I was running for my life.

At least that’s what it felt like.

I’d been running for about 50 yards, my heart pounding. My pursuers were right behind me. I looked over my shoulder, hoping I’d finally gained some space, but I hadn’t.

There were more of them chasing me than when I started. The sand was slowing me down. Every step felt like running in place. If I could just reach my car and get inside, I’d be able to drive away and leave them behind forever.

Let me pause the story right here and tell you that everything I just wrote is true. It really happened to me.

I was running. I was being chased. I was desperate to escape, but I’ve left out a key piece of information that you’ll just have to wait to figure out until after I’ve set the scene.

For now, let’s say the chase was just another part of a normal day during my four-year camping adventure. This time I was in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

Although “normal” might be stretching the definition a little.

My day began peacefully at sunrise on Whitefish Bay. The name might sound familiar if you remember the song “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”

“Does anyone know where the love of God goes

When the waves turn the minutes to hours?

The searchers all say they’d have made Whitefish Bay

If they’d put fifteen more miles behind her.”

Fifteen miles northwest of Whitefish Point, the Edmund Fitzgerald sank one stormy November night fifty years ago. It was a true story later turned into a classic folk-rock ballad by Gordon Lightfoot. Today, the lighthouse at Whitefish Point houses the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum, where exhibits about the Edmund Fitzgerald are the main attraction.

Dawn on the Bay was a peaceful, easy way to begin a day that would eventually turn into a mad dash for safety.

After I’d taken my fill of pictures that morning, I drove back through the little town of Paradise to my campsite at Tahquamenon Falls State Park.

Tahquamenon Falls is actually several waterfalls, known for their unusual rusty-brown water. Some people describe them as root-beer-colored because the rushing water creates a thick white foam, like root beer. The color comes from tannins leached from the swamps the river passes through.

The falls and the state park sit in a remote area of the Upper Peninsula. Of course, the whole U.P. could be described as remote. It’s not exactly a place you accidentally pass through. You go there on purpose or not at all.

Fittingly, the campground had no cell phone service, and to give you an idea of the isolation, the nearest McDonald’s (not that I frequent them) was 50 miles away. The closest restaurant was in Paradise, and once a week a food truck came to the little town selling the U.P. version of fish and chips.

That’s fish plus a bag of chips.

After returning from Whitefish Bay, I rode my bike around the campground because there wasn’t anywhere else nearby I felt comfortable riding. Twenty miles of riding in circles isn’t exactly exciting cycling, but it was exercise, and even boring exercise beats no exercise.

But since I was bored, I stopped in the middle of my ride to talk with a family that had just emerged from a trail into the campground.

Actually, curiosity had more to do with it than boredom.

The way they were dressed, they looked like a family of beekeepers. Papa beekeeper, Mama beekeeper, and two younger beekeepers. Everyone wore broad-brimmed hats with nets pulled over them, completely covering their faces and necks. Their pant legs were tucked into their shoes, and they wore long sleeves and gloves.

This was not typical summer hiking attire, so I had to ask.

Papa beekeeper explained that they dressed this way because the flies and mosquitoes on the trails would eat them alive if they didn’t. He added, tongue in cheek, that the little ones were in danger of being carried away by the big ones.

Now, I already knew the mosquitoes seemed bigger and more persistent than the ones I’d encountered elsewhere. I could almost imagine a squadron of U.P. mosquitoes carrying off a small Chihuahua, but the mosquitoes hadn’t bothered me that morning on my bike ride.

The Beekeepers insisted, however, that the flies were worse than the mosquitoes and that they, too, could bite. I’d seen flies around my campsite, but they were more of an annoyance than a threat. I had screens on my windows, and any flies that made it inside my camper met a quick end in the confined space.

The flies I’d encountered didn’t bite. The Beekeeper family’s story seemed like a bit of Upper Peninsula exaggeration, a local version of an urban legend.

After a shower and lunch, I headed out to explore the eastern side of Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, unaware that my own scramble for safety and legend lay ahead.

My first stop was Sable Falls, a 75-foot waterfall near Grand Marais. The name is pronounced with a short “a,” rhyming with “cobble.” The walk to the falls included 168 steps down and, as the sign helpfully (and obviously) warned, 168 steps back up.

I climbed back to my car and prepared to move on.

That’s when two young men got out of their car, walked over, and asked, “Were there any flies at the falls?”

It was a strange question from two jittery, wild-eyed strangers, but the answer was no.

“Good,” one said. “We’re trying to avoid them.”

What was this fetish with flies around here?

“We never want to be around flies again,” they added.

That got my attention.

They explained that the night before they had camped beside Lake Superior, and flies had been everywhere. They were on their food, their tent, and them. They couldn’t get rid of them, even inside the tent. That morning, they packed up and left without breakfast because, as they put it, the flies would have eaten more than they did.

They named the campsite, and while I had never heard of it, their sincerity made me reconsider the warnings I’d dismissed earlier.

Maybe this wasn’t an urban legend after all. So, I drove on to the Log Slide Overlook at Lake Superior thinking about flies.

The Log Slide sits atop the Grand Sable Dunes, 175 feet above Lake Superior. From there, you can see the lake, the shoreline, and the Au Sable Lighthouse several miles to the west.

In the 1890s, loggers built a wooden chute from the top of the dune to the lake. Logs could make the trip in about ten seconds. The friction created enough heat that fires occasionally started, earning the slide the nickname The Devil’s Slide.

The parking lot was empty, and I walked the quarter-mile trail alone toward the top of the dune. The first part of it was easy. The last half was sand, making each step a little harder.

I reached the opening, looked out over Lake Superior, and admired the view.

For about three seconds. That’s when it happened.

The flies attacked. Yes, flies. The legend was real.

My pursuers in the opening paragraphs were flies. Millions of flies.

Okay. Maybe that’s a bit of an overstatement.

But there were so many in that moment that there was no time for pictures. No time to enjoy the scenery. No time to appreciate the place’s history.

Just time enough to run.

So, I run.

A scrawny old guy running as fast as he can, slow motion in the sand, frantically waving his arms, screaming at the flies, dodging the onslaught, holding onto his hat they were trying to carry away, tripping over his feet, and doing his best OJ Simpson impression to outrun the swarm.

After 100 yards that seemed like a mile, they were still trying to get at me, doing kamikaze dives on my neck and arms. I dodged and swatted as best I could, but they were persistent little things.

When I reached the packed gravel halfway back, I sped up. Uphill. Around the corner. Toward the car.

They were still with me.

I jumped inside, slammed the door, and breathed a sigh of relief.

Until I realized I wasn’t alone. Several flies were still buzzing around my head.

Driving away, I opened the windows and started counting as the rushing air carried them away.

One.

Two.

Three.

I started itching. They hadn’t just chased me. They’d bitten me. No wonder I felt attacked. The flies in Tennessee seem much more civilized. They leave the biting to the mosquitoes.

Four.

Five.

Six.

Six flies had followed me all the way into my car.

Of course, there must have been six hundred to begin with, and this time I’m not exaggerating.

Later, I learned that the Upper Peninsula has different varieties of flies than I was used to. Black flies appear in late spring and early summer, while stable flies show up later in the season. Both are capable of biting.

Since I was there in July, I’m not sure which ones attacked me.

I just know I never want to meet them again.

I abandoned my plans to explore more of Pictured Rocks that afternoon. Instead, I returned to my camper, scratched my wounds, kept my flyswatter nearby, and hoped I didn’t look as traumatized as the two young men I’d met earlier.

Maybe I should have ordered a beekeeper suit from Amazon after all because sometimes legends in the backwoods of the Upper Peninsula are true.

As always, the best travel stories are rarely the ones we plan. They’re the ones that surprise us, humble us, and give us something to laugh about later. On the road—and in life—there are usually a few unexpected turns waiting just beyond the next bend.

The journey continues, one unexpected story at a time.

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He had big, strong hands.

He was 97 and a good friend. We met regularly for a couple of years. During that time, we came to know and like each other. His story spanned more years than I can quite imagine. He had children my age, many grandchildren, and 24 great-grandchildren.

His name was John. He was quite a man with quite a story, and he loved his wife and his Lord with all his heart. I can think of no better way to describe any man than that.

Earlier this year, on a whim, I decided I wanted a picture of the two of us shaking hands, but just a picture of our hands. I already had a photograph of John that I’d taken the year before. This one would serve as a reminder of our friendship. At 97, you don’t assume there will always be a next week.

I suppose we shouldn’t at any age.

I was pretty sure John would agree to my small request, though I still felt a little silly about it. So I began by asking permission to take a picture of his hands. A little amused and confused, he agreed.

At first, he held his warm cup of coffee, a familiar pose for him, as we talked. But that didn’t feel quite right, so I asked him to set the cup aside. He did, laying his hands close together on the table. That was better, but still not what I was looking for.

I paused and looked at his hands. I thought of the stories he had told me about his beloved Nancy and wished I had a picture of them holding hands. But she was gone, and since he couldn’t hold her hand, I asked if he would simply clasp his own.

And he did. His hands rested on the table, one loosely cupping the other, well manicured, still wearing his wedding ring.

That posture said something about him. He was relaxed, patient, and strong. He was attentive to detail and comfortable in his own skin. He could listen well, pray regularly, and drift easily into memories of his Nancy.

Her loss was what had brought us together one Sunday morning. A friend introduced us and told me John had lost his wife only a few months earlier.

I shook his hand, expressed sympathy for his loss, and asked, “How long were you married?”

“Seventy-four years,” he answered.

I was floored. I thought I’d misheard him. “Seventy-four years?”

Yes. Seventy-four years.

John was 95 when we met. We’d both experienced the same kind of pain. His was fresher, but mine was still present, just camouflaged by time. On that matter, he was older, but I was more practiced in navigating grief.

We began meeting weekly for coffee at Panera. Coffee for him, water for me. We told each other stories about our wives and our lives, trading tales of both happy and hard times. He was good for me - a mentor in my aging years, a companion in my sorrow.

I hope I was good for him.

His father had immigrated from Hungary in the early 1900s and served in the US Army before World War I. John was born in 1928 in the Philippines while his father was stationed there.

After a tour back in the States, his father was assigned to Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. In the summer of 1941, when John was thirteen, his father retired, and the family moved back to Minnesota, just months before the Japanese attack in December.

John tried to join the Army after high school in 1946, but his eyesight wasn’t good enough. He memorized the eye chart to try to pass, but they changed the chart before his turn, and he failed.

He was a swimmer in high school in Minneapolis and met his wife at a church youth camp. They married after she graduated from high school.

He attended the University of Minnesota for a time, majoring in forestry, but Nancy didn’t want to live deep in the woods, so he left.

After a stint as an assistant anatomical embalmer at the University of Minnesota medical school (no experience required), he went on to a long career at Honeywell. After retirement, he and Nancy traveled extensively. When he was 93, they made the courageous decision to leave Minneapolis and start over near family in Tennessee. They moved into assisted living, where they lived until she died.

One last time, he had to start over, but without his Nancy by his side this time. That’s when I met him.

He still drove himself to Panera every morning and to church on Sundays. He arrived early on Sunday mornings. Always early. He had his seat. People knew him. He had a big fan club there.

As you’ve probably discerned by my use of the past tense, my friend John has died.

I was able to visit him the afternoon before. His eyes lit up when he saw me. He smiled. Said something I couldn’t quite catch. I told him that was all right. I’d do the talking that day.

