Here is the profound and disturbing question I asked myself this morning bathed in sunlight sitting in what has become my morning breakfast chair.  Why does the first cup of coffee taste so fantastic that I immediately want a second cup, but if I indulge in that second cup it puts me over the edge? If this is not a metaphor for my life, I am not sure what is.  

Think of the sheer volume of revelations in this one question.  Why do I need that cup of coffee in the first place?  Is my life so stagnant that it requires a caffeine spark to jolt to action after a night’s sleep?  Okay, so the answer to that question has been and always will be, duh, yeah.  For those of you who do not drink coffee and have the uncanny ability to rise and shine sans caffeine, I am convinced you evolved from a separate branch of the human tree: homo sapiens non julius.  

Second question: if after repeatedly making the same mistake and indulging in a second cup of coffee only to inflict tremor-like agitation throughout my central nervous system, why do I allow myself to repeat this insanity every morning?  My brain knows to stop at one cup.  What organ in my body drives me to drink the second?  My heart?  Now that would be interesting.  I am literally killing myself with my own kindness.      

Sort of along the same lines, Melissa is addicted to swimming, not the splash in the pool type, but the goggles and cap, flip turn, stay the hell in your own lane type.  She has shown remarkable restraint and control, however, lasting several days, even a week or two, before methodically plotting, via Google, the most direct route to the nearest pool.  Remember, please, we are in a 12^th century, medieval town in the middle of France.  Nonetheless, Melissa identified a public pool within a radius of us that she determined (through her own remarkable Watson-encrypted reasoning) would make the perfect day-trip.  A couple of cab rides and a few kilometers walk later, we completed our laps for the day. 

I won’t mention the ratio of Melissa’s laps to mine.  I swam in the lane with the elderly lady doing something resembling the backstroke and wearing (I am not making this up) her reading glasses.  I was only marginally faster than her.  Melissa swam in the lane with the slightly overweight guy also wearing a swim cap and those difficult to get out of your mind’s eye jockey swim trunks, who looked as if he was about to explode trying to keep up with Melissa’s dolphin-like pace.  I was able to observe all this because I had a wee bit of time between completing what I considered an appropriate work out and what Melissa considered an appropriate work out.  

I am actually glad I married this woman.  Many of my male friends struggle to keep off that little pudge around their middles, and I sympathize.  They work long, hard hours and come home to dinner and a beer or two.  I, on the other hand, take a six month sabbatical only to discover that in addition to visiting six countries I have never set foot in before, I have also swum in six different pools including a few truly extraordinary ones in Australia.  It could be worse.  What if Melissa was in to BMX bike racing?  Please don’t tell her I suggested that.

We are nearing the end of this two-week stay in Sancerre.  Melissa’s French has improved dramatically, especially after a few glasses of wine.  At least I think it has.  I can’t understand anything anyway.  However, after a few glasses of wine, I am better at pretending to follow the conversation.  After ten days in Sancerre, I seem to have a similar issue with drinking that second (or third or fourth) glass of wine as I do with drinking that second cup of coffee. Melissa says the wine is not as strong here.  I’m going with that.  

In the spaces between the silliness and fun of this trip, I ask myself, more seriously, how did doing nothing become so fun?  Case in point.  On Saturday we walked about a mile to a bike shop, intent on renting a couple for the day, only to discover the shop was closed.  Undaunted, we wandered aimlessly until we came upon a bus stop and decided we would take the only bus to Bourges, a nearby town.  We waited an hour.  The bus never showed.  You might wonder what we did for an hour, what we talked about.  I have no idea.

Pressing on, we wandered along the canal into one small hamlet after another with no objective other than finding something to eat.  We suddenly realized we were quite hungry.  After being told at several places that dejeuner was terminé, we stumbled into a patisserie, bought a pizza-like square of melted cheese, mushrooms and ham and a palmier (my favorite), sat on a cement wall next to the road and called it a picnic.  By late afternoon, we completed this random rambling circuit by trudging up the hill to our apartment. In any other place at any other time in our lives, the events (or non-events) of this day would have generated at least one or two grouchy moments.

If for years I have caved in so easily to the temptation of a second cup of coffee, why have I resisted, until now, the joy of doing nothing with someone I dearly love?

C’est la vie.

We wake up at 7:45 in our spacious bedroom with twelve-foot ceilings, wood floors, red and gold wallpaper, and a wrought iron chandelier painted white hanging from the center of the ceiling.  The floors creak loudly, more like a groan, as I cross the room to pull back the black out shades and let the brilliant morning sun pour through the white lace curtains, a stream of butter colored butterflies bouncing off the walls.

Through the door to our bedroom is the large main dining room and kitchen with matching chandelier and five foot windows on opposite walls, the kind of windows that look like glass paned shutters and open inward giving meaning to the phrase “pull open the windows.”  Here the wallpaper is pink and cream stripes, covering not only the walls, but the back of the door to our bedroom.  The entire apartment is very French and very old, with exceptions made in a nod to modern convenience like the Whirlpool dryer squeezed into the corner next to the radiator.  From the moment we crossed the threshold and stood in the small entryway, it felt like home: warm, bright, comfortable. 

Melissa showers first in our tiny bathroom.  The shower stall is only slightly bigger than the width of two people standing side by side. No toilet.  It has been strategically wedged into what must have been a small closet off the entryway.  The powder room is so small it is almost impossible to sit on the toilet and close the door without banging my knees.  Yet, in that wonderfully French aesthetic, the door to this little closet is also wall papered like the rest of the room so that when closed any thoughts of this unsightly necessity literally vanish into the woodwork.

We are here for two weeks while Melissa spends four hours each morning in French language classes with about a dozen other Francophiles, most of whom are returning to this school for their second or third time.  Melissa is not the youngest student, although arguably the most energetic.  There is a brother – sister duo in their twenties, but other than the siblings, Melissa is towards the less senior end of the spectrum. 

Two of her classmates, Brawnwin and Jillian, met for the first time several years ago while attending the school only to discover that they lived four blocks from one another in Melbourne.  At a wine tasting outing the other night to which I, as the trailing spouse, was invited, Brawnwin, seated next to me, leaned over and whispered, “does Melissa always laugh this much?”  “She’s in her happy place,” I said, which was true.  The vin blanc was merely a catalyst for her mirth.  If it’s French, Melissa loves it.  If it’s French and old, Melissa adores it.  If it’s French and taste good, Melissa wolfs it down without a second thought, and this from the woman who, despite swimming two hard miles, will treat herself with half a chocolate chip cookie.  Put some pate on that sucker, and she’ll eat the box.  Vive la France!

