, first, to acknowledge that such a thing could exist, and second, to understand exactly what I was seeing.  Simultaneously, Melissa and I looked at each other and said, “it reminds me of the White Temple in Chiang Rai.”  Only two people who have travelled together for six months would possibly understand this statement or appreciate just how much we have begun to think each other’s thoughts.  We have become the mental version of people who begin to look like their pets.  For me anyway, this is a step up.

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When Josh finally made it to the hotel, Melissa and I, running on the kind of adrenaline every parent who has not set eyes on their child for months understands, managed to stay awake until midnight to hear about Josh’s semester.  The next morning, we had brunch at a fabulous, tiny restaurant tucked into the side of some ancient building in the Gothic Quarter, and then caught a train back to Collioure.  Because of the train schedules, we did not get in until early evening.  We spent the next three days together, walking the beach (while Josh scaled the rocky cliffs), eating and drinking, playing cards (Melissa became obsessed with casino), skipping rocks at dusk, and silently bursting with a parent’s mixed bag of pride, joy, love and tenderness for a kind, decent, intelligent young man that, even after twenty-two years, remains one of three miracles we did nothing to deserve but were nevertheless blessed to receive.

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Josh’s departure not only ignited the inevitable letdown of saying goodbye, but also triggered a fire drill when, on the morning he was scheduled to depart by train to Barcelona, we discovered that his flight to Charlotte had been cancelled.  I managed to book him on an earlier flight, but it was fifty-fifty that he’d make it to Barcelona on time.  Nevertheless, he wanted to try.  His friends were picking him up in Seattle.  There was a certain young woman involved.  It was his decision.

He missed that flight. Melissa and I felt that empty, anxious place in the pit of our stomachs that mysteriously materializes whenever one of our kids, no matter how old, is stressed, unhappy, or in a difficult situation. As I write, fortunately, Josh has landed safely in Seattle.  The black hole in my stomach has closed.

At dusk on the day Josh finally caught a flight home, Melissa and I brought gin and tonics to the beach and sat on the huge stone jetty leaning against each other, delighting in the soothing warmth of the stones.  A handful of children waded in the cold, blue water on the rocky beach, periodically squealing at everything and nothing.  A few dozen people sat at tables on the esplanade sipping beers and aperitifs.  The landscape glowed in the fevered light of the setting sun.  Without saying a word, we both felt the tension and stress of Josh’s departure drain from our bodies.

Dusk is our favorite time of day, especially in Collioure, a soothing massage of the mind and senses that lingers impossibly for hours.  Experiencing that healing moment after the tension and drama of Josh’s departure made me aware of how challenging it is to live in the United States in this time of political, economic and environmental dysfunction.  Maybe I am preparing myself to return to Seattle.  Still, I can’t shake the simple, stark truth that the only way to let go of anger, anxiety, hatred, bitterness and resentment is to, simply, let go of it.  From this sheltered distance, I read the dire predictions of a Trump victory, I scan the nervous articles describing a Democratic party tearing itself apart, and I want to ask my Democratic friends and Trump supporters alike, “aren’t you tired of being angry?”  

I am not naïve about what is at stake in this coming election.  I do not think dreamy evenings with a gin and tonic will make everything better.  Yet, as I re-enter the turmoil that has become the new normal in America, I hope to do so without anger or fear.  I will do whatever I can to defeat Donald Trump, not because I want Democrats to retake the Senate or vindicate the last election’s defeat, or because I want to hold it over those that disagree with my politics.  I want to defeat Donald Trump, because he has become for me (and I believe, for America) a white-hot coal we clench in our angry fists.  I am tired of being angry.  It’s time to unclench my fists and drop that burning coal.  I hope there are others, Democrat and Republican, who feel the same way.   

Tomorrow marks five full months since we left on this sabbatical, and I am asking that same question everyone I know asks at least ten times a month: “Where did the time go?” I feel as though I am clinging desperately to some detritus bobbing and weaving on the tops of rapids in a raging river hurtling towards an encounter with something I can’t avoid, but am afraid to face.  That helpless inner image could not contrast more starkly with my surroundings: a quiet, bohemian apartment in the middle of Collioure, a few steps from the Mediterranean under a sky so deliciously soft and blue I want to scoop it out with a spoon and lick it up before it melts.

