Recently, researchers wanted to test the effects of aging. So what did they do? They put young people in body suits that restricted their eyesight, hobbled their movement, and diminished their hearing. The measurements for the suit were based on the supposed physicality of a 74 year old. When I read this I was 74 and it made me so mad I decided I would celebrate my upcoming 75th birthday in an age-affirming way.
My Three Worlds
"What a long, strange trip it’s been."- Robert Hunter, The Grateful Dead
Life is a trip. It the biggest journey anyone ever makes. And how do you prepare for the journey? You don’t. You can’t. Oh, you may go to life’s Tourist Information Center, a.k.a., school, but it doesn’t really prepare you for what actually happens. It’s kind of like looking at a Rand McNally map to get an idea of what it is like standing on the rim of the Grand Canyon. It’s not even close to the experience. In fact, life is such a strange animal, that you may only be able to begin to understand it in retrospect.
I am 60 years of age. I don’t feel old. I feel like the same person I was when I was seven, seventeen, or twenty-seven.
Let me amend that comment. I feel the same, but some things are definitely different. Uncomfortably different. Maybe even standing on the cusp of disturbingly different.
When I tried to think my way through this puzzle, I realized a universal truth. During the course of our life, I decided that we live and take a touring trip through three different worlds. The Hindus call them Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. Creation, Maintenance, Destruction. I call it a hard lesson to learn that requires a lifetime to really understand.
The first world is the world we are born into. It is the world of our parents.
To many teenagers, owning a car is a quintessential part of the American dream. A car is freedom, fun, and speed rolled into one machine. Ideally, these tickets to freedom come in sleek, shiny, perfectly polished bodies, with hundreds of horses under the hood. My freedom came in a slightly different package. My package lacked both airbags and anti-lock brakes, and was several years my senior, but nevertheless brought me more happiness than any newer car could have.
1988 Corolla AdvertisementThe car that would eventually become known as “Cosmo” was born in 1988. It was a powder blue Corolla, with a matching blue cloth interior—a decorative choice only the ‘80s could bless. My aunt, then in her mid twenties, bought the car with little knowledge it would eventually belong to her still unborn niece. She drove it for several years, before selling it my grandfather. My grandfather then sold it to my uncle, who at the time was a college student. He drove it for a decade or so, and once married, sold it back to my grandfather, who continued to drive it for another nine years. Upon getting my license, I searched for a car that was within my price range, as my parents had made it clear that if I wanted a car of my own, I would have to finance the endeavor myself. Unfortunately, I found no cars that I could insure, afford, and buy gas for. My dream was deferred for a year. The past summer however, on a college visit, my mom and I stopped at my grandparents’ house, and I noticed that, as my grandfather is somewhat of a car enthusiast, they had accumulated four cars.
by Eric Lucas
Hardly anything seems secret about a kernel of blue corn. It’s the size and shape of a baby’s tooth, the indigo color of ocean dusk, not rock-hard but sturdy, like old pine.
Such a seed would be a secret, were it a product of American industrial agriculture—patented, engineered at a molecular level, sold under some trade name like Blue 7X-RR. You would pay a large Midwestern company to have some; you’d use huge machines like science fiction robots to lay it in the ground; pour on it chemicals with carbon-chain formulas as long as Finnish words; autoclave it into foods as artificial as plastic. And you’d get your pants sued off if you attempted to replicate it or reproduce it in any way.
Photo by Manya Kaczkowski, 2010But the handful of blue corn seeds I’m holding represent a gift from, first of all, Robert Mirabal, a Taos Pueblo resident; also a gift from two millennia and the ground on which a billion people live. Corn is the bedrock of civilization in the Western Hemisphere. It built a dozen empires in Mexico and South America; helped create two dozen thriving cities in the desert Southwest about which Spanish explorers marveled so much that their colonizer, Don Juan de Oñate, declared his conquest a “kingdom.” Nuevo Mexico; it’s called New Mexico now, but still part of the kingdom of corn. And the seeds Mirabal has given me are no secret, just gifts from that kingdom’s treasure.
words + photos by Don Mankin
My two Teva-clad feet poked above the water, framing the view of the mouth of the cove spilling into the broad channel before us. The silhouettes of several tree-covered islands and mountains overlapped in different shades of pastel and receded in the distance. I was floating on my back in the waters of coastal British Columbia. Not exactly the Caribbean – no palm trees, no rum drinks with paper umbrellas, and the water temperature was more than a tad or two colder. But the water was warm enough for a late afternoon swim, the scenery was more dramatic, and there was no one else to be seen other than my four sea kayak companions relaxing after a long day of paddling in the warm bright sunshine of the aptly named Sunshine Coast.