I held his hand and told him about my trip to Iceland. I looked down at those hands again, remembering that day in February when I’d asked to photograph them. These hands felt different. Still large. Still strong. But something was loosening, his grip on this world relaxing.

Soon, the hand I was holding would be placed into the hands of Jesus - his Savior, and mine too.

I said goodbye and left before the tears that would soon come caught up with me.

I miss him. He was more than a friend.

He was a model for me to follow, someone I wanted to emulate. He showed me how to age well, how to grow older with honor and strength intact, and yet still remain patient, kind, and loving.

He showed me that aging well is not about defying time. It’s about remaining open - still forming friendships, still telling stories, still showing up. Still beginning again when you think you might just be done.

That day I took the photograph, I never did get around to a picture of us shaking hands. Turns out the picture of his hands was the one I was really after. I just didn’t know it when I started. That is the picture that will always remind me of my friend John.

He had such big, strong, loving hands.

If you’ve known someone who quietly shaped your understanding of aging, friendship, or faith, I’d be interested in hearing about them.

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Fog and drizzle followed me as I drove from sea level up into the mountains on a road I’d never been on before. The higher I climbed, the worse it got. The road lost its shoulders along the way, forcing me to slow down even more.

I was also getting reacquainted with driving a stick shift. It had been twenty-five years since I’d last done that. The good news was that, like riding a bicycle, it mostly came back to me.

Mostly.

As I crested the pass, not expecting much beyond more fog and drizzle, I glanced down the valley to my left and stared in amazement. A rainbow filled the sky.

Actually, that’s not quite right.

A rainbow dominated the sky. It stretched from the blue skies far below me to the gray clouds surrounding me. It was so striking that my attention kept drifting away from the road. The lane-departure warning in my rental car sounded more than once, reminding me that admiring scenery and driving are supposed to be two separate things.

If a place ever deserved a stop for a photograph, this was it. Unfortunately, there was nowhere to pull over. No shoulder. No overlook. No farmer’s driveway. Nothing.

So I kept driving, letting the colors and spectacle settle into my memory. The rainbow’s beauty felt like a quiet reminder of God’s promises.

As I slipped down into the valley, another rainbow took its place. It wasn’t as spectacular as the first, but even ordinary rainbows make you look. Eventually, I found a place to stop at a farmer’s field and took a picture.

I was driving Iceland’s Ring Road, which circles an island roughly the size of Kentucky with a population of only about 400,000. Large stretches of the country remain empty and undeveloped.

So when I say there was nowhere to pull over, I mean there was literally nowhere. For miles.

That was okay because the wide-open spaces and long stretches of empty road fit my mood.

I was in Iceland alone and wasn’t looking to meet people. I simply needed a break. As an introvert, I find that people drain my energy. Solitude restores it. Iceland was a very good place to be alone.

But eventually I do recharge, and I’m ready to be social again. After enough quiet, I begin looking for people. It took me until my fourth night in Iceland before I felt ready.

That’s when I met Mia.

To better understand how that happened, you need to know where I was staying. I don’t require four-star accommodations, so I chose less expensive options throughout the trip. That meant sharing bathrooms, kitchens, and common areas every night.

I know that’s already a bridge too far for many of you, but I spent four years in campgrounds doing similar things, so it didn’t bother me.

But it gets worse.

Two nights, I stayed in a hostel - an old guy hiding in plain sight among the young. Our room had three bunk beds, meaning I slept in the same room with five other people. Trust me, it wasn’t nearly as bad as it sounds.

The place I liked best, however, wasn’t even a room. It was a pod in Reykjavik, barely more than a bed you crawled into, which I found surprisingly comfortable and quiet. I chose a lower pod the first night and then the upper when I returned. Apparently, I’m still optimistic about nighttime ladder climbing, which, at my age, I definitely had to do.

For me, the sleeping arrangements were simply part of the adventure.

Now back to Mia. I bet you’re dying to hear about her.

She came along at the right time. I was ready to start interacting with people again. We were both staying in a guesthouse near Lake Mývatn that had four bedrooms, two shared bathrooms, and a kitchen.

She was a cute little blonde with a smile warm enough to melt the snow falling outside. When she saw me, she came right over. That sort of thing doesn’t normally happen to me with girls. But it did with Mia.

We hit it off right away. We were both from the States - she from Colorado and I from Tennessee. Before long, she was in my arms, and I found myself wishing I had more than one night there.

Then again, Mia was leaving in the morning as I was.

I had a reservation waiting for me in Hofn on Iceland’s southeast coast and wasn’t sure where she was headed.

Neither was she.

You see, Mia was twenty months old, and she’d go wherever her parents took her.

I suppose I should explain the rest of the story.

I was sitting in my room, looking at the empty bed beside mine and wishing Lori were there to share the adventure when I heard an upset child. After a few minutes, curiosity (or maybe it was nosiness) got the better of me.

I opened the door. I could hear Mia’s mother at the stove around the corner.

Little Mia saw me and stopped making noise. I crouched down to her level, smiled, said hello, and motioned for her to come over.

She did. Without hesitation

Naturally, her mother soon followed.

I asked permission before picking her up. No parent wants a stranger scooping up their child uninvited. Fortunately, her mother looked me over, noted the white hair, and apparently decided I was harmless and unlikely to escape quickly.

She was correct on both counts.

I carried Mia back into the kitchen behind her mom and talked with her for a while. That’s when I learned they were from the Denver area. Her mother told me Mia didn’t normally warm up to strangers so quickly.

I explained that I spend Sunday mornings at church working with children her age. Maybe she sensed that.

When dinner was ready, our brief friendship came to an end. Before I put her down, Mia hugged me.

It was a small thing. But sometimes small things arrive at exactly the right moment to remind us what’s important in life.

I returned to my room smiling, feeling a little less alone and a little more connected to the world around me.

Mia ate mac ’n cheese that night. I had freshly caught fish and chips. The diet in Iceland has more seafood and lamb than that of a typical American.

In addition to the fish and chips (twice), I ate fish jerky, mashed fish, and an amazing baked cod with white sauce and caviar.

I ate lamb soup, lamb shank, and a surprisingly good lamb hamburger.

And hot dogs. Don’t forget the hot dogs. In Iceland, they’re lamb-based.

To add variety, I skeptically tried the black crust pizza in Vik. The crust looked thoroughly burned, but it definitely wasn’t. It was delicious.

My favorite culinary surprise was rye bread ice cream. My least favorite, fermented shark.

The shark smelled and tasted as though someone had soaked it in kerosene and smelling salts for six months. It was pungent, unforgettable, and difficult to describe.

I didn’t say it was good.

But it was so interesting, I would eat it again.

The morning after meeting Mia, I woke to find the ground white. Snow in northern Iceland, fifty miles from the Arctic Circle, in late May isn’t unheard of, but it isn’t common either. The roads remained clear, but my planned route crossed eastern Iceland and the exposed southeastern coastline. The Icelandic Meteorological Office had issued warnings for snow and high winds in that area.

Travel requires flexibility.

I had three options. I could continue and hope for the best. I could stay put and wait for conditions to improve. Or I could turn around, drive back to Reykjavik, and reconnect with my itinerary later.

The first option seemed risky for someone my age who was unfamiliar with Icelandic roads. The second sounded boring. So I chose the third. The decision added hours of driving, but at least I’d be driving in better weather.

As I headed west, I skipped a mountain pass near Akureyri that I’d crossed the day before and instead took a tunnel through the mountain.

What a tunnel it was. Nearly five miles long, one lane in each direction, and emergency pull-off areas scattered throughout.

Soon, I noticed I needed my windshield wipers.

Inside the tunnel.

At first, I assumed water was dripping from the ceiling. Then I realized melting snow from my own car was blowing back onto the windshield in the warmer air underground. That’s a problem I’d never encountered before.

Eventually, I made it safely back to Reykjavik, found street parking on a Friday night, and spent an unplanned night sleeping in a pod. I resumed my original itinerary the next night at a hostel near Vik in southern Iceland.

Since returning home, the question I’ve been asked most often, other than who snored the loudest in the hostel, is whether I saw the northern lights. The answer is no, I didn’t, because it never got dark enough.

The sun set around 11:30 p.m. and rose again roughly three hours later. In between, it remained just below the horizon, creating a very long twilight rather than darkness.

During the trip, I visited volcanic craters, ocean cliffs, fjords, black sand beaches, glaciers, geysers, churches, an ice cave, and a puffin island.

And lots of waterfalls. Big impressive waterfalls and little everyday waterfalls. All that rain and snow must eventually find its way to the Ocean.

That means there are more stories to tell, but I’m running out of space and probably testing your patience, so you’ll just have to ask me when you see me.

I’d definitely like to see Iceland in winter someday and finally catch the northern lights. But when I think about the trip I just finished, what I remember first isn’t a glacier, a waterfall, or even that spectacular rainbow.

It’s Mia.

The scenery was unforgettable. But the people I met, like Mia, Heggy, Storm, and Murray, were even better.

Traveling alone gives you plenty of time to admire the landscape, but if that’s all you do, you’re missing out. Moments of shared connection - a smile, a conversation, a little hug - those are what stay with you the longest.

If you’ve ever traveled alone, what unexpected person, conversation, or moment became part of the story you brought home?

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Lori and I built the house I live in forty years ago. We chose the colors and options and watched it take shape from the ground up. It was where we raised our children. In it, we laughed and cried, loved and survived, celebrated and mourned. It was our home.

After forty years, it’s time to try to sell it.

That’s a decision many people my age eventually face, a practical one that slowly becomes unavoidable. It’s not an easy decision, but my house is just too big for one person. Half of it sits empty. All of it requires upkeep.

The hardest part, for someone my age, is the layout. All the bedrooms and my bath are upstairs. That didn’t matter much for forty years, but it does now. I still handle stairs easily, but I can feel that ability changing with time. It’s better to deal with a looming problem than wait until I can’t.

We thought this would be our forever home, the place we’d grow old together. A funny thing happened on the way to forever. A new job forced us to move in 2009, but we didn’t want to sell our house. So, we left it in the care of our grown son and used it as a base when we returned to Nashville.

For a season, we lived in East Tennessee, in a small house that matched the small town where I worked. Over time, that place began to feel like home. I suppose that’s how it happens. Anywhere you return to night after night slowly earns that name.

Then another job took us to Tampa. We would go back to Nashville for holidays and special events, and Lori would make extra visits. I would miss her when she did that. The place in Tampa just didn’t feel right without her. It was too quiet.

If you were lucky enough to know Lori, you know what I mean.

Over time, I noticed something about the word “home.” If Lori was with me in Tampa, I’d say I was going home at the end of the day. But if she was in Nashville, I’d say I was going back to the apartment, not home. I only used “home” when I was returning to her.

I began to realize that for me, home wasn’t the place or the structure. It wasn’t the address either. Home was where I was loved. Home was where Lori was.

So, when she died, I couldn’t seem to find home anywhere.

You might say that grief is nothing more than love looking for a new home.

So, I went looking. I bought an RV and started searching. I traveled the country but kept returning to places we’d been, hoping memory might be enough to spark that feeling of home.

The house we built. The towns we lived in. The places we vacationed. The roads and sights in between. None of them held what I was looking for.

Eventually, I came to understand something more about this idea of home. Lori was gone, but she was still with me. Not in a way I could explain neatly, but in memory and thought, and in the way that makes love grow deeper even though that person is no longer physically here.

