Category Archives: travel

From Britain to the the Black Sea….

history, saints, travel, , , , , ,

It is believed by the Orthodox Church that our Lord’s disciple Simon the Zealot was martyred in what is now the Republic of Georgia. I’ve been looking at maps of that world from the first century, but mine is never a systematic study, when I gaze at maps. Rarely do I come away with a clearer idea of geography or topography, or in this case, history. It’s one of those cases of too-muchness, and I no more hope to retain anything in particular than when I enjoy the view of of trees and plants from a hilltop.

After I leave the map I never can visualize where Georgia or the Black Sea are. I should put a map just above my computer monitor, where I could gaze at it more frequently; I might even switch it out for another part of the world every few months.

Did any of you ever see the curriculum called Mapping the World by Heart? I once bought a copy of the original hard copy version for myself, not my children, thinking that I could work on it at least once a week and learn my geography. But no.

What first piqued my interest in the journeys of St. Simon was an article by John Sanidopoulos titled St. Simon the Zealot and Apostle to Georgia, in which he discusses the sources of his name Zealot and also Simon the Canaanite. He might have been the groom at the Marriage at Cana! And he is said to have traveled in Britain. There are photographs in that post of holy sites associated with the saint, like this church in Novy Afon (New Athos).

The article contains no maps, but when I set about refreshing my memory by means of a few, I came across beautiful depictions of different eras, such as this German map below, showing the 12th century in my favorite colors.

The identifying words at left, “Schwarzes Meer” are sweetly evocative of the day I swam in the Black Sea for a few hours when I was 17, near Istanbul somewhere. I wish I had a print of the picture that I took to refer to, but it is indelibly inked on my mind: A brilliant and dark cerulean sea under a cloudless sky; our feet in the warm, clean sand, and my laughing friend Viv, willowy in her swimsuit, with white-blond hair flying in the breeze.

If I ever get back to Turkey, or visit Georgia, I’d like to spend time by the Black Sea again! Whether that happens  or not, it gives me joy to think about the gorgeous places on the earth, and about the many people who have lived out their lives here or there, many of them with faith, all of them by means of God’s multitude of gifts.

Sometimes when I am just walking through my house or garden I am surprised when I notice that here I am, in my place, alive and with work to do, a life to love. God put me here. I exist. Wonders never cease!

Did St. Simon feel this, as he lived out his life, doing God only knows what? There are many sometimes conflicting stories and traditions about him, but when you think of how many years he walked the earth, there had to be at least a few thousand interesting hours and events that no one ever took much account of, which only God and maybe St. Simon remember.

I ran across this stamp commemorating the saint that was issued in Georgia in the 1990’s:

The day set aside for St. Simon the Zealot in particular was back in May, so I am posting this on the day when he is remembered with all of Christ’s apostles. Rejoice, Holy Father Simon!

Vaporous lists form and drift…

family, travel, writing, ,

That idea I grabbed onto last month, to make lists when I’m incapable of the kind of prose that would be more satisfying to writer and reader, has not worked well for me.

Maybe it boils down to priorities… life is too short to dash off an easy type of list when one might instead use the precious moments to 1) Think on how to make just one list item more beautiful,  or 2) Forget trying to preserve in writing anything in particular from the experience or contemplation, and just BE. Play one more game with the children, sit on the deck in the dry and sunny air — or sleep!

But now, near the end of my stay in Colorado, out of desperation I’ve condensed a few thoughts into words, at the extreme boring level, the list of lists to write:

LIST of LISTS to MAKE

  • Big and little ways Soldier and Joy are kind and generous to me.
  • Additional friends and family I’ve been able to see while I’m here.
  • Books the children and I have read together.
  • Names of the children’s dolls and stuffies.
  • Plants that the Seek app hasn’t been able to identify.
  • Delicious meals that Joy has made.
  • Darling things the children have said.
  • Topics of helpful and informative conversations I’ve had with Soldier and Joy.
  • Internet links and articles to follow up on.
  • Walks we have taken.
  • Species of willow trees.

Maybe I won’t get around to writing even one of these lists — think of that!

Glory to God for all things!

Lists, letters, and taking leave.

books, travel, writing, , , , , ,

During a 20-minute phone call with a friend last week, I mentioned all of the books pictured above, only one of which I have read, long ago. After he asked me about a couple of them, “Did you finish ____ ?” I blurted, “I don’t read books, I only buy them!”

It’s partly true; three of the books pictured I am in the middle of reading. I think I will take The Cross of Loneliness with me on my travels this week, because it is little and is likely to be encouraging to my spirit, without demanding too much of my analytical abilities. It sets down the correspondence of Saint Sophrony and Archpriest George Florovsky from 1954 to 1963. These illustrations from the book of their kind faces make me eager to peek in on their friendship.