With Melissa engaged from 9 to 1 most mornings, I spend my time reading, writing and walking around this quaint, quiet town.  Sancerre, France is both a region (known for its wine) as well as a town.  Our apartment is located in the same building as the school, Coeur de France, which is located pretty much in the center of Sancerre, a block from the church and central plaza.

Think of your basic medieval town perched on the top of a hill and surrounded by a thick stone rampart.  Most of the streets are narrow cobblestone alleys hemmed in by two and three story stone buildings that form one long undulating wall in various shades of ochre and pale pink intermittently punctuated with blue, violet, black and green shutters.  The streets are virtually deserted and spotlessly clean.  I crossed paths one morning with a street-cleaner sucking up tiny tidbits of trash using what I can only describe as an unplanned mating between a vacuum cleaner and riding lawn mower. 

Our little hamlet overlooks acre upon acre of rolling hills covered in a geometric patchwork of freshly tilled vineyards, a checkerboard in shades of brown.  The Loire river meanders through this pastoral scene, a wide blue brushstroke on an earth tone canvass.  On my walk, I see up close tender green tendrils sprouting from ancient, thick vines pruned hard to the ground.  In six weeks, these fields will billow like a thick green blanket. 

This is a quiet time for me, a time to think and reflect.  The language barrier – I took Spanish in high school – erects a kind of wall that is hard to describe or break through.  Most mornings, I interact briefly with a few merchants as I point and mime the things I want to buy – pate and ham from the charcuterie, cheese from the fromagerie, a baguette and pain au raison or pain au chocolat or both from the boulangerie, and, of course vin from any one of the multiple wine shops. Despite the sincerely friendly greetings and helpful, funny interactions, these encounters are not conversations.  They are more like holding a door for a stranger.  It feels nice, but it’s not enough to sustain me.  

In the first month of my tenure as President of Agros, I visited a rural village in Guatemala, a twelve-hour drive from the nearest town.  During the day, an interpreter as well as a two-person American film team accompanied me as we visited with several families, discussing their farm operations.  In the evening, we returned to the main area of the village, a rough, somewhat level field of grass and rocks adjacent to a primitive structure that served as a type of community center. 

The interpreter and film crew left me to capture a few more shots to complete their documentary. Some boys started a soccer game in the field while a host of children too little to join the game darted about the fringe of the field engrossed in their own play.  Men in twos and threes slowly returned from their farms and reclined in the community center quietly watching the soccer game, occasionally calling out or laughing at a missed shot on goal.  The women clustered in small groups observing silently.

I stood at the edge of the field encased in and isolated by my status as President, my privilege as a white American, and my inability, despite four years of Spanish in high school, to communicate.  At some point, a small girl with bright eyes and black hair stood next to me.  I squatted so that we were at eye level.  I can’t recall why she approached me, or what, if anything we said.  We would not have understood each other anyway.  I do remember the mischievousness in her face, her shy, endearing effort to engage with this stranger.  I remember feeling less awkward.  The videographer who had accompanied me on the trip happened to return to the village at precisely the right moment to snap a photograph of this charming little girl and me.  I keep a copy in my office.  

As beautiful as Sancerre is, I understand the limits of beauty.  Without someone to share it with, its life-giving effects wither.

Melissa bursts through the apartment door a little after one, her face beaming like her best friend just showed up unexpectedly, or like that place inside her that craves interaction with another human has been jolted with a four hour stream of stimulation.  At her core, Melissa is both teacher and student.  My heart flutters.  We’ll eat lunch together and then go for a walk.  Another pretty girl, another mischievous smile.  I am in my happy place. 

 

Don tightens his grip on my hand as we enter (the) PATH after our dinner out, sometime around 9:30.  Though the lights are still on and there are no signs telling us we can’t be there, the place is eerily quiet and deserted. Maybe we just imagined the mid-day hubbub of quick-striding suits and high heels.

“Be alert! Are you alert?” he whispers before he shows me how to dart my eyes in different directions and angles. “You have to be ready for anything down here at night.”

“If it’s so dangerous, then why did we come, Don?”

“Shhhh…do you want to die?!”

After 10 days in Seattle and a lot of laundry, Don and I repacked our bags and headed back out – this time to France, via Toronto. The side-trip was hatched as a way to avoid the rather elevated U.S. fares. We could fly AirCanada, explore a new city, and spend much less than it would cost to buy a coach ticket from Seattle to Paris. If there was ever any doubt that we could get our travel groove back, it was put to rest the minute we got off the plane. Having survived the 7 am flight, we could take our sweet time figuring out how to get from the airport into the city. We had two days to do whatever we wanted.

I have often wanted, but not known how to retrieve, a sense of play that could balance all the duties and responsibilities of adulting. Then I travelled with Don, a grown man who, in wonderful ways, still sees the world as an energetic 10-year-old who constantly improvises fun and games, no matter the situation. After taking the train in and following the map to our Air Bnb, we were handed a key to an apartment on the 66^th floor of one of the high-rise buildings that soar above downtown Toronto. On the elevator ride up, Don pointed out that we’d really “get some air” jumping on the way down. But he forgot this idea as soon as he opened the door to #6606 and dropped his bags to run over to the floor-to-ceiling windows.

“This window actually opens! Come see.”

“Wow,” I offer after glancing down, mentally noting, I won’t do that again.

For the next two nights, I had to try and forget the dizzying effects of that view and my need not to feel the building swaying in the wind. Sixty-six floors is a long way up, and the vulnerability of our perch was confirmed the day we left, when security used an invisible intercom to tell us to “stand by” while the fire department investigated an alarm that had gone off way below us, on the 37^th floor.

As the opening for this entry suggests, PATH was the coolest thing ever, especially since we didn’t even know it existed our whole first day in the city. For one thing, it solved our problem of having no warm clothes. Don had insisted that we not pack any more than we absolutely needed on the Mediterranean, so that left us a wee bit underdressed for the 50 degree weather. Was it starting to rain? No problem, we could just get on the “PATH.” That night, I had already assumed that purposeful walk you use when you’re a little scared. Don, though, saw and seized the opportunity to channel Jason Bourne evading capture. As we tunneled our way beneath the city, Don showed me how to relax my arms and “Gumby” my legs down each set of stairs. Having toggled between our pied-a-terre in the sky and this 19-mile-long underground city of shops and restaurants, we were suddenly masters of the city’s vertical axis.

On the horizontal axis, we walked above ground to Kensington Market, finding a lunch that Don dubbed the “healthiest” he had ever eaten (later that afternoon, our churning stomachs reminded us what “healthy” does to your digestive tract). We’re hip to “only plant-based proteins,” but Don went all out, ordering macha tea on top of vegan soup, seed, bean, and raw vegetable salad, and a non-gluten brownie made from a combination of non-wheat flours and essences we’d never heard of.