And so if home is where love is, then home never actually disappeared, because I carried Lori with me in my heart.

It just stopped being a place.

I could be at home in a camper in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, or in this house where so much of our life unfolded. The location didn’t define home for me anymore.

So, I stopped searching and came back to Tennessee.

A For Sale sign stands in the yard of our old house now. I’ve done my best to make it ready for someone else’s story of finding home.

I’m sad to leave. Every room carries something I don’t want to lose. I remember children growing up, Lori’s laughter, Christmas mornings, friends gathered around the table, the smell of cookies, and the sound of life happening around every corner.

I’m not sure where I’ll land next, but I hope it isn’t far. I’ve built community here, and I don’t want to start over completely. Again.

Of course, it’s possible, maybe even probable, that the house won’t sell. If that happens, I’ll adjust and wait. Then try again in a year or two. The same underlying issues of aging will still remain. It’s not like I’m getting younger with each passing year.

Whenever the sale finally comes, I’ll have sold my house, but not my home. The places where we live matter deeply, but they aren’t what matters most. Love is.

I’d like to hear how your understanding of “home” has changed with time, especially if, like me, life has forced you to redefine it.

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The sand was white, fine, and silky. It was blinding in the sun. Above it, a cloudless sky stretched deep blue, the kind of sky that promises water nearby. An early morning beach day sky.

But as I looked around, all I saw was sand. No water. No shoreline. Just dunes - rolling, shifting, endless. I stood there a moment, surrounded by white, reminded that appearances often mislead.

All the dry sand around me reminded me to hydrate. I stopped, set my backpack down, and found my water bottle. I took a long drink, put it away, and looked around again.

No warning signs. No ropes. No “Stay Off the Dunes” signs like you see in Florida. If there had been, I wouldn’t have been there. I’m too much of a rule follower.

But the Rangers had encouraged me to explore, so that’s what I was doing. As long as I stayed close to the trail, I could wander at random. Wander too far, though, and I could easily get lost if I wasn’t careful.

That morning, I’d stopped at the visitor center at White Sands National Park for a map and some advice, then driven back to where the longest trail began. I laced up my boots and scanned the horizon.

All I could see was white. The road to the trailhead looked like it had been covered in fresh snow. The difference was that the sand didn’t sparkle like snow. It absorbed the light, quietly confident in its own brightness.

Before starting, I double-checked my backpack for water and shifted it into place. Sunglasses. Walking stick. I was ready.

Now, where exactly was that trail?

The Alkali Flat Trail turned out to be neither flat nor much of a trail. And that made sense when I thought about it.

You can’t mark a trail in a place that erases itself every night. There were no trees to blaze, no big rocks to mark. Every evening, the wind reset the landscape, wiping everything clean. By morning, it was as if yesterday had never happened.

So instead, the park had planted bright red guideposts deep into the sand. The rule was simple: walk from marker to marker. If you couldn’t see the next one, don’t go looking for it. That’s how people got lost.

And possibly eaten by giant sandworms. Like in the movies.

Between markers, the route was up to me. Just get there.

That concept meant something to me that morning. I was in my first year of full-time RV travel, newly retired, and everything felt unfamiliar, self-directed, and unmarked. There wasn’t a clear trail ahead, and there weren’t any guarantees.

Others may have gone before me. But I wasn’t following their footsteps

I spotted the first marker near the parking area, then another beyond it. That was enough. I started walking.

A mile and a half in, I stopped for another drink of water. Where I was, down between the dunes, I couldn’t see any markers at all. I knew the general direction I needed to go, but my internal radar, usually dependable, wanted confirmation - some kind of external reassurance.

That meant climbing.

I worked my way up the side of a dune, each step sending small cascades of sand downhill. The loose sand made forward progress optional. It helped to sidestep my way up, like a crab, which is not how I imagined myself hiking that morning.

At the top, I paused and looked around. There it was. A red marker about a hundred feet away, slightly off from where I expected it, but unmistakably the next goal.

How could I get there? Sometimes the best way forward isn’t directly in front of you. I chose a longer path along the dune tops, keeping the marker in sight and not dropping down between dunes where I’d lose it entirely.

The trail looped five miles in a big circle through sand and silence. On the far side were the alkali flats sloping toward the San Andres Mountains and the edge of restricted military territory at the US Army White Sands Missile Range.

There weren’t any fences to keep me out.

Just the ones I’d built in my own mind because I’m a rule follower.

Five years later, an F-16 from nearby Holloman Air Force Base would crash in the park not far from where I stood. The pilot ejected safely. I can only imagine what it would have felt like to be wandering the dunes that day.

Leaving the flats, the trail looped back toward my car, two miles away.

Near the end of my trek, I stopped to admire the wind sculptures one more time. That’s what the dunes really were - forty-foot-tall works of art shaped and reshaped nightly, moving twelve feet a year, constantly being remade.

It would have felt wrong not to pause and take them in.

They were so, so white. In the sun, they were almost mesmerizing. The sand in the dunes isn’t beach sand. It’s gypsum, ancient deposits ground into fine particles and pushed by the wind into fresh forms, over and over again.

I looked back the way I’d come, at the footprints I’d left behind. They’d be gone by morning, wiped clean overnight.

Fleeting.

Like I am.

But there I was, rejoicing in the day.

I can tell you that five miles of dunes is more than five miles of hiking. You can’t go straight from marker to marker without detours, climbs, and drops that add more distance. By the time I finished, I was tired and sandy, ready to sit down.

I pulled off my boots and poured out the sand. Nearby, children were sliding down the dunes on sleds as if it were snow. They laughed, carefree, sledding white hills on a warm March day.

I couldn’t claim to be carefree like them.

But I could say I was having fun, leaving footprints, blazing my own trail on the Senior Road, and letting the wind clean it all up afterward.

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I knew better, and I still got it wrong.

She yelled, “Stop!”

And I stopped - immediately, instinctively, and incorrectly.

But Simon hadn’t said, “Simon says.” Most of the children understood the difference, but not me.

I’d come to Jarabacoa, in the Dominican Republic, with Children’s Relief International to help with childcare while some of the women in our group spoke at a women-only Bible conference. We planned stories, games, and art for the children.

But before we got to the conference, we spent part of our first two mornings with preschoolers at a local school. We did a lesson, a game, and an art project with them. On both days, they heard the story of Jesus turning water into wine, told in two different ways, just to make sure it stuck. I played a small role in a skit, passed out crayons, and tried not to get in the way.

That first morning, we played Simon Says with the little ones. I stood behind Simon, following every command. Meanwhile, most of the children kept messing up when Simon didn’t say, “Simon says.” I have to admit, I felt very grown-up in that moment.

That feeling didn’t last long.

That afternoon, we played again with older students after school, and everything was going fine until the command came: “Simon says, hop on one foot!”

Now, hopping on one foot sounds easy, but it becomes a different experience in your seventies, trying to maintain balance, dignity, and circulation all at the same time. I did my best, hopping and wobbling around like a pirate who’d misplaced his peg leg.

Then came the trap: “Stop!”

And I stopped. Immediately. Completely. Confidently.

But Simon hadn’t said, “Simon says.”

We tried again, and even though I knew exactly what was coming, I fell for it again. I had to stop, or fall over. At some point, you start to wonder if “I can’t help myself” is less of an excuse and more of a diagnosis for getting older.

C’est la vie.

After the games each morning, they turned on the music and danced, and, of course, I wasn’t about to miss a chance to dance with three-year-olds. So, I stood behind the teachers, following along a couple beats late, a goofy old guy, having fun with life. Eventually, you have to stop worrying about whether you look foolish and start realizing that you actually do, and that’s okay.

By Friday night, the conference had begun, and I was caring for children in a covered open-air space with a metal roof and a concrete floor. There were about fifteen children of all ages there, and in one skit, I pretended to be an artist. The challenge wasn’t the role. It was my timing. We spoke in English, which required translation.

My partner would deliver his line, and I’d jump in before somebody had a chance to translate it. More than once. The knowledge that I shouldn’t do that seemed to short-circuit each time, leaving me wondering exactly who this old guy I came with was. Still, we made it through with laughter, and the children seemed to enjoy it.

Next, we played a game with modeling clay and blindfolds, making elephants and spiders, and ended the night drawing with chalk on the concrete floor. I joined them, doing my best artistic work, though I’m not sure anyone would agree on what it was supposed to be. (You can put your guess in the comments.) The rain started as we finished, washing everything away overnight, which felt about right for my artistic contribution.

I’d seen the hopscotch, and after the children left, I decided to give it a try. I made it through without falling (both ways), which felt great, especially after my earlier performance of hopping on one foot. Of course, there weren’t any witnesses, so you’ll have to take my word for it.

Saturday, we ended with a game called “What Time Is It, Mr. Fox?” At least, that was the idea. Somewhere along the way, “fox” became “foca,” which in Spanish means “seal.” So instead of being chased by a fox, we were all running from a seal.

We shouted, “¿Qué hora es, Sr. Foca?” like it made perfect sense, and in that moment, it did. Eventually, the seals came for me, and I was quickly surrounded and overrun by laughing children. I didn’t put up much of a fight, though. There are worse ways to lose a game.

After the conference, we headed into town and got caught in a heavy downpour. That didn’t bode well for our ATV plans, but what’s a little mud between friends? So, we went anyway. We had a late afternoon reservation, but the staff hadn’t expected us to show up in the rain, so they weren’t ready. The ATVs had to come from somewhere else, one at a time, and the minutes slowly slipped away.

I wasn’t planning to drive one. I’d been paired with a teammate who made it clear her goal was to make me scream like a little girl.

But I was ready to rise to the occasion and see who screamed first, but we ran out of daylight before we ever got started. In the end, there was no ride, no mud, and no screaming - just the realization that some plans aren’t meant to be.

We cooked most of our meals at the Airbnb, taking turns preparing food and cleaning up. I’m going to tell you something that may surprise you: I cook. Really, I do. But I’d never made egg salad, and more surprisingly, I’d never eaten it before.

I know. I know.

Still, I made it, tried it, and it turned out pretty good.

The real culinary adventure, however, came on Sunday afternoon at a birthday party for one of the preschool teachers. The food was excellent, and I filled my plate with rice and chicken and went back to my seat, enjoying every bite, until I saw it.

My fork froze mid-air. There was a chicken foot on my plate.

Not part of one. The whole thing.

I did a quiet little freak-out, nudging it with my fork just to be sure, but there was no doubt. So, being a good guest, instead of picking up my phone to take a picture, I picked it up and did my best to eat it. The fork wouldn’t have helped. It was mostly skin and bones. It really wasn’t too bad, as long as I didn’t think about what I was eating. I disposed of it as soon as I had the chance.

Some experiences are memorable enough without a second helping.

So, that’s a little taste of my recent trip to the Dominican Republic. There’s more I didn’t include: bonsai trees, a walk through the community, a group art project I led, a party bus, cows and egrets, translators, and even my first sermon at church Sunday night. Our trip was for very serious reasons, but it was also a lot of fun.

I’m learning that joy tends to show up in unplanned moments, the ones where you’re a little off-balance, a step behind, and a little unsure, but laughing anyway. Those are the ones that seem to stick in our memories.

I encourage you to find your own Jarabacoa in this country or another. Leave your comfort zone behind to break away from the ordinary. Sometimes the most meaningful moments come when you simply decide to go.