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A few days after Melissa and I arrived, our friends Mike and Cindy, who had been travelling in France, joined us for five days.  They left several days ago and already the memories blur and mix.  I remember our excitement the day of their arrival, Melissa insisting we needed more flowers, and, more importantly, a new vase to put them in.  We will probably not be able to bring the vase home when we leave.  It will be an anonymous donation to our absentee landlord.  Who washes a rental car?  Who buys things for an apartment they don’t own?  

I remember getting caught up in Melissa’s enthusiasm and succumbing to her infectious insistence that I buy a beret and man-scarf to match her orange, country French skirt and matching orange bonnet so that we would be properly attired when we met Mike and Cindy’s incoming train.  I remember the look of delightful awe on Cindy’s face when we walked under the big stone arch and she took in the magnificent crescent beach and rolling indigo blue waters washing against the nine-hundred-year-old battlements and clock tower.  The sight makes me catch my breath still. 

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The four of us settled quickly into our apartment.  Melissa and I took up residence in the fourth floor bedroom that opens onto the rooftop deck. Mike and Cindy moved into the bedroom two floors below us.  In the middle, we hung out in the kitchen/dining area with the French doors opened onto the precariously perched balcony that overlooks our narrow alley draped with curtains of jasmine, bougainvillea and ivy.  When the wind died down after our first day together, we took to the roof top balcony for happy hours, drinking Rosé and eating brie, blue cheese, chevre, toasted peanuts, olives and an array of aged ham sliced paper-thin, some of which we wrapped around ripe melons.  If there is a more sublime combination of salt and sweet, a more velvet feel of ripe melon and mouth-melting ham, I don’t want to know. I think it would kill me with bliss. 

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As Melissa and Cindy dissolve into yet another spasm of laughter, Mike makes us all look up at the hilltops cultivated with vineyards, rising gracefully to a sky that has magically mutated from azure to cobalt to cerulean.  The ancient stones of St. Elme Fort in sharp relief against the horizon smolder like glowing embers in a dying fire.  To be in love for thirty years with Melissa, to be in love with friends who, like catalysts in a chemical reaction, produce still more joy from an experience saturated with joy, washes me with gratitude and opens a place so tender, so fragile and vulnerable it is hard even here to expose it. 

Our days with Mike and Cindy were both packed and mostly spontaneous.  One glorious day, Mike chartered a motorboat, which he piloted for us along the undulating coast, docking for the bulk of the day in a fabulous port with soaring cliffs and startlingly clear waters.  Before turning for home, we continued south because, as Mike said, Cindy is a “let’s see what’s around the next corner kind of person.” We made it to Spain before heading home. Cindy had never been in Spain before.

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On another day, we started walking along the coast until we landed at the next town in a restaurant with sangria.  Even the trudge home, drowsy with wine and food, seemed almost effortless, our conversations delightfully diverting us from the physical effort.  After dinner, Melissa and Cindy sat on the warm, rocky beach while Mike and I, suddenly twelve again, skipped stones or competed to be the first to hit the buoy.  We were middle-schoolers showing off for two cute girls.  When the lingering twilight finally turned the water to slate and our sailing rocks became invisible projectiles except for the splash in the otherwise quiet waters, we wandered slowly back to the apartment.  If it were not for the fatigue of walking almost eight miles that day, we could have stayed up all night. 

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Five wonderful days of walks and food and laughter and shared intimate, precious thoughts blinked into memories too quickly eviscerated by that voracious, unrelenting nemesis — time.  

Melissa and I wanted to end our sabbatical rooted in a place for an extended period with no agenda, to sync with the indigenous rhythms, the ebbs and flows of an unfamiliar place. I suppose I hoped we would, for once, slow down time and discover the mystery and beauty of being fully present to the present.  Is such a miracle actually possible?  In every dissolving moment, there is the joy of being alive and the sadness of the moment lost.  

When Mike and Cindy left, Melissa and I clung ever more tightly to one another, missing our friends, wishing them well, yet deliciously happy in this terribly intimate space we have found together on this sabbatical, or that has found us.  I don’t know which way that works.  We ambled among the cobblestone streets poking our heads into the numerous art galleries, comparing our favorite pieces, imagining them hanging on a wall in our house.  In one small shop, the artist and gallery owner, a lively, short, beaming man launched into a delightful and informative “lesson” on Fauvism, a style of painting made famous by Matisse and others in the early twentieth century.