The Sunshine Coast is just a relatively short drive and an even shorter flight northwest of Vancouver. It’s easily accessible but still feels somewhat remote -- most of the coast above Powell River, the “urban” center of the region, can only be reached by boat or floatplane. Like almost all of British Columbia's coast, it is strikingly beautiful -- islands of all sizes covered in Douglas fir, hemlock, and cedar; narrow inlets and fjords indenting the rugged coastline; and jagged snow-capped mountains in the distance framing long views across wide sounds. But unlike most of the B.C. coast, the Sunshine Coast is in the rain shadow of the low mountains of Vancouver Island to the west, so the weather is usually sunny, dry and warm, sometimes very warm.
Two Ex-Pats in Girona, Catalonia
words + photos by Elyn Aviva
“I can’t believe we live here!” I said to Gary as I stared in fascination at the multicolored reflections dancing over the rippling surface of the Onyar River.
River OnyarHe squeezed my hand and leaned over the railing of the stone bridge. Ducks floated by, luminous in the evening light. “I know just what you mean,” he replied. “Who’d have thought that what started off as a whim would end up being such an adventure?”
I nodded, admiring how the brightly lit cathedral spires were silhouetted against the velvet black sky. I sighed, contentedly. Then, hand in hand, Gary and I strolled across the medieval bridge that divides one part of Girona from the other. We walked down the Rambla and sat down at a sidewalk café. We ordered a cortado, a fragrant cup of espresso laced with a touch of milk, and an artisan beer. We looked at each other and grinned. Ah, what a life.
Just two years earlier Gary and I had been pondering what to do next with our lives. We knew we enjoyed traveling in Europe and wanted to do more of it with less hassle. Why not move to Europe for a few years, I suggested. We weren’t getting any younger. We had good health, enough money, a love of adventure, and much to be grateful for. If not now, when? Gary agreed, and we began making plans to move to Spain, a country we had lived in briefly once before.
words and photography by Aysha Griffin
“Aren’t you afraid?” and “Isn’t it dangerous?” These were the consistent questions posed by friends and family upon hearing I had booked a trip to Mexico. From my standpoint, it was a matter of avoiding winter’s cold, pursuing Spanish language studies and visiting American friends in San Miguel de Allende, a picturesque colonial city located in Mexico’s central state of Guanajuato.
San Miguel de Allende, MexicoWithout any fear I flew from Albuquerque to Leon-Guanajuato Airport, via Houston, avoiding any border violence issues, and a 90-minute shuttle bus ride delivered me to this established and renowned cultural enclave of ex-pats and snowbirds. But the question of danger and safety in Mexico is not an easy or simple one to answer.
There is violence in Mexico, as everywhere. I recall an Australian friend who, landing in L.A. for his first trip to the U.S., called to ask if he should buy a gun – a reasonable question given the FBI estimate of over 200 million privately-owned firearms.
Americans – with our recent history of internal terrorism (Oklahoma City), external terrorism (September 11th), intentional public shootings (Tucson supermarket), serial murderers, drive-by shootings, rapes and other domestic violence; with handgun murders a daily occurrence in U.S. cities, and the largest prison population in the world – are hardly in a position to point fingers at the dangers abroad.
However, there is something different happening in Mexico. At the core are not just anger, political intolerance, insanity and psychopathic behavior, but money and turf war power, with illegal drugs (primarily marijuana) as the medium.
Thirty years ago, when I lived and traveled in Mexico for six months, handguns were illegal and even the police were gunless. At that time, Mexico was an extremely safe place in regard to violent crime. Corruption, usually in the form of bribes to officials, was a known, accepted and non-violent interaction. That was two generations ago and the world has changed in countless ways.
words + photos by Carolyn Handler Miller
Jews and Egypt. Two words that rarely meet in the same sentence. Unless you happen to be talking Bible talk and are retelling the story of Exodus, as we Jews do every spring during Passover. Or unless you are talking politics, and are discussing Egypt’s relationship with Israel. Or unless you possess a torn old photo like the one I have, plus a burning curiosity and the chance to travel to Egypt.