And eat the chicken feet while you’re there.

LInks:

Light and Grace Ministries in the Dominican Republic

Children's Relief Intl

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When I walk, other people always seem to walk faster. I began to wonder why.

I’m indeed slowing down with age, but there’s more to it than that. I can walk faster. I just choose not to. I’m not in a hurry. I’m strolling.

Strolling is walking slowly, but it’s more than that. It opens our eyes, engages our senses, and takes the focus off ourselves. It’s exercise without strain, movement without urgency. A stroll leaves stress behind one step at a time by getting somewhere aimlessly.

Anyone can do it, but it’s a surprisingly difficult art to master. There’s no formula to follow, no app to download, no watch buzzing. The skills required are already in us. We’ve just neglected them.

Strolling creates something new each time we step outside.

Opportunities are everywhere: our neighborhood, a park, downtown, even in an airport. You can stroll anywhere, but be careful not to walk accidentally.

Walking is about the goal, the destination, the schedule. Strolling is about the journey. It’s giving the world enough time to impress you.

On a stroll, we can go wherever we want. We follow our nose, adjusting our path when something catches our attention. Or we let the wind decide, but then take a detour toward a bird we hear but never quite see. Maybe we stop to talk with a neighbor, or introduce ourselves to a stranger just to learn their name.

A good stroll has a voice of its own if we’re willing to listen.

But pace matters. Speed creates waves that ripple across the landscape, sending wildlife scurrying for cover. Strolling softens our presence. It makes less noise. It invites curiosity instead of alarm.

Deer pause and study us before bounding away. Rabbits watch as we pass, deciding we’re not worth the trouble. At a slower pace, we don’t skim across the surface. We sink in.

A leisurely gait frees us to stop in awe at the ordinary - a leaf on the ground, a distant song, a campfire glowing orange in the dark. The moment sparkles just enough to catch us off guard and put a bounce in our next step.

Done right, strolling lets us stop and admire a single tiny flower, the kind we usually miss because we’re busy looking for something more impressive. Time loosens its grip. Reason takes a short break. And for a moment, we feel like children again.

Strolling exercises the body without wearing it down. There are faster ways to burn calories, but none better for the soul.

It also stretches the imagination. Stories begin to form.

The little girl rushing past is on her way to Grandma’s house. The older man standing on the corner, holding his hat, is remembering the day he proposed to his wife at that very spot. The tree bending over the lake has watched generations of children jump from its branches.

Whether the stories are true doesn’t matter. They wake something up in us.

Our bodies need rest to recover. Strolling is a kind of active rest, a reminder to pause, to slow down, to breathe.

And pausing may be the best part.

We can stop for any reason at all: a purple wildflower, the smell of fried chicken, children playing soccer, or a boat cutting noisily across the lake. When we pause, we give that scene a chance to settle in. We absorb it slowly, marinating in the moment, as if it were truly meant to be remembered.

Because it is.

The snow will melt. Children will grow up. Songs will end. But something of the moment stays with us.

We also pause to steady ourselves, to prepare for what lies ahead. Slowing down isn’t retreat. It’s preparation. We step back into life a little more grounded, a little more ready.

When we slow down, we notice people.

A greeting returned. A wave acknowledged. A smile exchanged. These are small things, but they reconnect us. Smiles have a way of multiplying, for them and for us - a quiet kind of feedback loop.

Most days, we pass people without a thought. We stand next to them in elevators, sit near them in restaurants, walk past them on sidewalks. They are part of the background.

Strolling is the magic trick that turns humans back into people.

And something else shifts. Strolling exists outside of time, or at least outside the tyranny of it. Time becomes elastic. Less demanding. More forgiving.

Even if we set a limit, the minutes behave differently. They stretch. They soften. They stop keeping score. For a little while, we slip into another way of living.

When we stroll, we begin to notice what’s always been there.

Clouds drifting and reshaping themselves overhead. Light changing with the hour - harsh at noon, softer later in the day. Shadows adding depth and drama to the most ordinary things.

We start to see what we’ve been looking past.

Breathe deeply and consider the invisible ocean of air we move through. It has a personality of its own, sometimes harsh and unwelcoming, sometimes gentle and almost tender.

And it shifts with the hour, the season, the light. It rustles leaves, carries smells, and occasionally delivers the unmistakable promise of freshly baked cookies.

It’s always there. We just forget to notice.

So maybe start with a simple walk around the block. Then go again, but slower this time. Let the urgency drop away. Let your pace match your curiosity instead of your schedule.

Pay attention. Notice people. Observe the light. Breathe the air. Take your time.

You might find that the world has been waiting for you to slow down enough to see it. The road ahead will still be there when we’re ready. For now, it’s enough to walk it slowly.

Savor the moment and thank God for life.

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My friend heard a song in me long before I heard anything myself.

We share a lot in common, but we’re completely different people. I’m quiet and reserved. He’s loud and bold. He talks. I don’t. He makes music. I try.

Still, he lets me play guitar and sing without wearing earplugs. If love is blind, sometimes friendship has to be tone-deaf. I only play for him and my youngest grandchildren. They don’t know any better. He does. He’s played the guitar for years, which makes his encouragement either generous…or suspicious.

Now that’s real friendship.

My friend has earned the right to speak into my life, and that can be unsettling at times. I’d rather coast downhill than be challenged to change direction, or heaven forbid, head uphill against the wind.

But he’s an against-the-wind kind of guy.

So when he told me I should write a song, I took him seriously but told him once again that he was crazy. It wasn’t like I’d had an epiphany and suddenly become Jimi Hendrix or Eric Clapton. I hadn’t taken voice lessons or learned to sing on key. I had no talent, no training, and no timing.

Despite all that, he challenged me to write a song. His explanation: He thought I was a good writer and storyteller, another highly questionable assertion of his.

Why do I listen to him at all?

He theorized that to write a good song, one needs to be a good teller of stories. A song is simply a story set to music. It has a beginning, an end, and something meaningful in between.

Not true, I thought. What about classical music or jazz? And what about songs with meaningless lyrics? Tutti Frutti? Wooly Bully? Da Do Ron Ron? Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da?

You get the idea, and probably a good hint about my age.

Still, the more I thought about what my friend said, the more I realized he might be right about songwriting. Most songs do carry a story beneath the surface, whether we notice it or not.

That still didn’t mean I could write one.

He disagreed.

He saw something I couldn’t see in myself. A musician. A poet. A songwriter holding onto stories of love, loss, and adventure that ought to come out. He was adamant. I could write a song if I tried.

So, since he’s such a good friend, I ignored him.

That’s what you do with nonsense, but my friend had planted a seed, and in the cold days of January, it began to grow. I wrote a few lines, none of them particularly lyrical. I searched for a story worth telling. Nothing quite fit.

So, I gave up. I’d tried, and I couldn’t do it. It was time to move on. Case closed.

Except it wasn’t.

I went away for a spiritual retreat at the Abbey of Gethsemani. In prayer, my paradigm of possibilities shifted. Out of the silence, a song began to grow.

I started by putting music to words I’d already written. That was better than writing lyrics alone, but it still didn’t feel quite right. So I changed direction. I tried writing a chorus that was more hopeful and alive.

Hmmm. That was better.

I played around with it, adjusting words, fine-tuning chords, and adding new lines.

I liked how the chorus was shaping up, but a chorus alone isn’t much of a song.

Then nothing else came.

Again.

So I quit.

Again.

For ten days, I avoided the whole idea. I tried to forget. But it lingered. Maybe I was writing about the wrong thing. What story was I supposed to tell instead?

The answer, when it came, was obvious. I needed to tell a Lori story.

I picked up my guitar and started over. This time, the words came easily. Two verses. Then a chorus. A bridge followed a couple of days later. After that, it was mostly refining - moving pieces around, adjusting chords, shaping transitions.

For me, it felt like a kind of completion.

I don’t grieve as deeply as I once did. I made it through those dark years. Telling our story again, but this time in song, feels like another way of letting her go. Not forgetting her. Not moving on in the sense of leaving her behind. But releasing my grip just enough to truly live in the present.

In this song, I’m setting her free and, at the same moment, conceding I’ll always hold her tightly.

I’m sure that doesn’t make sense, but I attempt to stay in that tension between what was and what will never be again, while still living fully today.

So, here are the words:

The Loving Years

Chorus:

You gave me your heart

You gave me your all

The loving years I recall

I gave you my heart

I gave you my all

The loving years,

I recall

Oh, I recall

Verse 1:

When we said forever

I gave my love to you

But now I’m here by myself

Wondering what to do

Verse 2:

To hold you in my arms

And kiss you one more time

To tell you that I love you

And you’ll always be mine

Chorus repeat

Bridge

The years have passed

Cause time won’t last

I had to let you go

But even then

You’ve always been

Sunlight to my soul

You’re in my dreams

Impact my schemes

Just wanted you to know

But the years have passed

And time won’t last

I had to let you go

Verses repeat

Chorus repeat x 2

So now what? Do I have any more songs inside me?

Apparently, I do.

A second song followed, titled “Sunshine and Heaven”. That one’s about an early morning run in the springtime - light, fun, and playful, a completely different tone from The Loving Years.

I recently played both songs for my friend. He was gracious in his response. Then he picked up his guitar and began fingerpicking the melody of “The Loving Years” while we talked through keys, chords, and transitions.

I guess he was right about me. Remember that first chorus I liked but couldn’t do anything with? I turned it into a verse. It’s now part of a third song based on the original story I wanted to tell.

And new ideas keep coming. I have fragments of songs scattered around the house, waiting for the right moment to come together.

I hope I’ll improve my craft with practice. But even if I never write another song, these past weeks have already been a gift from God. A reminder that we’re still capable of change. Still capable of growth. Even in the late autumn and early winter of life.

Sometimes it takes a friend to see what we can’t. To call something out of us that we would have left buried. And sometimes, against our better judgment, it’s worth listening.

So here’s my suggestion: If someone you trust tells you there’s something more in you…

Don’t dismiss it too quickly.

They might be hearing a song you haven’t learned to recognize yet.

What about you? Is there something you’ve quietly assumed you’re “not the kind of person” to do? Maybe a friend has said otherwise. Consider taking one small step toward that unlikely thing - write a paragraph, strum a chord, sketch a line, make the call. You don’t have to finish anything.

Just begin.

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I love to run. I never thought I’d say that, much less believe it. Some days are easy. Most days are hard - really hard in my seventies. Sometimes I can’t wait to get out the door; other days, I bargain with myself like a man negotiating a plea deal. I want a little time off for good behavior.

Some runs are light and fun. Others are gloriously awful.

These days, most of them are awful.

But runners aren’t born. They’re made one run at a time. So, out I go.

Once I get moving, my mood shifts. My aging joints loosen a bit. My breathing settles. My pace improves to an old-man jog. Rhythm in motion produces music in my soul.

I start with one unspoken imperative: don’t stop. Keep going until my plan for the day is finished. On really good days, magic happens, and I keep going, never wanting it to end.

Seven years ago, I was camping at Montgomery Bell State Park in Tennessee during the early spring. I decided on an early-morning long run on the park roads. The temperature was hovering in the 50s, and the air was heavy with fog. I stretched, stepped outside, and began to move.

My first mile was slow, as it always is. My body, even seven years ago, was already firmly in the “vintage” category and required extra babying to keep the wheels from falling off. I had no set route, just a general plan to enjoy the run and let the roads decide the rest.