• 

After lunch, we strolled over to AGO and walked innocently enough through a side door that put us on a balcony where we could watch a school full of children doing art. The next day, we found the front door and paid to get in (after Don confessed our transgression to the woman in the ticket window). A lovely docent took us to see several 19^th-20^th century paintings and directed us to an exhibit of photos and films (by Man Ray and others) shot in the 1920s and 30s. The black-and-white experiments in solarization, light and shade, and photo montage were fascinating, as were the artists’ shared obsession with steel and sense that machines were speeding time up. I just finished Ian McEwan’s new novel Machines Like Us, which plays with this question: Are humans becoming like machines, or are machines becoming human?

Our other venture into the arts was buying tickets at the last minute to The Brothers Size, by Terell Alvin McCraney, at Soulpepper Theater. Like the screenplay for Moonlight (which McCraney also wrote) this play is intimate and intense, all about a brother’s return home from jail in the Deep South and the crisis of identity that follows. The soul music and the actors’ graceful, dance-like movements were beautiful.

• 

• 

We found our inner child again at Ripley’s Aquarium, where we ran around doing every single exhibit: turning the crank to simulate tsunami waves in the tank, rewinding the video to see the shark seize the seal in its mouth over and over, dipping our arms into the water to touch the rays’ slimy backs and have our fingers “cleaned” by the shrimp, staring dumb-struck at the nurse and sand sharks that sliced the surface of the indoor tank with their dorsal fins. After this great field trip, we sat outside drinking 8-oz beers at the brewery at the old railyard. Who orders an 8-oz beer? We did, and we laughed about it.

For dinner our last night, we found two seats at the bar at Momofuku, David Chang’s hot new restaurant for Asian-American cuisine. It was a blast to have front row seats to the production. We watched the young chefs tend the wood fire, grill the beef and escarole, and meticulously plate the food: brie and beef drippings served with round loaves of flatbread; grilled beets with chick peas on hummus; trout with cabbage and butter sauce. Don and I critiqued each dish mimicking the expert judges we watched several times on a cooking show in Australia.

Today is Sunday, a day of rest, croissants, a walk around town, and grocery shopping. Tomorrow I start my classes with an oral exam first thing (eek!), while Don finally gets some concentrated time to write. The transition from Toronto to Paris to here was hard, due to bad mattresses, the 7-hour flight in economy class, rain and cold, and waking up during the night. But we have landed well and are so excited to be in medieval Sancerre (two hours south of Paris) for the next two weeks. Love to all!

Here we are again strapped into seats 26A and 26C about 35,000 feet above Fargo, North Dakota vectoring in a more or less straight line towards touchdown in Toronto.  Only after zig-zagging across the huge expanse of the Pacific Ocean does a four and a half hour flight feel like a short hop, but there it is, one of the many things that has changed after three plus months detached from our former reality.

For those of you who may recall our prior airport adventures, I am happy to report that we had no dramas this morning.  Of course, I made absolutely certain Melissa all but signed a written waiver not to complain about our 7:00 am flight, a time we mutually agreed upon after searching endlessly for the cheapest way to get from Seattle to Paris.  I woke her up at 4:45 am, fifteen minutes before the taxi would arrive.  Eyes closed, hands in a death grip with the comforter, she asked, “do I have five more minutes?”  It was more a pitiful murmur than a question.  

We had spent about two weeks in Seattle, an astonishingly fleeting, interim existence that felt like sleepwalking through a familiar dream.  I remember the first morning waking to a beautiful spring day without the faintest idea of whether it was 6:00 am or noon, and stopping dead in my tracks on the way to the bathroom confused by all the clothes and shoes in my closest.  Where did all this come from?  I counted at least fourteen pairs of shoes including five different pairs of sandal/flip flop/slipper things.  I tried to wear all of them at least once while I was home.  I failed.

Later that day, we called Melissa’s mom to catch up.  In the middle of a conversation that had been all oohs and ahs over the spectacular natural beauty of New Zealand, Carol suddenly pivoted to her serious mother voice, the one she uses to make dire predictions about our future if we fail to follow her advice, and declared in a tone that brooked no dissent, “tell Don if I see him in another picture wearing those plaid shorts again, I think I’m going to die.”  They are not plaid.  They are monochrome.  The next day, Melissa and I walked to Nordstrom and bought new clothes for our trip to France.  I’ve got a big closet.

By far and away, the most delightful thing about being home (even more so than the glorious spring weather) was seeing Nick and visiting with friends.  A particular heartfelt shout out to Laura and Emory who not only hosted and fed us along with a few friends one night, but allowed us to linger in laughter with them for over five hours.  If there was ever a time when such gracious hosts were entitled to, as I learned by watching Queer Eye, gently usher their guests out the door by serving coffee, that night was one of those times. 

The next several days flew by in a blur.  I remember cooking a few dinners, laughing with Nick, who, by the way, did an impressive job of handling the house, catching up with Meg and Josh and Jack and my mom, wishing my brother Mike a happy birthday, and obsessing, along with most of America, over Season 8, Episode 3 of Game of Thrones.  Melissa, not a huge GOT fan – not a big fantasy fan in general — actually watched all of Season 7 with me (my third time) as well as the three episodes in Season 8.  She only fell asleep once in Season 7.  Yet another facet of this otherwise “literary” woman emerges.  Thank you Australia.  Khaleesi Melissa is in the house!  If you do not understand that last sentence, it just means you are normal.  

On the plane today, I read a terrific essay by Christopher Beha in Harper’s.  Here’s the quote that caught my eye and got me thinking about our brief layover in Seattle. 

“When I try to envision a better future, I find myself hoping for a society in which we all spend a little less time thinking and talking about politics.  I know I’m not alone in this hope.  Never before has the political, in the narrowest, electoral sense of the word, so saturated every corner of our lives.” 

It occurred to me after reading this quote a second time that during our short stay in Seattle we had spent virtually no time talking to our friends and family about politics.  During our lovely five plus hours with Laura and Emory and friends, “he who should not be named” did not intrude once on our delightful conversations.  By the way, I know the Harry Potter line is “he who must not be named.” I intentionally changed the “must” to “should.” We can use Donald Trump’s name without fear; we just should not allow it to interrupt our sanity as much as it does.  And that, with all due respect to the rather more intelligent and thoughtful insights of Christopher Beha, is his main point in the quoted article.  