You see, the relationship between Jews and Egypt is a highly personal one for me, and one that the revolution in Egypt brought into sharp focus.
A large branch of my family once lived and thrived in Egypt until the 1950’s, when another Egyptian revolution, one barely remembered today, ultimately pushed Egyptian Jews into exile. In 1952, during that earlier revolution, King Farouk was forced to abdicate and soon after, Gamal Nasser took over the reins of government. Unlike the laid-back playboy king, Nasser was unfriendly to Jews. During the 1956 Suez Crisis, he declared them enemies of the state and Jews were no longer welcome in the country.
So the entire Egyptian branch of family fled to Paris. At that point, we, the American branch of the family, lost track of them. As far as we all knew, the story ended there.
And we might have forgotten all about them, except for this old black and white photo set in a broken wooden frame. It had been passed down from family member to family member and had finally fallen into my hands when none of my cousins showed any interest in it. Though they mocked the old-fashioned looking group, I found them fascinating. I longed to know more about them and their exotic life in Egypt.
The photo captures my Great Grandmother at a family reunion in Alexandria.
by Judith Fein
The last time Americans were riveted to a foreign square, it was Tiananmen, and the year was 1989. Anti-government demonstrators –mostly students and intellectuals--wanting more democracy and less autocracy filled the square in Bejing. Other protests erupted around the People’s Republic of China. In a show of force the T.V. audience will never forget, government tanks rolled into the square and gunned down thousands of demonstrators. Tiananmen Square went silent, and the subject of the massacre is still taboo in China.
This time, all eyes were on Egypt and Tahrir Square. Once again, young protestors defiantly showed their opposition to the government and demanded that Hosni Mubarak pack up his toys of dictatorship and leave Egypt. But Mubarak played by his own rules, and when his trifling concessions were rejected, when even his offer not to run again was scorned, he pulled a Tiananmen—sending in his heavy guns to shoot indiscriminately into the crowd.
photo by Peta-de-Aztlan via flickr common license
The protestors refused to buckle, and the Egyptian nation mourned its innocent dead who were assassinated for demanding freedom. The world watched and wept and then rejoiced with them.
The ignition key to revolution was turned on by tiny Tunisia, in North Africa. The protestors upended the 23-year reign of autocrat Ben Ali, drove him into exile and exacted the dissolution of his corrupt RCD party. In a rapid move toward democracy, Ben Ali’s minions were fired or resigned, and the young people exulted in what, for many, was the first freedom they had known in their lives.
The cost of this revolution was high: as many as two hundred young lives were snuffed out. And, in a country of 10 million, everyone was affected by this horrible loss of life. There is mass mourning for the deaths, and the victims are considered martyrs to the cause of freedom.
Tunisia is one of my favorite countries in the world. I have been there seven times, lived there for 6 months when I was making two films with my husband, and have a deep and abiding affection for the gentle, kind, extremely generous Tunisians.
TUCSON AFTER THE SHOOTING: To go or not to go?
It was just an ordinary neighborhood Safeway until a heavily armed lunatic showed up with a pistol. What happened next was disastrous.
I’m speaking, of course, of our local Safeway in Ballard, Washington, where I live—but you thought I was talking about the store in the Tucson foothills where an unbalanced young American gunned down six people and tried to assassinate a U.S. congresswoman. What happened at the Ballard Safeway was “milder” but in its own way illuminating, and the irony struck me because both places are well known to me. I visit Tucson a half-dozen times a year and wrote a guide to the city for a major global internet site. I am very fond of both places. I buy great heaps of toilet paper at the Ballard Safeway; at the Tucson Safeway, I help out my dad by loading up sacks of salt for his water softener.
Montana on my mind
by Jules Older
When I teach skiing, I suggest to my students that, to establish and hold a rhythm, they find their ski song.
Truth is, my ski songs find me. My usual one is Sweet Georgia Brown. When I skied West Virginia, it morphed into Miner’s Lifeguard. When I crossed from Switzerland’s French side to the German, my song suddenly switched to Springtime for Hitler and Germany.