I soon wandered down a spur toward the golf course and quickly discovered it led nowhere interesting. It was a short putt, not a long drive.

The fog thickened as I ran. Yesterday’s rain and the cool morning air worked together like a fog machine. My shirt was wet, though I couldn’t tell whether that was from sweat or fog. To my right, dew highlighted dozens of spider webs in the woods. Backlit by the weak morning sun, they glowed silver, their hiding places revealed.

I was grateful to be out on the road. If I’d been on a trail, I’d be walking face-first into those silky, sticky, icky webs. The thought made me shiver. Another reason to just keep running.

I took another spur, this one leading down to a picnic area. Longer this time. Downhill. I was in full swing, enjoying the run. Nothing was going to stop me now. An empty parking lot emerged from the haze. Dogwoods materialized out of the mist along its edge as I ran, their white blossoms subtle and reserved, obscured by the fog. The blooms were translucent, ghostly, quietly beautiful against the mist.

Note to self: Maybe I should come back for a picture later in the day, but right then, I had a run to finish.

Then I saw a redbud in full bloom.

Redbuds are not shy. They don’t ease into spring. They announce it. Pink explodes, loud and unapologetic. In the fog, it was almost shocking.

And still, I kept running.

I didn’t want to break my rhythm. I couldn’t stop until my workout was complete. My heart and body had to keep moving. I needed forward motion. Sweat was leaching impurities from body and soul, and stopping felt like a failure. It would disrupt my pace, my distance, and my neat internal accounting. So I ran past the beauty, congratulating myself on my discipline.

The fog deepened as I got closer to the lake. More and more blooming trees materialized out of the mist, their beauty quietly haunting me. The internal debate started up, familiar from past runs.

Can I stop?

Should I stop?

Does stopping mean quitting?

A pause was not the end of the world. I could start again. I had no appointment to keep, no meeting to miss. I was retired. My time was my own. I could adjust my final numbers. I knew all this. I had always known this. And still, I resisted.

Then I did it. I slowed my pace, and then I paused. I stopped running from beauty and let it catch me.

Why was I in such a hurry? My reason for running was to pause, to let God drown me in the splendor of His creation. I just hadn’t realized it until that moment.

The fog wrapped the redbud tree in a soft gray cloud. It softened the image, giving the blossoms a pink aura. The sun glowed faintly overhead, lighting pink candles in the tree.

Eventually, I turned away, but couldn’t resist looking back. The tree had already begun to disappear. Already, it was more cloud than flower.

The fog was in bloom.

Farther down the road, another redbud, hidden in the mist, was already shedding its blooms. Pink petals covered the ground like snow, its brief shout of color fading, so I stopped again. Beauty needs time to sink in.

When I finally began running again that time, I thought about how momentum rules my day. I’ve always been goal-driven. Even in retirement, I lived as if life were a series of finish lines. I raced through moments meant to be noticed. A year into retirement, I was finally beginning to learn to pause.

Life requires hard running at times. But not every day. Not every moment. Not without pause. I’m still learning when to push and when to pause. That morning, I broke the pattern of forty years of living. I stopped twice in a place and time that will never come again. And I was the better for it.

Sometimes, the most important part of our day is letting the fog bloom.

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He was wild and untrained when I met him. He didn’t understand a word I said, but from the beginning, I liked him.

My name is Cookie, and I’m a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel.

It took my human a long time to get my name right. He tried all sorts of other sounds first, but when he finally said something recognizably close to the right one, I responded.

We’ve been together for more than a year now, and I’ve expended a lot of effort training him. He’s making progress, but humans are notoriously slow. I know because my neighbor Sadie and I compare notes whenever we meet along the fence line.

She assures me my human isn’t unusually dense, like I thought. Just average.

Before I met him, I lived with my family, all my sisters and me. I knew it would change someday. I wasn’t naive. I’d heard the rumors.

And then the day came.

I was a little groggy when I met him. I’d just awakened from my after-lunch, pre-mid-afternoon nap. We all ran out to find a funny-smelling stranger there. Being friendly by nature, I danced and wagged my tail to introduce myself. He picked us up one by one and tried to talk to us.

I was the last one, and since I was still drowsy, I tried to fall asleep in his lap. That might explain what happened next. Before I knew it, I found myself in some kind of traveling case, with this human making strange noises at me in a completely unintelligible barking babble.

Having little choice in the matter, I went along for the ride.

I was kind to him, but even then, he seemed overly agitated when I left small gifts around the house. It was necessary. A girl has to mark her territory, you know. It took several months to train him to recognize my signals for going outside.

His language acquisition skills were paltry. After a full year of instruction, he still only understands maybe a dozen words.

Frankly, I expected better of him.

Still, he’s grown on me.

We’re friends now. We go places together. Take walks together. Share meal times. Even sleep in the same bed.

That last part required patience to bring about. He just didn’t get it at first. But I was persistent.

He insisted I sleep somewhere else, but I knew from conversations with other dogs that this was a common human misunderstanding. So I explained the situation, the only way humans seem to understand.

I whined.

I waited until he was asleep and then began my presentation. The louder he snored, the louder I explained.

At first, he tried putting me in another room. Amateur move. I simply increased the volume. However, none of my efforts seemed to work until we visited other humans. I think he didn’t want me waking them up, so he pulled me into bed with him.

Finally.

Humans can be so pigheaded, can’t they? But with steady training, they usually come around.

When the days got warmer, we were both sick for a while. He took me to a place where the humans seemed friendly, but they got me drunk. When I woke up, I had a hangover, and my stomach hurt. To make matters worse, there was a large plastic cone around my head. It felt like I’d stuck my head into an RCA Victrola and couldn’t get it out.

It was humiliating.

After several days of persistent persuasion, my human, so slow on the pickup, finally relented and removed my cone of shame.

Just in time, too, because he needed me. He was sick as well. A girl just knows these things. He’d been leaving me at home every morning for weeks, and seemed to be getting weaker and weaker. He didn’t have his old vim and vigor.

But as the days got hotter, we both gradually improved. Me first. Then him eventually. The days were beginning to get short again before I began to feel comfortable with his health.

One day before the leaves changed colors, he took me to a pet “resort’ and left me there for days. It didn’t seem much like a resort to me. No swimming pools. No buffets. No dancing at night.

The humans were likable, but I’ve never met one I didn’t want to jump on and lick. We’d play in the sun, but then they’d take me back to my room and ignore me. To make matters worse, I had to share them with the other dogs, and to my horror, even a few cats.

Cats. Can you believe it? And they called it a resort.

The next time I saw travel bags appear, I knew exactly what was happening. When we returned home after that one, I made sure to communicate my feelings by leaving a few blood-pressure-raising gifts on the floor.

My strategy proved effective.

He started taking me along with him sometimes. We travel in his big crate on wheels. I curl up and watch him or pretend to sleep while he does God knows what all day long.

We’ve even visited a faraway place where other humans I recognize live. He talks about the little humans who live there using a word that starts with a familiar growling sound: “grrrr.”

There are three of these “Grrr’s,” each a different size. I assume they’re his puppies and will be fully grown next year. They approach me with equal parts curiosity and caution, but by the end of the visit, I’m close to having them trained enough to walk with me. They seem to learn so much faster than the human I live with.

Back home during the recent cold months, he tries to play with me. I have some new toys like the puppies do. We play, and I let him chase me. He throws a ball and expects me to bring it back to him. That’s ridiculous.

It’s my ball.

If he wants a ball, let him get his own. He’s free to chase after me to try and take mine, if he wants, but I see no reason to make it easy for him. But then I remember he’s not a dog, and doesn’t really understand these things. So, occasionally, out of kindness, I let him have it. Training humans requires encouragement from time to time.

During the cold weather, it snowed, and I liked playing in it. But one day we had rain that froze into ice. That was different. All day long, he kept opening the door and pushing me out to do my thing, but I kept running back in. It was a little game we played until mid-afternoon when the rain finally stopped.

I won. I finally went on my terms, but when I got outside, nothing smelled right, and my paws kept slipping. I found it’s really hard to squat gracefully on ice.

Nowadays, when he gets ready to go somewhere, I run to my big comfy crate. Inside, there’s always a toy to play with and something soft to sleep on. He closes me in, and I feel strangely content. I sleep most of the time he’s gone. When he returns, I’m ready to play, but he insists on taking me outside first.

He’s such a good boy like that. I don’t even have to remind him anymore.

Sometimes it almost seems like he’s trying to talk to me. Such a pity. I can’t underst….

SQUIRREL! SQUIRREL! BARK! BARK! SQUIRREL!

SQUIRREL!

…Sorry about that. It’s my job to protect humans from squirrel attacks. I’m always on paw patrol.

As I was saying, I can’t understand a thing he says. But when I look into his eyes, we can communicate. His soft, cool slate-blue eyes are expressive. Sometimes they fill with tears at odd moments, and he seems sad, which makes me sad too. But much more often, they’re smiling at me.

And when they smile, I feel something warm inside my furry chest.

Still, he’s such an odd creature. He feeds birds but doesn’t want me to chase them. He knows a rabbit lives in the backyard, yet seems uninterested in hunting it. He showers under a waterfall but doesn’t want me to join him.

And he becomes strangely emotional if I chew on anything he doesn’t give me.

He’s so uptight.

Sadie says warmer weather will return soon. I can already smell the change in the air. My human seems completely unaware of it because his nose doesn’t work properly. He doesn’t even notice how good his food smells, or the sweet fragrance of the flowers he brings home, or how not-so-sweet some of his bathroom visits are.

At least I take mine outside. I’ve tried to explain that he should do the same, but he remains stubbornly confused.

Typical man.

I’m fully grown now, though I’m not very big. I’m not like Sadie or even Miles behind the big wooden fence, so I keep asking for more food. I want to be big like them, but once again, my human isn’t getting the idea.

Nevertheless, despite all his shortcomings and the work he requires, I like him. I like him a lot.

In fact, I might even love him.

Of course, he doesn’t understand that concept. Sometimes I’m not sure I do either. But sometimes love shows up unexpectedly when you spend enough time together, as we do. You think you’re taking care of them, but then you notice they’ve really been quietly taking care of you all along.

And inexplicably, I think he loves me too. Whenever I look into his eyes, I can see it because they’re smiling back at me.

Did you ever have a pet like Cookie who could have written this story? One that seemed to understand you better than most people? One who pads quietly into the room, curls up beside you, and stays?

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Until next time, be grateful for the companions, big and small, you’ve had along the road.

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I sat on the edge of the bed holding one shoe, unsure how long I’d been there.

I felt like an absent-minded professor, lost in his equations, looking up from the chalkboard and realizing the whole room was staring at him.

I glanced down. One shoe was in my hand. One still on my foot. I ought to take it off. Or put the other one on.

I looked around and remembered. I was at the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky, more than halfway through a four-night retreat. Alone. In silence. On purpose. With no way of escaping that didn’t involve a car and a long drive home.

All that raises a reasonable question: why would anyone voluntarily do that to themselves?

I live alone, so I already have plenty of solitude and silence. But distractions are easy in familiar places, and what I wanted was an undistracted spiritual retreat, a few days without excuses. I wanted to know God better.

Silence and solitude are classic Christian disciplines we don’t often exercise in our lives. At the Abbey, I was getting a big dose of it.