I’ve mentioned before how I have wrestled with my ardent desires to remain permanently on sabbatical as opposed to returning to the United States, and, in particular, to the rude rhetoric building once again as we head into the election.  Beha provided me with a perspective on this sabbatical. It’s not that we should all run away or disengage from what has now been dubbed “the resistance.”  As Ellie Wiesel stated simply, but profoundly, “We must all takes sides.  Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.  Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”  Rather, as Beha explains, periodic disengagement from our obsession with politics (small “p”) makes needed room for reengagement with knowledge, beauty, laughter and each other.  Again, Beha,

“Knowledge and beauty; pleasure and delight; the contemplation of truth, irrespective of its instrumental uses; the intimate encounter with another human consciousness offered by the best works of art – these are among the things that make life worth living.”

Perhaps Beha’s most powerful insight, however, is how our collective obsession with Donald Trump and his tweets, his masterful, but dangerous manipulation of the press, moves us ever closer to a totalitarian society.  The “defining feature of totalitarian societies” as Beha notes, is that “they are places in which all modes of life are subsumed under the political, in which each citizen’s most important relationship must be his or her relationship to the state.”  Sound familiar?  So, how much time did you spend watching CNN or Fox last week?

Our brief stint in Seattle was as rejuvenating as our three and a half months overseas precisely because we returned to the joys of friends and family, the beauty of spring, and even the cathartic experience of doing some needed yard work (not one of Nick’s many talents).  As Beha helped me understand, “[t]he ultimate aim of scaling back our political attention is not apathy but the creation of autonomous space for social, spiritual, and aesthetic experiences.”  I am not apathetic about voting Donald Trump out of office along with those craven republicans who have empowered him verbally or through their silence.  I am, however, refreshingly aware of how a time out, a break from obsession with the nonsense we call Trump, especially his incessant “chit chat” via twitter, is, as Beha rightfully states, a form of resistance.

If my political views have touched a nerve with any of you good people who make time to read about our adventures, please take a moment to appreciate how much I love you, seriously and sincerely.  I don’t intend or hope to change your political opinions.  In fact, I encourage them.  Democracy is built on thoughtful dialogue.  Can we agree, however, to advocate for our respective positions respectfully and civilly and, as much as possible, with a sense of humor?  If Beha is correct, and I believe he is, allowing our political disagreements to fuel the fire of obsession leads inevitably to totalitarianism.  I feel confident that we all prefer a democracy.  So, if it’s okay with you, let’s keep the political chit chat to a minimum. 

• 

• 

If Melbourne is the twenty-something hipster leaping head first into the world, Sydney is the sober forty-year-old with a couple of kids, a good job and a staid outlook on life. As our terrific host at the Chalet in the Blue Mountains described it, “Melbourne has style, but Sydney has substance.”

It is hard not to fall in love with both cities.  They affect my outlook the way music can set a mood.  Crank up Ed Sheeran and I’m poppin’ off like a teenager in love for the first time (my kids will hate that image), but dial up Sting and I’m all deep, introspective sophistication.  So too, take a walk around Sydney and all I can think about is where to dine with a fine bottle of Cabernet.  Jump on the tram in Melbourne, especially St. Kilda, our current location, and I’m feeling a tall one with my homies (that would be Melissa) in a sidewalk café.  

• 

• 

• 

We’ve shared about our first sojourn in Sydney, a truly world-class city, but now we’re back in Melbourne, for the second time.  We were here for a couple of nights last week before we cruised our silver Camry into the great wide open of the Great Ocean Road.  Thanks to AirBnB, we’ve plopped our bags in a studio apartment four floors above the action in St. Kilda, a beach community about 15 minutes from the CBD – Central Business District. 

Enter our apartment through a narrow corridor that doubles as a kitchenette and you open into a spacious, sunny room with light oak floors, two six foot tall windows that look out on the Melbourne skyline, a tiny, but functional bath and a double bed plopped in the middle of the room.  Add in the twelve-foot ceilings and a small table with two chairs and I’m full on Hemingway, writing the great American novel.  The one drawback is sleep.  It’s hard to get with so much activity going on outside the window. First-world problem.

Let me step in to paint a more accurate picture. As usual, Don has done everything he can to make me comfortable. Unfortunately, that means that I got the one set of earplugs left by our AirBnB host, while Don has lain awake with the late-night bars, tram bells, and screaming mufflers on the street below (who plays an organ at four in the morning?). He says he doesn’t need earplugs, but I know better. That said, we’re getting ready to attend our first – and last? – AFL (Australian Football League) game at Marvel Stadium. Something tells me the Aussies are supportive (raucous) fans.  

Melbourne is made up of unique neighborhoods, and we have tramped from one end of this city to another. It’s been hard to find good food close by, but we zeroed in on two amazing experiences. One was a tiny creperie we stumbled upon in the CBD, the other the South Melbourne Market. At the creperie, we fell head over heels with our adorable Parisian waitress and ordered the best galette, best dessert crepe, and a small bottle of cider (it was only 5.5% and it was past noon), at her insistence. She took the plate from the table just as I was about to put my face in it and lick it. At the market, we ate fresh veggies and smoked salmon at a stall surrounded by a smorgasbord of continental cuisines. South Melbourne is a little nicer than the equally extensive Victoria market to the north, so we also enjoyed a much-needed pedicure (me) and haircut (Don).

• 

• 

• 

No one would hire us as travel guides, because we more or less “feel” our way around a big city, but it always seems to work out. Our second day in Melbourne, our peripatetic path took us through the Botanic Gardens, over to the Public Library with its newly renovated reading room and huge dome, to Federation Square for sushi and a street performance by a Cirque de Soleil acrobat who hung dangerously off a tall pole being held by four strangers he pulled out of the crowd. Having seen the signs for April’s Comedy Festival, we let a young person direct us to her two picks for the evening. One was a hilarious show, Judith Lucy vs. men, the other an improv/slapstick/burlesque show where, among other things, Don got a lap dance by a gender-fluid individual. They slapped “hugh jackman” on my shirt, but never got around to using it. Top all this off with two outdoor swims at the Aquatic Center, the crowds going wild in the (empty) stands, and we’re having fun.

• 

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• 

• 

Don again.  We often start these entries on one day and finish them a few days later, as is the case now.  We packed up our stuff and left Melbourne on Easter Sunday, flying to Sydney for our last few days before returning home to Seattle for a spell. After a few rough nights of sleep in St. Kilda, arriving at our quiet, seventh floor flat in Surry Hills, Sydney and being warmly greeted by our host, Pete, felt like checking into the Ritz. I started this entry with a comparison of Melbourne and Sydney.  Now that I’m back in Sydney, I think that comparison is quite apt.  I must admit that as much as I romanticize being that young hipster plunging into the world, drinking beers at the AFL game, joining in the chorus of inebriated sing-alongs at the Irish Bar across the street, I am truly glad to be back in Sydney.