See? My song finds me.
First-Person Report From Egypt
words and photography by W.M. Wiggins
On arrival at the Cairo airport from JFK, we (the passengers) were taken by the standard jet-to-terminal bus. I noticed on the tarmac a "Special" aircraft parked all by itself on the ramp and heavily guarded. I am fairly sure who operates this jet. Lots of pilots call them Caspers. A Casper is a jet or aircraft with NO tail numbers or markings whatsoever. It shows up, and then it disappears......like the ghost. In this case, Casper was white.
The following day, we were road-blocked as three heavily armed SUVs sped down the street. Please note...there are NO OTHER SUV's like this in Cairo...at least I have not seen them. But you might find these same S.U.V.'s being used by folks who are "visiting" Iraq. I also noticed a C-130 Hercules taking off later...either from Cairo or Luxor. And I thought: now, isn't that special?
Discover the Exotic on a Road Trip
“None of your business,” she said. The short, curly, white hair bounced as she shook her head, but the brown eyes smiled in her beautiful, tanned and weathered face. Half Navajo, Suzie (not her real name) has lived in Rio Grand pueblos in New Mexico all her life. We were sitting in a rambling adobe house near the village where she lives with her husband. Grandchildren and daughters dropped in from time to time as we talked. The smell of cedarwood smoke curled around us, and tin-framed pictures of saints glinted on the walls.
I am a shy person. I spend most of my days alone. Although it was daunting to figure out how to pack my 21-inch carry on with clothes for hot weather in Rapa Nui and Buenos Aires and freezing weather in Patagonia, dealing with more than a dozen strangers for three weeks was even more of a challenge. During the first few days of the trip I quietly mingled and occasionally exchanged stories, but it wasn’t until the group and I were in the Buenos Aires airport that I discovered there were limits to my shyness.
words by Judith Fein; photography by Paul Ross
I am in love...with Tunisia. When I close my eyes and think about the kindness, hospitality and open-heartedness of the Tunisian people, I want to jump on a plane and go back. I've been to Tunisia seven times, lived there for six months, made two films about the country. But I hardly expected what has happened over the last week: there has been a grass-roots revolution. The Tunisian people have risen up against their tyrannical leader, and said no to repression. They have risked their lives in their fight for freedom.
In my lifetime, the Solidarity movement in Poland catapulted to power. The Berlin wall fell. The Soviet Union fell apart. And now, in a small Arab Muslim nation in North Africa, a despot has been deposed and the people are demanding democracy.
READ why I think the revolution and the country should be on your radar in my RECENT ARTICLE FOR THE HUFFINGTON POST
And maybe, this year, if the stars are aligned correctly, you'll JOIN ME FOR A TRIP to the new Tunisia. If you're game, drop me an email.
Usually, at this time of year, I’m thinking about hearts, flowers, and chocolate in sweet, loving surroundings. I can’t believe that every year I descend into embarrassing fantasy clichés, so, this year, I’m trying something different. I’ve set out to find places where you or Cupid would never think of going. Places you can immediately eliminate from your Valentine bucket list.
Vegas Soul
by Jules Older
People seem to think that Las Vegas has no soul. There are soulless towns, but Vegas isn't one of them.
For most, the soul of Vegas is probably the Strip, that ever-lengthening line-up of grand hotels, most of them heavily themed. From a Magic Kingdom look-alike to Manhattan Island to gay Paree, to an Arabian bazaar… by the time you finish reading this, there will be at least two more gone and three more — bigger and more sumptuous — replacing them.
You might characterize me as a casual birder, which is one-step up from an armchair birder. I am married to a man who once headed the Sapsucker team for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in the World Series of Birding so just through sheer osmosis I should be a much better birder than I am. But that would mean I’d have to pay attention.
Nicaragua: Can you keep a secret?
words + photos by Ellen Barone
Here's the truth: I want to tell you about Nicaragua and its wild, deserted Pacific beaches, active volcanoes, colonial cities, coffee plantations, and verdant mountains— but then again, I don't.
Writing about delicate cultures like Nicaragua, where complex political, geographical and economic realities have resulted in hardships on one hand - and a simpler, more grounded way of life on the other - always brings up mixed feelings in me.