There’s no instruction manual included. No one tells you what to do. The Abbey simply posted signs reminding guests to remain silent, even in our own rooms. That was it. I could have spent my days reading novels, listening to music with earbuds, or watching videos with headphones. I could do whatever I wanted, as long as I didn’t make any noise doing it.

But I didn’t approach it that way.

I left my iPad and laptop at home. I packed my Bible, paper, pens, and a handful of questions and prompts. I turned off my phone when I arrived. I came to sit with God without my usual excuses.

And to say I was apprehensive would be an understatement. I knew I could always leave at any time. And yet, soon, silence stopped feeling like a punishment. It began to feel quietly intimate.

So much so that by Thursday morning, I was so at home in the silence that I found myself frozen mid-movement, holding one shoe like I’d never let go, slowly remembering where I was.

The Abbey itself wasn’t glamorous. Like me, the bed was soft and lumpy, and I didn’t sleep especially well. The food wasn’t very good either. The highlight was a giant meatball, charred around the edges and dipped in barbecue sauce. Call it spaghetti-western cuisine, but don’t call it gourmet.

Meals were eaten in total silence too, spaced far apart, with no talking or joking to ease the awkwardness. I couldn’t say hello. I couldn’t learn names. I couldn’t fill in the gaps. It turns out it’s hard to stay silent when everything inside you wants to talk.

That made me wonder if I’m responsible for more noise in my life than I’d like to admit.

Maybe silence isn’t empty. Maybe I don’t always need to comment, explain, or give an opinion. And maybe if I stop rehearsing my next sentence, I might actually hear what someone else is saying.

In the silence, I was learning to tame my tongue. Who knew that quiet, shy, introverted me needed to learn that lesson?

But sleep and food were incidental to why I was there. What I really hoped for was to know God better. He was why I came.

King David would have understood. Three thousand years ago, he wrote:

“For God alone my soul waits in silence.” Psalm 62:1

For God alone. Not for answers. Not for clarity. Not for improvement. For God alone.

Jesus did this too. He spent forty days alone in the wilderness before his public ministry and regularly withdrew to quiet places to pray.

With one shoe on and one shoe off, I glanced at the clock. Fifteen minutes had passed since I’d sat down. That kind of time loss happened a lot in the silence at the Abbey. I’d sink so deeply into thought I’d forget what I was doing.

I was profoundly and purposefully lost in silence.

With each passing hour, the noise in my mind had diminished. The debris cluttering my thoughts began to wash away. I was less scattered and more centered on God. I began to listen for what he might be saying instead of telling him what I wanted to hear. In the extended silence, I could make out what God had been trying to say to me all along.

I prayed. I read Scripture. I wrote answers to questions the Holy Spirit seemed to ask me. Some answers delighted me. Others concerned me. In seeking God’s face, I was learning more about myself, and I didn’t always like what I discovered.

I’m still a man in need of a Savior.

I walked the property in silence, prayed in my room, and wrote until words ran out. I thought. I meditated on the Bible. I contemplated the love of an almighty and just God, amazed that He would ever love me.

The boundaries blurred. When I was writing, was it prayer? When a new idea surfaced, was I thinking, or meditating, or praying? I couldn’t always tell where one activity ended and another began.

Were my deepest thoughts simply secret prayers? Or were my prayers just thoughts wrapped in religious language?

My prayers didn’t sound like prayers anymore. They became an ongoing, two-way conversation with the Creator of the universe – more a communion, a sharing of hearts. Very little of it conformed to the rules of prayer I carried in my head.

In a way, I was living out the apostle Paul’s call to pray without ceasing. My whole life felt like a prayer, sliding back and forth between earthly and spiritual realities.

That morning, with one shoe off, I was on holy ground, in front of a burning bush, talking with the great I Am. It was holy not because of where I was, but because of who He was.

After a few more minutes on that holy ground, I finally took off my other shoe and moved to the bed, my original intent. Remembering lunch, I nervously watched the clock, knowing how easily I could lose track of time again. Somehow, I made it downstairs for another silent meal.

I’m glad I did. That was meatball day.

All in all, it was quite an experience, but sitting half shod wasn’t the only one like that on my retreat. There were more, too private to share.

But I’m careful with my memories. Self-deception can be powerful. Experiences alone have no value. The only thing that matters is whether I love God and my neighbor more afterward.

Experience fades, but true change settles in. It becomes part of who we are, something we carry forward with us, preparing us for the next change coming.

At home a month later, wearing both shoes as I write this, I find myself still craving times of silence. Meals without YouTube. Mornings protected by Do Not Disturb. Drives and runs without music. Moments where I stop filling the silence and simply listen.

Because sometimes change comes in a whisper.

You can do it too. You don’t need a monastery. Just turn something off. Sit still. Start with a few minutes. And see what happens when the noise in your life finally gives way.

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I stood at a crossroads, arguing with myself.

I usually lose those kinds of arguments.

Or maybe it’s win.

One sign pointed back to where I started. The other toward Cross Knob. Left or right. Up or down.

I’d already walked four miles and was tired enough to be done for the day. I had at least one more to go, and Cross Knob would only add more distance, but it was my choice.

I’d started after lunch to let the day warm up. The map said: road for a couple of miles, then a trail, then another road back. From what I could see ahead, the road was paved. No need for hiking boots or walking sticks. My biggest challenge would be the cold, made colder by a stiff January wind that week before the big ice storm would hit Nashville. Warm layers and steady movement would take care of that.

I set off with the confidence of a man who hadn’t begun yet. But heading up that first long hill into the wind, I got so cold that I began rethinking the hike and several life choices. Once again, I had confused enthusiasm for preparation.

Head down, I kept going. I’d warm up eventually. I crested the first hill, and to my dismay, the road ahead was dirt. I could turn back, get my boots and trekking pole, and start again.

Sensible people would do that, but I’m not always so sensible.

I kept walking.

The road ahead dropped into a valley. Open fields and rolling hills beckoned. I passed a lake, entered the woods, and finally escaped the wind. But with the trees came enough leaves to cover the road. They were slipping and sliding enough to keep me alert.

Wishing I’d worn my boots, I pushed on in my running shoes. In the low places, the dirt turned to mud. Four-wheelers had churned it up, their tracks frozen in time, daring me to cross gracefully. I didn’t always succeed.

The road ended, and the track narrowed into a trail. The hills grew steeper. The leaves thicker. The mud muddier. For two more slow miles, I kept rehearsing my regrets about not wearing boots.

Then the trail crossed a small waterfall and ended at a pair of signs.

Left or right? Up to Cross Knob, or back down to where I started?

You know me. Of course, I wanted some pictures from the top. But the hike had already been harder than I’d expected. I was tired. Cold. And tired of being cold. I just wanted to get back down to where I could warm up. So, I decided not to go.

Still, I didn’t move. I stood there, debating with myself, looking back and forth between the signs.

I started thinking about regret.

Regret comes in two forms. One kind is regret over what we did or said. We’re sorry, but we can’t undo it. This kind often mixes with disappointment, shame, and remorse.

The other kind comes from doing nothing at all. We regret what we didn’t do. In that moment of decision, we lacked the requisite courage, vision, energy, or time. It’s Robert Frost’s idea of the road not taken, and wondering what difference it might have made.

Regrets for what I did were the norm when I was younger. But somewhere along the way, that shifted. These days, I far more often regret what I don’t do than what I do. My regrets come from hesitation. From letting excuses talk me out of even trying.

Standing there, I checked the map. A third of a mile. Two hundred feet of climbing.

I could do that.

I was running out of excuses.

More importantly, I knew I’d regret not going if I didn’t.

No more regrets.

The trail wasn’t steep at first, but I knew better. A big hill was waiting. I found it a quarter of a mile later. I stood at the edge of the Knob, looking up, rethinking this idea. I wasn’t sure I could answer all the questions that hill was asking.

The trail was just a worn place on a steep hillside. What was I doing there anyway? I was in my seventies. I had running shoes on, not boots. I wasn’t up to this.

But no regrets. Right?

So, I started picking my way forward, driving my way up, keeping my balance by leaning so far into the hill I could almost lick the ground.

I stopped at a small flat spot near a tree to rest. I checked my Garmin. My heart rate had jumped to 5K racing levels. My lungs had filed a formal complaint with my brain. I wasn’t out of shape. I was out of oxygen.

My body voted to turn around.

I overruled it, because looking up, I could see the cross high above me. I could rest there.

There’s probably a good metaphor in that.

I gulped air and started again, pushing and dragging my way to the top, victorious in a battle with my body I don’t always win anymore.

There was the cross. And a bench.

I stumbled to the bench. I sat down and recovered my dignity and my breath. I had needed that bench. I loved that bench.

From there, I could see the Abbey of Gethsemani, where I’d begun the hike. I turned to look at the cross. It was simple and plain, once part of the old church at the Abbey. Someone had decided it belonged up here and somehow made that happen.

After pictures and recovery, I started back down, slipping once with a gentle bump and no harm done. Near the bottom, I nearly tripped over a fallen branch and my own feet - twice. Overconfidence likes to follow accomplishment. I was glad no one was watching.

The rest of the hike back was easier. The trail became a dirt road, and the time passed quickly.

I was satisfied. I’d done a hard thing. I’d climbed the knob. I’d conquered myself.

I had no regrets.

Except for that boot thing.

Some days, we face more than we planned to give. Maybe we’re colder, slower, and missing the right gear. But even then, sometimes the best thing to do is take the next step and see what’s at the top.

What’s one climb you’ve been avoiding - not because you can’t do it, but because it’d be easier not to? I’d love to hear about the Cross Knobs you’ve faced and what finally tipped the decision.

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Kelly smiled at me - one of those come-hither smiles I couldn’t resist. She didn’t say a word. She didn’t need to. I knew exactly what she meant.

She held out her arms. I reached for her, lifted her up, whirled her around, and set her back on her feet in the middle of the room.

With this, another Sunday morning began.

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I’ve volunteered at church with young children for nearly a decade - first in Tampa, then in Nashville. Walkers. Nurseries. Toddlers. These days it’s with 12- to 24-month-olds in Nashville. I love these children, so caring for them is a joy, not a burden.

Our room isn’t large, but it’s fun. We have lots of toys and books, a small slide, rocking horses, and a little house filled with balls. A cool tunnel is attached to it for crawling through. I don’t fit in the house or the tunnel. I’ve checked.

As I watch them, I see myself in them.

They’re just little humans trying to stand upright and navigate life. Just like me.

• We all fall down. They bounce back up. I see a doctor.

• We all need a shoulder to cry on. They recover quickly. I replay it for years.

• We all make messes. They’re cute. I’m a “concern”.

• We all need help. They expect it. I apologize.

• We all want to be held. They ask honestly. I make a joke.

• We all really, really like bubbles. No difference there. Admit it. None at all.

We don’t outgrow these things.

Thinking about these Sundays, I realize they’ve made my heart young again. Somewhere along the way, I’d forgotten what it was like to be a child. I’d lost the ability to laugh and play. I was wrapped up in the hard realities of being an adult. I was ignoring the seven-year-old boy hiding inside me.

These children (and riding a bicycle) helped me find him again. They opened the door and let him come out to play.

As the children settle in, I no longer look strange sitting on the floor. I belong there. I push cars, make engine noises, knock over Duplo towers, and read books about monkeys. I laugh at their antics, like Kelly climbing the slide backward, one shoe missing, holding a toy she refuses to release, inevitably slipping back down to the bottom.