I am curious what it will feel like to walk into my own house after three months, how it will feel to sleep in my own bed.  For over 100 days, we have not stayed in the same place more than three nights.  We have not fully unpacked our suitcases. We have worn the same clothes.  For the last month, the only shoes I have worn are my tennis shoes.  For over 100 days we have not been cross with one another, moped about feeling sorry for ourselves, felt down or depressed, or worried about missing an appointment or making someone angry.  For over 100 days we have not worried about having nothing to do or too much to do. For over 100 straight days, we have held hands, kissed each other, clinked our glasses in a toast to everything and nothing, said “I love you” at odd times, and filled up our time standing witness to impossibly beautiful things to the point that virtually everything reflected something impossibly beautiful.

I have to admit that I am ready to swap out for some new clothes, but other than that, I can’t recall another time in my life that moved with such ease and grace, that was filled with such equilibrium, that felt like, and actually was, as full as it could be. 

It seems fitting to close out the first part of this sabbatical singing:

Is this the real life?
Is this just fantasy?
Caught in a landslide
No escape from reality
Open your eyes
Look up to the skies and see
I’m just a poor boy, I need no sympathy
Because I’m easy come, easy go
A little high, little low
Anyway the wind blows, doesn’t really matter to me, to me

Somewhere in Victoria, Australia

Dear Australia,

We could have had it awwwwwl, rollin’ in the deeeep. You’re older, bigger, and alright, more “built” than those wimpy Kiwis. But you can be a little, well, overwhelming. Sure, you introduced me to some nice people, but c’mon. What was up with that bartender who told me he’s never made a mojito, he “hates” them in fact, when all I said was, “what’s so grand about your “Grand Mojito”? And that news story we’ve been hearing for days about an AFL player who claims he didn’t mean to punch the other team’s player in the jaw, he was aiming for his chest? If we’re going to be a couple, it can’t all be about you. 

It’s not like I’m a princess, but a little warmth would go a long way. The long brick house that was “Arabella” stood bare of trees or bushes, like the austere mansion in “Giant.” There was no sign of life behind the curtained windows and no car parked under the carport next to it. Only us, the wind, and what we would later learn was 500 acres of cattle farm. We pulled up next to what looked like the front door, got out of the car, and stood there for a moment before one of us reached over and pushed the doorbell.  

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Innkeeper Lyn served up lovely fresh fruit and yogurt with breakfast the next morning (7:30-8:30!!) and Neil even offered to follow us to drop off our car and drive us east to the start of our hike on the Great Ocean track. But after 20 minutes of highway driving, I had to wonder why Neil couldn’t drop us at the place we had originally wanted that was closer by. What was the point of all those plowing trophies if he couldn’t get us through a little bush to the beach? Whatever. It was 22k or nothing, so I gamely tied my blue bandanna over my head like Lawrence of Arabia and hiked through your broiling scrub, finally just thinking the words my parched mouth could not form, “after three days in the desert sun, my skin began to turn red.” There’s no need to remind me that the high that day was “only” 70 degrees.

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To my point, the coast here is so inviting that busloads of tourists would rather drive the 6-hour roundtrip from Melbourne in a single day than find a place to stay. Yeah, I know. I’m actually glad about that, especially after we joined the giant amoeba making its slow way out to the viewpoint at Twelve Apostles. But it would be nice to feel a little more safe during our stay. Our bush cabin, Hideaway, basically screams “danger!” with its mounted “fire blanket,” barely potable tap water, and shower that trickles extremely hot or glacier cold. Apart from the millipede-flicking we do enjoy on the carpet, we must trust to God that there won’t be a poisonous snake waiting for us in the tall grass outside the front door. 

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Your local history is really impressive, but it’s pretty clear that the only reason you showed me it is to point out the obvious: I couldn’t hack it here. It’s not just that your ancestors are criminals, the poorest of the poor, hardened not by the petty crimes they committed back in England, but by the hard labor you consigned them to here in the “colony.” It’s that all the people who chose to come over were, to put it bluntly, crazy. So many died watery deaths, their ships foundering on the rocks that lie everywhere just off your coast. Seeing the rusted anchors still embedded in the sand on Shipwreck Beach sent chills up my spine. Only two survived out of 54 when the Loch Ard hit a reef, the rocket launchers that shot lines over the ship having proved ineffectual to save the drowning. It is, thus, an understatement to say that the ones who successfully landed here, beginning in the 1840s, were tough customers.

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At the Otway bluff, 91 meters above the sea, a lighthouse was built in 1848 of stones hewn and fitted together in a circular tower with no cement. One wife of the lighthouse keeper delivered seven of her 9 children here, removed from any doctor and relying only on the food she could grow and the supplies that were shipped and bullock-carted across the bush every six months. Even the men who surveyed the area needed three tries to find it. When they arrived, they stayed for one hour before they turned around and headed back. While I got to imagine I was Ariel calling up the storm that would drive King Alonso’s party mad with despair, I knew it wasn’t make-believe for all the people who died a few hundred yards from your forbidding shore. 

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We’d venture out for dinner in Apollo Bay, but our track record for eating out hasn’t been anything to write home about. Besides, we’d like to be back for nightfall since our innkeeper warned it’d be almost impossible to drive back in the dark. Fish ‘n chips and beer, you and your mates’ favorite food, leaves me wanting. I enjoyed the black rice, salmon dish I got the other night, but who were you reallythinking about when you laid them both on a thick bed of mayonnaise? 

No hard feelings, Australian Bush, but we’re headed back to the city. God bless your historic towns – Winchelsea, Forrest, Birregurra – as they stand up to the next vicious fire season. Your towering forests of Mountain Ash are living monuments to their resilience and courage. 

Your “possum,”

Melissa

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It’s April 17, ninety-five days into this sabbatical, or as Melissa insists we now call it, a “retreat.” She doesn’t want people to think we are on one long vacation, goofing off, doing nothing productive.  Sometimes Melissa finds it difficult to believe she deserves a vacation for as long as she wants.  She also finds it difficult to believe that I do some of my most productive work when I’m goofing off.  I’ve been goofing off for almost ten years now.  You be the judge.

We’ve planted (and that is the best word for it) ourselves in a one-bedroom cabin smack in the middle of the Otway National Forest perched between a long graceful arc of the Great Ocean Road and Antarctica.  Okay, so Antarctica is probably something like 5,000 miles across the ocean, but still, we are, by any definition, squatting at the edge of civilization. As our young innkeeper warned us when we checked in around sunset, “At night you can’t see a thing.  No, seriously, I mean you can’t see anything.”