His monologue continued unabated for twenty minutes, focusing on the Fauvist’s desire to push the boundaries of colors and discovering how a color is not a thing unto itself.  Its brilliance, its very essence depends on and is influenced by the colors around it, not unlike the way we were influenced, enriched, made more bright by our time with Mike and Cindy.

A moment before we left, he slowed his pace as if suddenly aware that he had been sprinting through a lecture to complete strangers.  In a sudden, serious change of mood, he revealed to us that he suffered horribly from dyslexia.  Art was his way of relating to the world, but he became an artist, someone at peace with his dyslexia, when he discovered through his efforts to understand Fauvism, that he had to embrace the shadows in his life.  As he said, it is the shadows that give meaning to the colors. 

We walked home anticipating Josh’s arrival in a few days, again filling with the inexplicable joy of anticipating a reunion with a part of ourselves that is also somehow a remarkable, unique, independent self. 

According to Buddhism, time is an illusion, and every tangible thing is merely a mutable, finite form temporarily housing the true, interconnected nature of being.  In these past few days, and, indeed on this entire sabbatical, I am coming to understand and find my peace with the rapids of time.  The light and dark in each moment, the fleeting nature of grasping at the infinite, the unquenchable desire to know and describe the ineffable, all give way to the stillness of joy, a Matisse blue sky, the warmth of Melissa’s hand in mind, the laughter of friends, this moment of tender remembrance.

If Sancerre, with its medieval architecture and cobblestone streets, is the quintessential French village on a hill overlooking the Loire Valley, then Collioure is a version of the same thing but tucked into the foothills of the Pyrenees where rolling green hills tumble into the deep blue of the Mediterranean.  Nine months ago, planning the tail end of this sabbatical, I sat at my desk using Google Maps to scroll across the European continent, searching for that perfect out-of-the-way spot to plant ourselves for a month and dissolve into the ether and mystery of a few weeks without a to-do list.  I had in mind an impossible task: a quaint fishing village, undiscovered by Americans (except me), but with enough interesting things to keep us occupied in case my romanticized vision of doing nothing proved less than romantic.

After hours of searching, I centered the map on the French coastline where it meets the Spanish border. As usual, nothing that matched my vision appeared until, for reasons known only to neuroscientists, psychologists and God, I happened to zoom in at precisely the right location for the word “Collioure” to materialize.  I clicked on the name and knew immediately that I had found our final resting spot, in a manner of speaking.  I booked a house for a month and paid in advance, telling my anxious alter ego to simmer down and, for once, stop obsessing about the what ifs.  

Getting to Collioure from Sancerre was a bit trickier than I had imagined.  I assumed we could take a train.  I had been told, probably by Melissa, the Francophile, that trains run everywhere in France because, as I have mentioned before, in Melissa’s mind, everything in France is as close to perfect as we humans get.  Trains do indeed run from Sancerre to Collioure, but they take over eleven hours to get there.  In the end, we rented a car and drove south, seven hours, dropping the car in Perpignan.  Collioure does not have rental car companies.

After an hour wait in the Perpignan train station and a twenty-minute train ride, we found ourselves, roller bags rattling behind, walking with a half dozen other travellers (all local) down a hill towards a plaza and a small port.  We were hungry, tired from the drive, and trying our best not to imagine the worst.  The evening sun was setting, turning the stone streets of Collioure the color of fresh-baked bread.  In our state, we overlooked this daily miracle.  

Melissa is not a fan of using navigational devices in small French villages, not because they rarely work while winding through the labyrinthian streets, but because she believes with religious fervor that it is possible in these unique and magical situations to find whatever we are looking for through intuition.  We eventually asked for directions to our apartment.