I’ll be flying to Colorado to visit my son Soldier’s family, and from there to Idaho to see friends Jacob and Rosemary, before heading back to California. Both of these families are in new towns since I last visited them! The excitement of navigating airports, riding in airplanes, being in strange places and beds; playing with grandchildren and chatting  with everyone will keep my mind plenty busy. It’s already buzzing with the challenges of getting myself ready for the big day, and incrementally taking leave, in my heart, of my home, and my garden with all the plants I have been nursing along; like the first golden zucchinis that will ripen while I am far away. I will say farewell to my stack of To-Read books, which if it actually were just one stack would be higher than my house.

But I know that I will like to read on the plane, and read in my room before going to sleep at night, so I must choose what to take along. This book that I discovered in my Kindle, Make a List, looks appealing for a few summery reasons.

(List of) Reasons why it’s a good book for this summer:

1 – Only a couple hundred pages.

2 – Not demanding content:

2a – No long list of fictional characters to keep straight.

2b – No complex-thinking philosophers to follow.

3 – It will help me keep engaged with my philosophical self and my life back home by simply jotting down a list here and there.

4 – It will prompt me to keep writing without my always having to make quality whole sentences, which are a lot of work. I might even compose travelogues entirely of short lists!

It occurs to me that my attempt at Bullet Journaling was kind of list-y. Unfortunately I always felt the need to elaborate and my bullet points swelled into paragraphs. It will be necessary to keep these lists in a different category from journaling altogether. I haven’t written one thing in my journal for a month or two, which feels scary. Maybe I’ve already made the break?

My college roommate Ann has been an inspiring list-maker all her life. She makes lists of the lists she needs to make. You might say that is the idea that Marilyn Chandler McEntyre has elaborated on; you can hear her talking for three minutes on the subject here.

Now I need to get back to the lists I have recently been working from, like:

1 – To-Do Before I Depart, and
2 – Carry With Me On the Plane.

Once I add “Kindle Reader” and “Notebook for Writing Lists” to that second list, I’ll be good to go! …. or will I…? One more very important list must be completed, before I shut the door on my tottering stacks:

Books I Really Want to Read Soon But Must Sadly Leave at Home.

But I’ll come back, Dear Friends!

Chattering, reading and resisting sleep.

books, travel,

“I liked thinking about people reading books in the Paris metro, since they are underground, in the earth’s dark shadow, in the artificial light of electric bulbs, with the mute, graffiti-covered walls of corridors and tunnels rushing by their windows….”

“Above us, in the airplanes, someone is also reading a book — most often one with shiny covers, devoid of mystery, constructed on simple premises and the sincere desire for abundant royalties, but it may also be that someone up in those expanses is studying a Sufi epic or Dante and will experience illumination.

“And if this reader looks out the little window, he or she will see not black walls, as in the metro’s labyrinths, but the white gleam of clouds, a splendid, perpetually sunlit landscape, and below the threads of rivers quivering like children’s thermometers, strips of highways streaked by cars, like nervous insects, the yellow strips of sand along the sea, the dark smears of forests, sometimes snow-topped mountains, profoundly motionless, self-absorbed, autistic, and also cities chattering in different languages, resisting sleep, glowing even at midnight with feverish neon lights. Above the earth and below the earth, in metro cars and airplanes, someone is always reading books.”

-Adam Zagajewski, in Slight Exaggeration, © 2011

Nowadays most people I see on public transit or airplanes, if they are not chatting with their seatmate or sleeping, are looking at their phones or laptops. You can’t tell if they are reading an e-book or playing a game, or just working.

(I know, I know, it’s the era of masks and distancing, but please humor me. It may be temporarily necessary to do without some beloved activities, but I can still remember, and muse.)

Whenever I see anyone with an actual print book, I find it hard not to stare, to strain my neck and eyes in an effort to see just what author he is interacting with, revealing this private activity so publicly. It’s not voyeurism that motivates me, but a feeling of kinship with other readers, in an era when our numbers are diminishing. Of course, the statistics on reading trends show that a huge number of people continue to read, and I notice a few of them at the library. What’s different about the readers the plane is that I might watch them over the course of an hours-long journey; they are specific examples, and encouraging in a way that statistics can never be.

Zagajewski’s musings made me think about how we readers sometimes look outwardly like the “profoundly motionless, self-absorbed” mountain, when inside we are actually engaged in intense conversation that makes us more like the cities that “resist sleep.” I have a lot of experience with that lately, without going anywhere!

On my solo travels, twice that I remember clearly I was able to talk to perfect strangers about our reading, and I think in both cases the other person spoke to me first. The last time this happened I was looking at my Kindle Paperwhite while in line at Mumbai’s airport security, when a well dressed man next to me interrupted to ask what I was reading. Always honest in the instant, as soon as I answered I felt embarrassed and wished that I had thought to name some other, less boring recent read.

But his question was just an icebreaker, so he could find out why I was in India; talking with him, I forgot to notice how slowly the line was moving. I wonder if I will get the chance again to practice his kind of boldness and make the acquaintance of commuting or traveling readers. I would like to convey somehow my happiness to meet on my journey another lover of the printed word, who might just then be on her way to experiencing illumination.

(All photos found online.)