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Melbourne may be less than three hours away, but once we wound our way off the highway into the beautiful forest of huge Mountain Ash (second tallest tree in the world) with sunlight splattering through the branches like giant drops of rain, and turned off of the tiny paved road onto a rugged wagon track winding through tall grass and thick bush before stopping at a cabin that looked as if the forest would reclaim in within the hour, all I could imagine was a scene from The Thorn Birds when the family arrives in a rundown wooden home miles from the nearest living human.  Well, Lis, we wanted a retreat. 

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We had the essentials: coffee, milk, OJ, stuff for a pasta dinner.  I did not have to set up a tent or boil our water, although our young inn keeper, in response to Melissa’s comment that the water in the cabin had a metallic taste, said, “Ya, you probably shouldn’t drink the water.  It won’t kill you, though.”  We have a cistern of sorts in the kitchen that we fill with tap water to filter it.  It would have been nice if someone had posted a sign letting us know that. 

To be fair (and honest), I love it.  The cabin is not fancy, but it is not rundown.  More importantly, I am alone with my beautiful wife in the middle of nowhere without Internet, without neighbors, without the need to wear clothes. Okay, I won’t go any further than that. Although, the romance was dimmed a bit when Melissa discovered the water pressure in the shower was somewhere between a steady leak and a trickle.  Not to mention the hot water was either scalding hot (but only for about thirty seconds) or underground spring cold.  She was a good sport about it, especially after a candlelight dinner, windows open, big gusts of wind sweeping across the bush.

Our night in the cabin feels like all of Australia, a rugged elegance, a beauty that demands caution more than an embrace.  Huge crescent beaches with rocky headlands, sheer massive cliffs and water ten different shades of blue all but dare you to plunge into the surf, but you better be a damn good swimmer if you hope to get out again.  The Great Ocean Walk winds in and out of the shade with peak-a-boo views of the ocean and coastline.  The trail is open and easy to walk, but watch out for the poisonous snakes, and after an hour, you will be desperate for even the smallest patch of shade.  On one of our walks in the Blue Mountains about a week ago, Melissa, a few steps behind me on the trail, said, apropos of nothing in that moment but relevant to everything we have experienced, “Australia: it can kill you.” 

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I do a lot of reflecting when I am in a place like this, remote, cut off, wild.  It’s not because I am some deep, introspective poet-philosopher. Think about it.  It’s dark by 7:00.  I don’t dare step outside, at least not too far.  I’ve been hiking most of the day anyway.  I can only read for so long.  (Melissa has a much better reading attention span than me).  What else is there?  Okay, there is dinner and romance, but that gets you to, say, 8:30. I end up reflecting on the things I thought about during the day.

I noticed I have been thinking about death.  Maybe it’s Australia, but I think it has more to do with The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, a book I was reading before leaving on sabbatical.  One of the reasons Sogyal Rinpoche wrote the book was to help westerners prepare themselves to face death.  I analogized his book to preparing to run a marathon.  You don’t simply show up at the start line on the day of the race. You have to train.  More importantly, however, (in fact, this is his main point) preparing to face death allows you to live more fully now.  

When I get to that point on a hike where the initial wonder of the sights along the trail has worn thin and the sun has grown hot and my feet are starting to complain, along with my knees – my knees are particularly loud complainers these days – I let my mind drift into a daydream of sorts in which I imagine I am walking the trail with people I love, showing them all this beauty as if I were their guide.  It produces a feeling not unlike the feeling of sharing really great news with a close friend.  If nothing else, it drowns out my whiny knees and feet.

More often than not, I find myself walking the trail with my parents and surrogate parents, those people who make up the thinning ceiling in my house. Imagining I am on the trail with my mom, Jack, Carol, Margaret, Fr. Paul, it is not a big brain-leap to the realization that soon I will be the ceiling in my house.  Yet, it is hard to prepare for a day in which I cannot call Jack for advice, or plan Carol’s Christmas trip to Seattle, or hear my mom say for the umpteenth time, “I love you, and God loves you.” 

In the inevitable sadness of that thought, I find myself suddenly talking to my dad who died many years ago.  I remember the time he and mom picked me up from Georgetown, driving the twelve hours in our station wagon before turning around and driving home.  Dad insisted we stop at the Outer Banks simply because he had never seen it before.  We spent one night.  Dad and I walked across the street from our roadside motel and stood on the vast expanse of beach.  

As Melissa and I crest a headland and reach a lookout, I see another crescent beach.  This one more golden than white, wilder, bigger waves and dangerous rip tides.  I hear myself saying, “So, how about this Dad?  Never seen this before.” 

The strange thing is, I was mad at my dad when he died and for very good reasons.  I stayed mad for several years, wanting to forgive and forget, but unable to find the right combination of thoughts and emotions to get me to that place.  Somewhere on one of these trails, I met my father again.

I was incorrect.  I did not need to forgive and forget.  I needed to forgive and remember.  I needed to talk to him again, to call him and tell him about everything I was experiencing.  I am not so young and naïve as to believe he hears me, and I am not so old and cynical as to think he doesn’t.  I am content to feel his presence, to hold a memory of him that is real and true and good and allows me to live more fully now.

As I said, talking about death makes us squirm.  Yet, how else could I convey to my parents and surrogate parents not only how much I love them, but how much I like having them around, even if it is only in my head?

As they say in Central America, si quiero Dios, if God wishes it, I will wander lost in a daydream with squeaky knees on many more hikes talking to people – living and dead – that I love.  And maybe, when the time comes, I’ll be ready when my trail finally gives out.  At least my knees will have nothing left to complain about.

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Hiking in and around, up and down, the enormous green canyon here in the Blue Mountains (in some places, it is wider than the Grand Canyon), I have watched my mind wander, happy that I am, once again, on “retreat.” Hiking gets me to this mindset faster than anything else. The ups and downs and rocky bits of trail are just challenging enough that I stay present, which is a fertile place for thoughts and discoveries. I am calm and able to let go of the negative thoughts that sneak in (less often, I find). The natural beauty – and changing light of fall – envelop us and feel like love, like God. I am grateful and full. I want to put a finer point on it, though. It’s not that we’re removed from the griefs and family members that lie heavy on our hearts. What’s different is the realization that many of the stressors in our normal life originate outside us. Hopefully this awareness can help us escape the shared psychosis. Life is hard enough without piling on unnecessary drama that takes us out of our best selves.