In an alley narrow enough for two people holding hands to touch either side, we found a Hobbit-sized wooden door wedged into a four-story stone wall with a weather-worn number “7” nailed above it.  We did not notice the art galleries lining the alley, or the tapas restaurant with two tiny tables squeezed against the sides of the alley, or the ivy and flowers hanging from the second story balconies, or the sections of the stucco and stonewalls painted lively shades of tangerine, lime, lemon and peach.  Even after nearly six months of travelling, transitions are still challenging.  We found something to eat, intentionally postponed unpacking until we had our bearings, and fell into bed in what we vaguely perceived as a small, dark apartment on a narrow, dark alley.  Melissa, being incapable of hiding her emotions, especially after our spacious, light-filled apartment in Sancerre, said, before turning over to fall asleep, “Maybe we can find some flowers to brighten up the place.”

Lying next to Melissa, I watched my reaction to her reaction to our new home.  I saw (and felt) the resentment; I heard the rising chorus of voices insisting that this was not my fault, that I had done everything to plan the best possible trip, that she was being ungrateful, that I had, maybe, possibly, screwed up.  Silenced by this cacophony of insecurity, I sensed more than heard the voice of wisdom telling me to be still, to get some sleep, to see things fresh in the morning.  I fell asleep holding lightly my discomfort.

In the morning, I woke, as I usually do, much earlier than Melissa.  We needed coffee and orange juice as well as something to eat for breakfast.  I was determined to forage for these essentials and have them in the apartment by the time Melissa got up.  Somewhat bleary-eyed (I mentioned we did not have coffee) I stumbled out of our alley and onto the main cobblestone road, which looked, in the bright light of morning, magically transformed.  A winding, graceful walkway lined with merchants: several clothing stores (including one, at which I would buy later in the week, a beret and a “man scarf”), a boucherie, a boulangerie, a store with a mouthwatering selection of gelato and an entire wall mounded with fresh baked cookies in every variety imaginable, from coconut and pistachio to chocolate-dipped shortbread.

I bought croissants and a baguette in the boulangerie from a young woman who smiled at my vain, but sincere attempts to communicate and wished me a good day when I left.  I would visit her many times in the next week and she would greet me with a knowing smile and a delightfully sincere, “Bonjour, Monsieur.”

I continued my morning walk to the end of the road and a quay where traditional wooden fishing boats (like a page out of a children’s book) were painted the colors of a box of crayons and moored to giant iron rings set in the ancient concrete.  Along the quay, a string of restaurants opened onto the water, with chairs and tables set under umbrellas. 

Across the street, the plaza had been converted, as we learned it would be every Sunday and Wednesday, into an outdoor market featuring everything from soaps and clothing to cheese, meat, seafood and fresh produce.  Amidst the sights and smells, in the warming sun and gusting breeze, one stall in particular trapped my gaze and forced me to smile at God’s perfect sense of humor.  The stall overflowed with a cascade of fresh-cut flowers.

When Melissa woke up later that morning, we had coffee, orange juice and croissants.  We had fresh-cut flowers that Melissa separated into vases and placed on the multiple floors of the apartment.  The apartment is four stories including a rooftop deck. We had a different outlook.  Our eyes were no longer clouded by fatigue-fueled emotions.

Like a kid at Christmas, I all but shoved Melissa out the door and into the intertwined alleyways. We ventured up one street and down the next before tumbling onto a rocky beach sheltered from the wind-whipped waves of the Mediterranean by a nine-hundred-year-old castle and clock tower, the soaring stone walls of which plunge directly into the inky blue waters. We discovered trails leading up the hills through the green vineyards to, of all things, a Don Quixote-like stone windmill, and farther up, a star-shaped fortress perched like a sandcastle on the highest peak overlooking the port.  The rolling hills give way at the horizon to the snow-streaked peaks of the Pyrenees.

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Collioure is the town to which artists such as Dali, Matisse and Picasso came to paint because of the unique quality of light.  Matisse remarked, “No sky in all France is as blue as Collioure.”  Because the wind blows out to sea, Collioure has few clouds. Because the Mediterranean has virtually no tides and is therefore always a deep, majestic blue that contrasts perfectly with the rolling green hills, another artist said, “Collioure has no shadows.”  

The light of a new day splashed a new coat of paint on everything.  Although potentially poetic, I do not think that statement is accurate. Beauty surrounds us daily if, as the prophet tells us, we have eyes to see.  I think this sabbatical has taught me many things, but the one I hope to carry with me is the wisdom to focus, in all situations, with the clarity of stillness, and to hold lightly the ceaseless ebb and flow of emotions.