Jesus told us in Mark 10:13, talking about children, “To such belong the kingdom of God.”

Maybe that means heaven will be full of children, laughing and playing like this. If so, I get a small foretaste of what’s to come each week.

Aging has a way of shrinking our vision of the future. Our dreams fade, our health fails, and time feels shorter and shorter. But these children quietly remind me that the story keeps going even after I’m gone and that the best way to influence the future is to give myself away today.

Many of them will live into the next century. That 22nd-century perspective helps quiet my natural tendency toward navel-gazing, woe-is-me, and that no-time-left mindset that comes so easily at my age.

On the floor, life looks different. I see the room from Kelly’s view. I understand why, in a diaper, standing on a chair before sitting makes sense. Why climbing the slide is irresistible. Why it’s easy to trip over mats meant to protect me.

(Life is full of little ironies like that, isn’t it?)

I take the lesson on perspective home. I try to see life from others’ viewpoints: friends, neighbors, even strangers. This practice makes me a better follower of Jesus and, I hope, a better man.

Then comes the hardest part of volunteering: getting back up off the floor.

With witnesses.

Back on my feet, it’s time for music videos and dancing with the stars of my life. Kelly is full of her soon-to-be-two-year-old dance moves, her natural rhythm on full display.

I move with the music in what you might generously call an “interpretive” dance. You certainly wouldn’t call it dancing. It’s more like a seventy-year-old shuffle, but I don’t care.

I’m comfortable helping with this age group. Maybe too comfortable.

Lately, I’ve been wondering. Is this season of life coming to an end? Should it?

To test that out, I’ve decided to shake things up a bit. I want to see what my snow globe of volunteerism looks like after the snow settles, so I’ve asked to change classrooms and move to an older group. In this new setting, I’ll teach a Bible lesson and do art projects. That might mean working with five-year-olds or teaching fourth graders.

Either prospect terrifies me.

Every fear and insecurity I have is screaming, Don’t do this. You’re too old. You should stay where you’re comfortable.

But I’m doing it anyway.

Because I’m not done yet.

You either grow and change, or you die. The best way to keep growing? Challenge myself with hard things, even scary ones. If I don’t, I’ll soon wilt on the vine. It happens a lot faster at seventy-one than it did when I was twenty-one.

My little friend Kelly starts to cry. She lifts her arms, asking to be held. I sit in the rocking chair with her and reassure her that her mother will be back soon. Gradually, she calms down, trusting my arms to hold her steady.

Eventually, she slides down from my lap because it’s time for bubbles, and remember - everyone really, really likes bubbles. Our little tete-a-tete has ended, the crisis passed, another small moment she’ll never recall, and I won’t soon forget.

And tomorrow, like her, I’ll keep learning how to grow.

Maybe growth doesn’t always look very dramatic at my age. Sometimes it’s just sitting on the floor, getting back up, and trusting that your next small step still matters.

Is there an area of your life where you’ve grown too comfortable? What small step might bring new growth?

A note on “Kelly.” She is an amalgam of three children I’ve recently cared for. The moments are real; the name is not.

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Once upon a time, there was a Prince who traveled to a distant land called Arizona.

He’d left home to chase adventure because his kingdom was no more. He found a dry, windswept land of wide valleys, sharp mountains, and stark beauty. There, he decided to stop and rest for three weeks. It was as good a place as any.

The winter days were warm and bright. The nights were cool and sometimes cold. Rain interrupted the pattern every now and then because even in fairy tales, a little rain must fall.

But only a little.

Day after day, nothing changed. Then, three days before the Prince planned to leave, the impossible happened.

It snowed.

Snow in the desert is a rare and fleeting beauty, clothing the wilderness with a glittering white gown, ready for a prince. A kiss of sunshine brings its sparkle to life, but the spell won’t last. From the moment it falls, the clock is already ticking toward midnight, that moment when the snow will disappear beneath the warm sun.

He quickly dressed - boots, jacket, and hat – grabbed his camera and gloves, and stepped outside, into a winter dreamland, a frozen fantasy in the Arizona desert. Trees sparkled and complained softly about the extra weight. Fat flurries floated by like twinkling pixies.

Snow in the desert was impossible, implausible, and incredible.

It couldn’t be real. And yet, there it was. The whole first winter away from his kingdom had felt like make-believe. Maybe he was, too. Perhaps he was trapped inside a fairy tale, and the only way out was the old-fashioned way, by slaying a dragon and finding a Princess.

Real or not, he wanted to see more. That meant leaving the safety of the manicured campground and venturing into a desert that clearly wasn’t following the rules.

He walked carefully to the back gate. Luckily, the troll on duty slept. The snow softened the sound of his steps as he crept quietly past - one, two, three - quiet steps, closing the gate behind him as he disappeared into a landscape he barely recognized.

This is probably a good moment to admit what you already suspect. I was that Prince, and most of this story is true. I’ll let you guess which bits aren’t, though I warn you, you’re probably wrong.

I followed a path toward the mountains, and soon found myself near an arroyo, surrounded by an enchanted grove of mesquite trees, their branches bent with the weight of wet snow. That’s when I saw the dragon.

He was hiding, though not very well. I could see his tail sticking out from behind a tree. The little boy inside me had a single, undeniable thought.

Snowballs.

I ran behind a tree, using it as my fortress, and armed myself quickly.

When I peeked out again, the dragon had moved and was now threatening to melt the snow and set the forest ablaze with his scorching breath. I couldn’t allow that, so I attacked. Snowball after snowball hit its target. The dragon faded away with a dramatic wail, receding into legend where all properly defeated dragons belong.

I’d done it. I’d slain the dragon.

I stood in icy splendor, relishing my triumph, soaking in the thrill of victory. Still, time was limited to celebrate. Midnight was coming, and I still had to find the Princess.

So, I kept walking.

Then I heard something and stopped to listen. The desert was whispering, and I strained to catch its voice. I heard the wind gently rustling through the branches, producing a quiet tune. Then, faintly, I heard voices. Three birds danced among the branches.

“Good morning, friends,” I called. “What do you think of the snow?”

They sang back, “It was a cold surprise!”

Birds in fairy tales can talk, you know.

They continued, “But snow won’t keep us from singing and playing. Isn’t it a grand day?”

I agreed. We talked and played until they tired of the game and flew off toward the next arroyo.

That’s when I heard what I had missed before.

I heard the snow melting, and I assure you this part was real.

It shifted and slid and dropped to the ground with soft, muffled thumps. Here. Over there. Behind me. The spell was breaking. My fairy tale was dissolving. Midnight was coming.

And I still hadn’t found the Princess.

Blue sky slipped through the clouds, adding a new color to the morning. The mountains shifted and reflected an added glow. The wind picked up, blowing more clouds away and sending a shiver through my body.

I looked at my watch. Could it really have been three hours already?

Maybe I’d find the Princess another day. In another fairy tale. I turned back.

And that’s when I saw her.

She stood quietly in the sunlight - a mesquite covered with snow, black branches holding white brilliance. She shimmered, melted, and settled somewhere deep inside me.

I was undone.

This was art worthy of the Louvre, but there were no guards, no crowds, no ropes. Just me, standing alone in the Arizona desert. No one else would ever see this. The snow would soon be gone, and the moment would vanish forever.

It seemed like a gift. As if the Creator had painted this scene just for me, pausing everything else in the universe to give me a private showing, a special exhibition of His talents.

Words fail me, so I’ll stop.

I took pictures, but they’re worthless. A photograph can’t capture perfection. It can only hint at the truth. It flattens reality, ignoring the contours of sound, smell, and feeling - all things that can’t be captured in a photograph. They can only be lived and experienced.

That place, that moment, that Beauty.

Here was my Princess. I knew I’d found her.

As I parted, I threw Beauty a kiss. I knew we would meet again in various guises during my travels on the Senior Road.

I walked back to the gate, the sun warming my face. But before stepping through, I turned for one last look, letting it all melt into my memory as the clock struck midnight on my wintry fairy tale.

Have you ever been given a moment that seemed unnecessary, fleeting, and somehow meant just for you? Moments like that don’t last, and maybe that’s the point. We don’t collect them. We just live them.

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It began raining soon after I broke camp.

Not a dramatic storm - just a cold, dreary rain that lingered all day, as if it were trying to wash away my excitement and expose my fear. Excitement because this was the day I’d imagined for months. Fear because I had no idea how it would turn out. But I knew that if my dream of camping across America was ever going to happen, I had to leave Tennessee.

It was time to stop talking and start doing.

This was reinvention and renewal writ large, the final outward step in an inward process that began sixteen months earlier, when my wife passed away. In the interim, I’d retired, bought an RV, moved away from Tampa, and emptied and remodeled our Nashville house so I could rent it out. I planned, prepared, prayed, and practiced camping nearby. Each item checked off my list felt like another step closer to my dream.

My first destination was to be Quartzsite, Arizona. Even the name sounded promising - like crystal hills and quartz just lying about in the desert.

Quartzsite, it turns out, is a town surrounded by Bureau of Land Management land, a rocky desert where camping is almost free, if you register. Every January, it hosts a massive RV gathering. I planned to boondock there (no water, no electricity) for ten days with an RV group of fellow Christians I found online. I wanted community, and I needed friends.

I took the southern route for better weather, stopping at rest areas and breaking up the drive with campground stays for a few days in Texas and New Mexico.

Crossing the Mississippi River on that first rainy day felt symbolic. It marked the boundary in my head between east and west, between my old life and my new, between who I’d been and who I hoped to become. I was crossing my own Rubicon, hoping for a better ending than Julius Caesar’s.

I pressed on through Arkansas, with few stops, eating lunch at my kitchen table as the miles piled up. As daylight faded, I found myself 500 miles west at the Texas Welcome Center in Texarkana. When I pulled in, I exhaled and finally felt the tension slowly release.

With no hookups, I ran on batteries. Nothing says “bold new beginning’ like no heat, no television, and no microwave. Still, I had food to eat and warm blankets.

Unlike Caesar crossing the Rubicon wearing a toga with who knows what underneath, I was bundled up in layers. I sat at my kitchen table, trying to stay warm, blinds drawn, rain on my roof, processing the day. This was it. My first night west of the Mississippi. I was freezing and alone, but I was in Texas.

After dinner, I climbed into bed wearing everything I owned. I’d forgotten about the sleeping bags I’d stowed away, so I made a cocoon out of blankets and read for a while. Outside, I could hear interstate traffic and fellow travelers coming and going. Shivering alone in a parking lot wasn’t exactly the opening scene I’d imagined for my new adventure.

As the days passed, every stop along the way to Quartzsite fell short of the movie playing in my head. It turned out real life has a much smaller budget for atmosphere and special effects than my imagination. Still, I reminded myself that the magical, mystical hills of Quartzsite were coming - and surely that meant friends.

But Quartzsite disappointed me, too.

It was just a brown and rocky desert, not magical after all. No quartz within sight. Worse, the group I’d come to meet had already formed a tight circle of campers, like a modern wagon train. I set up within sight but far enough away to feel like an outsider, a lone coyote watching from the dark.

They already knew each other. They’d done this before. All were married couples, plus one 84-year-old widow who was a Quartzsite veteran. Being single, I felt like the proverbial third wheel, an all too familiar role.

We shared meals. We walked, explored, and played games. We studied Scripture, sang songs, listened to live music, and sat around campfires at night.

It was all very pleasant, but I felt like I didn’t really belong there.