I’m also a slow learner. I think about all my friends who have already found ways to cozy up to beauty in their lives in Seattle. Laura always has Chopin or Bach perched on her piano stand to practice; Janey decorates so creatively and hosts warm gatherings at the shore; Cindy shares her beautiful spirit with clients to lead them to new insight; Debbie Jo carries an aura whenever she reads aloud to children; Amy quilts, cooks, builds closets and could retire to the prairie. There is plenty of inspiration for me to find additional pleasure in singing again, learning to paint, or playing music. 

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Our detox from American culture over the last 90 days continues to produce big dividends. In Seattle, the IPhone rules, distracting each of us more – or less, and reducing the number of face-to-face interactions. The first thing Don and I noticed on the train into Sydney were the heads craned down, pulled into screens. No opportunity to strike up a conversation, no sense of shared physical space. Then there is the vortex of CNN and the 24-hour Trump-obsessed news cycle. Surprisingly (maybe?), there’s no “new” American news since we got here. We know that Mueller filed his report, but only the AG has seen it. It’s not the bombshell the Democrats wanted it to be. UVA just won its first national title! With apologies to Don Lemon, do we really need to know any more?

In addition, every time I see schoolchildren, I miss my wonderful students. But my heart sinks when I think about how the open eagerness I see in my 9^th graders is hijacked by the “business” of college applications. The process starts sooner, drums up more anxiety than ever, and sidelines the point of education, which (to me) is to cultivate communities of active, curious learners and help grow young people into compassionate, socially responsible adults.

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I have enjoyed being in a different relationship to material things, personal appearance, and okay, pretty much any grooming. Living out of a carry-on puts a different spin on getting “dressed.” All the schoolchildren here wear some version of the cute blue or green-striped uniform. Likewise, I throw on my own daily uniform – whatever’s on top, and hopefully clean – lace up my shoes, brush my hair, and I’m out the door. Fear not, there is a limit to my devil-may-care attitude. When Don, the sweet man who would think I look good in a sack, tells me that I should “retire” the nondescript black pants I am wearing once I get home, I find the nearest airport bathroom, take off said pants (retrieved from the kids’ lost-and-found at home), and dispose of them handily.

Most of the time here, clothes are just clothes, and food is often, especially outside of Sydney, just (bland) food. I haven’t had my phone in 3 months and I don’t miss it. I laughed on the last day in Sydney, because I realized I’d been thinking it was an hour ahead of actual time the entire stay, because the wall clock in the apartment was wrong. Sadly, the diamond fell out of my 30-year-old engagement ring last week. I took off the ring, reported the loss to our insurance company, and surprisingly, have not once had that panicky feeling of unconsciously feeling for it and not remembering it’s gone.

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There is a sense in which Don and I are “in retreat,” fleeing from an aggressive culture that takes no prisoners. When we’re in it, we don’t realize the toll it takes. Recently, we listened to an interview with the Catholic archbishop of Sydney who gave up Netflix for Lent. There’s nothing wrong with Netflix in and of itself. I am the first to grab the latest new series. But the archbishop realized he wasn’t even focused on the shows he was watching. All entertainment is a form of escape, but he had escaped only into mindlessness. I completely related. “Mindlessness” is a poor balm for stress and distraction; how do you heal without being “mindful”? As the female Buddhist monk on this same podcast explained, the point is not to become “detached,” but “unattached.” The sloughing of layers lets in other things, such as serendipity. Don and I travel with fewer expectations (for me, a motel bathroom is “nice” if it gives me a washrag). As a result, we are bowled over by the good things that happen.

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The first place we stayed in the Blue Mountains was a sad little lodge along the main highway. Fortunately, I had only booked us there for one night, mistakenly believing we needed to be closer to the other attractions (everything here lies within a 20-minute drive). The second place I booked – where we are now – is an absolute treasure, an 1892 house lovingly restored and full of incredible artwork. One of the partners that owns it is David Middlebrook, of some renown as a contemporary Australian artist. This morning, we sat by the fire in the living room, sipping coffee and visiting as if the four of us were old friends. It’s amazing how being in someone’s home can make you feel a part of a place. We learned tidbits of local history, where to find the best walking spots, and that the abstract, geometric Aboriginal paintings on the walls are actually maps, not at all intended to be hung and displayed.

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Supposedly, Potts Point is a posh Sydney neighborhood.  Could have fooled us.  We walked past multiple backpacker hostels, a couple of boarded up retail shops and two adult entertainment houses before locating the entrance to our building.  A walk up four flights of narrow, dimly lit stairs found us opening the door to our “cozy apartment.”  It was dark and raining.  We were tired and grumpy.  After a good night’s sleep, everything looked better, including Jangling Jack’s, a tiny, hip bar just outside our building, which turned out to be a fantastic place for an Old Fashion.  Funny how sleep and bourbon can put things in a whole new light.  

We spent our first morning in the apartment looking at St. Mary’s Cathedral with glimpses of the majestic sails of the iconic Sydney Opera House and drinking (OMG) instant coffee. Note to file: someone really should explain to our friends in Australia and New Zealand the joys of real coffee, and, by the way, it’s called a “French Press” not a “plunger.”  A plunger is used on the toilet, which is where all instant coffee should be disposed off.  Instant coffee aside, our time in Sydney turned out to be a lovely agenda-less meandering from one pleasant unexpected experience to another, a kind of lazy, beautiful Sunday afternoon stretched over three great days. 

I spent our first morning figuring out how to get us back to the States before heading to France.  I know, rough life.  We should all have such problems.  Getting antsy (the instant coffee, no doubt), Melissa peppered me with variations on the same question: “what should we do today?”

A titch exasperated by the unconscionable fares for flights on U.S. airlines, I rather pointedly informed Melissa that I would prefer not to make any more travel decisions.  Could she please just plan the day and I will go along with it?  I might have had a certain “tone” in my voice.  (At this point, I had had a good night’s sleep, but not yet the bourbon). Melissa, God love her, gave me a look that said everything that needed to be said, and proceeded to map out a terrific walking tour of Sydney. 

From our apartment, we walked to St. Mary’s Cathedral, poked our heads inside and continued from there through the Botanical Gardens stopping at the New South Wales Museum and the Anzac World War I War Memorial.  As Melissa noted, Australia sent over 400,000 men and women to fight in Europe.  Over half never came home.  In a country with a population at the time of around four million, this was an enormous and devastating sacrifice.

Worse, except for two exceptions, the remains of the dead were never transported back to Australia for burial.  Mothers, fiancées, children, parents, spouses and friends were deprived of even the solace of putting their loved ones to rest.  Thus, in virtually every town in Australia there is a WWI memorial, the only place families can grieve and heal.  The memorial in Sydney is poignant, piercing and noble all in the same deep, throat-clenching inhalation. 

Recovering from the somber, bittersweet feelings in the Anzac Memorial, we strolled (as if Melissa ever strolls, but go with it) to Sydney Harbor, spending more than a few minutes hunting for Mrs. Macquarie’s Chair.  The chair (damn it) was on the itinerary, the itinerary I had “asked” Melissa to plan.  We found it.  The governor, in a blow to all males trying to impress their wives, had a seat carved into the rock for his wife on the exact spot she loved most.  Thanks for that, governor.  

Venturing along the harbor, we happened upon a huge, floating stage set up by the Sydney ballet for an outdoor production of West Side Story.  On the pathway between the stage and the amphitheater seats, we plopped down and watched the cast rehearse several numbers.  I love little freebies like this. 

Continuing on the path that runs along the curve of the harbor in Sydney’s downtown, we made our way to the Central Quay, the port for the numerous ferries that service pedestrian traffic through the harbor (think Seattle ferries times 20).  Opposite the West Side Story stage across the water jutting out on a peninsula sits the Sydney Opera House, now a man-made World Heritage Site.  In a previous post, I echoed Melissa’s insight that humans cannot create beauty; we only imitate it.  The Sydney Opera House is the exception.  Every painstaking detail magically and beautifully incorporates the structure into the magnificent environment.  

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On a whim, we checked in with a delightful older woman at the ticket counter to see if we might luck into tickets to any of the multiple performances running at the opera house.  In the span of five minutes, this fairy godmother behind the counter booked us tickets to the opening night of the ballet, Verve, saved us money by combining the tickets with an hour tour of the opera house, and timed everything so perfectly that we could grab a needed cup of coffee, take the tour, get back to the apartment to change, return to the opera house for a quick dinner, and get to the show with time to spare. 

Although I am not much of a guided tour type person, SueAnne, our forty-something, dark haired five-foot-four Aussie guide had me from the moment she introduced herself.  The genius and heartbreaking story of Jorn Utzon, the Danish architect, only increased my fascination.  Read Melissa’s entry for details about Utzon and the Opera House.  After the tour, Melissa and I dashed back to the apartment to change before the opera even though SueAnne insisted we would be fine in our hiking shorts and somewhat aromatic tee shirts. Aussies don’t judge.

Showered and changed, we grabbed a couple of salads along the waterfront sitting outside in a light drizzle because all of the covered tables were filled.  This, however, was not the greatest indignity.  Seconds — literally seconds — after the waiter placed my salad on the table, a stealth bomber sea gull darted from the sky, snatching a piece of my smoked salmon.  The waiter politely asked if he could bring me another and looked slightly green as I declined and started eating.  Time was of the essence.

Withholding any comment on my decision, the waiter brought us wire baskets to cover our food between bites and a spray bottle filled with water to fend off the utterly contemptuous birds.  Bottle within easy reach, eyes scanning the sky, one hand lifting and closing the wire basket, I ate my salad.  In this inglorious fashion, we entered the opera house for opening night. Aussies don’t judge.

Verve was  performed in three movements, each with an intermission.  It began with a more traditional ballet performance, followed by two modern dance pieces.  The second piece was called Aurum. The program, in part, explains it this way:

“Aurumis a piece inspired by kintsugi(golden joinery), the Japanese art of repairing broken ceramics with gold or metallic lacquer.  As a philosophy, it treats breakage and repair as part of the history of the object, something to acknowledge and honour rather than disguise.  By illuminating the fractures with gold, the repair often leaves the object more beautiful than it was in its original form.” 

If the Sydney Opera House is the exception to the rule that artists do not create beauty, but only imitate it, Aurum is the second exception.  An athletic but sensuously graceful dance performed primarily by a principal ballerina and two male companions, Aurum hypnotized me.  I don’t think I blinked during the entire performance.  Immediately after the applause died down, Melissa looked at me with the same wonder I felt inside and said, “I thought they were making love on stage.”  I thought I had experienced in twenty or so minutes all the passion, heartache, anger, forgiveness and bittersweet, tender love of a thirty-year marriage.  A great book or movie or song can make me tear up. Verve was the first ballet (or dance of any kind) to do that. 

I love how this trip echoes things Melissa and I have felt or thought.  Could there be a better way to describe the meaning behind the name of this blog, Save The Pieces, than the description of Aurum quoted above?  Perhaps there really is not anything new under the sun.  Maybe the way we experience something makes that thing new in each experience.  I remember reading about a Christian who was trying to understand why Hindus have so many gods.  The Hindu to whom the Christian was speaking explained, I’m paraphrasing, “we do not have multiple gods, we have multiple experiences of God.” Amen, or as Meg would say, “dead ass my dude.” 

*Acres upon acres of immaculately kept public gardens, a greenway that stretches from the Anzac museum in Hyde Park all the way down to the Opera House. We could have been a contender, with The Commons!

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*The Opera House: Yorn Utzon was a relatively unknown 38-yr-old architect when he won the design contest (1957). The shell shape was impossibly difficult, yet he figured out how to built it by fitting its “sails” on a sphere.

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In 1966, after delays and ballooning costs (7 million estimated, ultimately over $100 million), he was fired and went home to Denmark. It wasn’t until his 90s that he was awarded the Pritzker Prize for this World Heritage site. Utzon never saw it finished.

*Efficient, comprehensive train system and amazing public gyms and pools, one built under the plaza in front of the iconic St. Mary’s Church.

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*Free entry to museums (moving WWI ANZAC memorial, Art Gallery of New South Wales). The erasure of a generation of young ANZAC troops in WWI is one of the saddest stories I know. Of the fewer than five million people in Australia, 416,809 men enlisted, of whom more than 60,000 were killed and 156,000 wounded, gassed, or taken prisoner. Of all the dead, only two bodies were brought back for burial in Australia.

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*Vibrant art scene: we attended opening night at the ballet (a triptych of dances, “Verve”). We sat and watched outdoor rehearsals that same day for the Opera Company’s “West Side Story.”

*“Family Sundays.” We took the train into Circular Quay and the ferry all the way up to Watson’s Point for lunch at the beer garden; cost=$2.50 apiece.

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*Potts Point: Our “cozy” Air BnB was a four-story walk-up with a dingy staircase, but we had a big window that looked out over the city and a shared rooftop terrace!

*Kind people, from our charismatic Opera House guide (whom we ran into two days later at the Governor’s House) to the traffic cop at the airport who happily escorted us to a “safer” place when he found us illegally parked and floundering for directions.