And then it rained. All day. In a place that barely sees five inches a year. Activities were canceled. The ground turned soggy, and the cacti sagged, drooping and dreary. So did I.

I’m dangerous, alone with my thoughts. Often a good kind of dangerous, but not on that day. I brooded over weather, people, and the mechanics of addition with Roman numerals. How do you carry the X if it totals more than ten?

It’s amazing how small a camper can feel when you want to be outside in the warm sunshine with friends. Friends, of course, had always been a complicated subject for me. Making them was like online dating: everyone swiped left and moved on, leaving me talking to myself in the mirror.

The people were kind enough, but I wasn’t ready to belong and didn’t know how to get ready. I hovered near the edges, hoping for and fearing inclusion. Leftover sorrow and an accountant’s personality made me a poor fit for the group.

The fault was entirely mine. Not theirs. And not in my stars. Guess I was more Brutus than Caesar.

The life I’d scripted wasn’t working. Reality had entered stage right. Starting over is hard enough without your plans unraveling. But God has a way of flipping tables and upsetting even our best-laid plans. He writes better stories than we do.

That rainy day, I stopped worrying about whether I’d crossed the Rubicon and just buried Caesar. I was a slate wiped clean by loss and its aftermath. No commitments. No obligations. No responsibilities.

I was willing to follow the wind wherever it blew. Surely, I should be willing to follow God wherever He led me.

I opened my door a couple of days later and noticed a single yellow flower off to my right. It stood in stark contrast to the dry and rocky brown desert, a poignant reminder that God brings sunshine and flowers after the rain. Maybe He wasn’t through with me after all.

I could bloom in the desert.

I could bloom after the rain.

I could even still bloom all alone.

Those early weeks out west didn’t match the script in my head, but they weren’t wasted. For the millionth time since I lost her, I began again. Each restart changed me a little bit. And those million little bits added up. Day by day, story by story, I grew, and I blossomed.

I ended up traveling the country for four years. Quartzsite didn’t end my story; it was the rewrite I needed.

And from that, I’ve learned that reinvention rarely arrives all at once. It shows up in rainstorms, rest stops, and quiet mornings, just opening the door and noticing what’s around us.

Sometimes trauma speeds up the process. Sometimes routine slows it down. But every day asks something new of us. And when the rainy days come, I lean in closer to God and bloom in the warmth of his sunshine.

If you’ve had a season where starting over didn’t look the way you hoped, but shaped you anyway, I’d love to hear about it. Where did you learn to bloom after the rain?

If you’re interested in what happened between Texarkana and Quartzsite, I wrote about the little mistake I made at the campground in Texas in Wrong Campsite, Right Lesson

And about what happened in New Mexico on my way to Arizona in Dog Canyon Echoes

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Lake Itasca was quiet and a little foggy, and so was I.

The overnight rain had moved out, leaving a crisp September morning - cold, clear, and beautiful. Whisps of mist rose from the lake’s still surface, gathering in a thick bank at the far shore. The rising sun glowed softly behind the fog, casting a pink hue between the gray and blue.

The birds sang greetings to the day, the lake, and to me. It had to be me, since there was no one else there. I’d come early for this private moment. I wanted to watch this new beginning by myself. I was witnessing a birth, a moment always profound and fascinating in nature.

This lake, this spot, was the birthplace of the Mississippi River.

A rocky barrier marked the edge of Lake Itasca and the start of the river. At first, it’s almost nothing, a shallow stream spilling quietly from the lake. On each bank a pine stood silhouetted against the morning sky, like sentinels marking the edge of a story - a story thousands of miles long and fathoms deep.

I stepped gingerly onto the rocks. They were slippery and uneven, and the water cold. I was careful not to lose my balance. At my age, balance is more precious than it used to be. Gravity has taken hold of every part of my body, giving it all a good yank southward, and I try my best not to follow it downward as I move.

Once across, I wandered around east of the Mississippi for a few minutes and then returned the same way I had come. Look Ma! No bridge.

That morning marked the start of my second year living full-time in an RV. My camper sat in the State Park campground not too far away. It was west of the Mississippi, or was it east? East and west have always been tangled up in my head. I know north from south, left from right, but east and west feel vague, like twins I can’t quite tell apart.

This far north, it didn’t really matter much. I’d spent months west of the river the prior year, so east or west of the great river didn’t carry much significance for me other than serving as a reminder of how close to, or far from, my family I was.

I’ve crossed the Mississippi in Baton Rouge, Vicksburg, Memphis (two different places), Cairo, St. Louis, the Quad Cities, La Crosse, and Minneapolis. Do it often enough, and you start to feel like going in circles is a kind of progress. Back and forth, east and west, hither and yon.

And “yon”, for the record, always sounds more inviting.

The Mississippi runs 2,340 miles before emptying into the Gulf, its length subject to a bit of change each year. That makes it the second longest river in America, slightly behind the longer Missouri River, which joins it at St. Louis.

When I was in elementary school, I was taught that the Mississippi was the longest river. Or am I misremembering? However, all the current sources indicate that it’s number two. Adding to my confusion, there’s a sign at the headwaters reading, “Here, 1,475 feet above the ocean, the mighty Mississippi begins to flow, on its winding way, 2,552 miles to the Gulf of Mexico.” That length would make it longer than the Missouri.

Which is it - 2,340 or 2,552 miles? Where did the extra 200 miles go? Did someone measure it wrong?

The answer is that the Mississippi once was longer. After the disastrous flood of 1927, when levees broke and the river spread fifty miles wide in places, the Army Corps of Engineers straightened sections, cutting off bends, and about 200 miles of its length. So even the river has changed shape over time - refined by loss, restrained by necessity, but still flowing forward.

Longest or second longest, it’s still impressive as it rolls majestically down to the Gulf.

But not at Lake Itasca. There, the river is about twenty feet wide and a couple of feet deep. Without the lake’s sunrise beauty behind it, the headwaters would’ve been unremarkable.

Not far downstream lies a bridge of sorts. It’s the trunk of an old tree sliced in half, laid flat side up. No rails, but wide enough and the river shallow enough to minimize the fear of falling in. I crossed it in less than 30 seconds. There’s not much on the other side, so I was back across the Mississippi for the fourth time that morning, a few minutes later.

Farther downstream, the river narrows and deepens.

A few days earlier, I’d taken a photo of my bike leaning against a fence by the river. You have to look closely to find the river. It seems more like a roadside ditch, scarcely six feet wide and half-hidden by reeds and vegetation, too modest to announce itself.

Such is the beginning of the mighty Mississippi, small, obscure, and ordinary. That’s how most things begin. Things like faith, courage, and the slow reworking of a life.

From this humble source, the greatest river in our country drains an entire watershed between the Appalachians and the Rockies. So, learn its lesson. Don’t despise small beginnings.

Big things often start small. Let them be modest and uncertain, yet full of potential, because someday, despite that rocky barrier at the start, they may carry you places you’ve never even imagined.

What small beginning in your life turned out to lead somewhere larger than you imagined?

What new thing in your life feels small, or even invisible, right now? Maybe it’s a mighty river in the making.

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This is my Thanksgiving Day story - a story of boy meets girl, a story with an unpromising start but a surprisingly good ending. A story that has God’s fingerprints all over it.

Once upon a time, fifty years ago, I met a girl working a summer job. She was seventeen and I was twenty, too young to know much, and too sure that we did. She was outgoing and fun, a cute brunette with hazel eyes, an enchanting smile, and a pixie cut. I thought about asking her out, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to date a girl with hair shorter than mine.

Those were the good old days when I still had hair - brown, wavy hair. I sure do miss my hair.

By September, her hair had grown a little, but I was too shy to ask her out. Some girls you can tell are out of your league, and she was one of them.

In our last days on the job, she let everyone know she’d be turning eighteen soon. Back at school, thinking about her while buying textbooks, I added an extra birthday card to my cart. I don’t know how I knew her address, but I did. So, I mailed it. It was a shy boy’s way of saying ‘Hi’ from a safe distance to the girl I figured I’d never see again.

To my surprise, she wrote back. We exchanged a handful of letters that fall. She suggested getting our summer work friends together “during the holidays.” She meant Christmas. I heard Thanksgiving. In fairness, I wasn’t really after a group gathering. I was after her.

And that’s where things began to go wrong.

In those days, long-distance phone calls cost money, and I was a poor college student. So, I didn’t call ahead of time from Knoxville. And asking for a date in a letter sounded like a recipe for humiliation. I was good with numbers, not words. So, I stalled.

By the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, I had one goal in mind, and her name was Lori. I found a ride home with friends, but I couldn’t find the right moment to call her that night. I was stalling again.

In my testosterone-addled mind, that left only one option: call her Thanksgiving morning. I was committed. I needed an answer, and I didn’t want to wait any longer. In all this, I was thinking a lot about me, and not very much about her. At least not in a good way.

Thanksgiving morning, I dialed her number. (A land line. An actual land line.) When she answered, I asked if she’d go to a movie with me that night. Not Friday. Not Saturday. That night, because those later options risked her inviting friends along, and I wanted her to myself.

I know. I know. I did everything wrong.

But I was just getting warmed up. I wasn’t done with my male-pattern cluelessness.

She asked, “What movie?”

I could say I suggested a comedy or a sweet romantic anything, but, of course, I didn’t. No, I was full steam ahead into boorish insensitivity. I suggested Three Days of the Condor, an R-rated CIA thriller. Guns. Kidnapping. Hitmen. Betrayals. Exactly the sort of movie a 20-year-old guy would think was perfect.

But not her.

There was a pause.

A very long pause.

The kind of pause that hangs in the air. That quiet space, those suspended seconds, were the hinge on which my whole life turned. Her instinct was to decline. She later told me she was trying to decide how to say no. She didn’t want to date the nerdy guy with the crooked smile who’d been all work and no play that summer.

But still, she paused, holding our fate in her hands while I turned blue, holding my breath.

She’d remembered it was a Robert Redford movie. And she liked Robert Redford enough to endure a mercy date with me for a couple of hours.

Finally - exactly one eternity later - she said yes. And I exhaled like a man who’d been underwater.

What time would I pick her up?

Naturally, I wasn’t done being inconsiderate. I told her we needed to go to the 9:00 showing because my family’s oven had died, and we were borrowing the neighbor’s. Our turkey would finish late.

To her credit, she still said yes.

So let’s review. I called on Thanksgiving morning. I asked for a date that night. I suggested an R-rated action movie. And I asked her to go to the late showing, the kind of time slot meant for couples who’d at least had a second date.

Robert Redford was the only thing I got right.

Now that’s the stuff of romance to tell your children about.

I arrived early to meet her parents. They seemed to like me. More importantly, she seemed to like me. Something clicked between us that night, something quiet but unmistakably right. I can’t tell you whether it was a laugh or a glance or a brush of her hand. I only know that God put us together that Thanksgiving night in 1975, fifty years ago this week. Neither of us dated anyone else after that. We got married in the spring after we graduated.

Every April near our anniversary, I rewatch Three Days of the Condor - marveling that such a graceless beginning led to thirty-nine years of marriage.

But at Thanksgiving, I watch the original Rocky.

Rocky? Thanksgiving?

There’s a Thanksgiving scene in Rocky, but more importantly, the whole first half of the movie happens during Thanksgiving week 1975. I hope you can hear the echoes of what I just told you in that.

Rocky premiered Thanksgiving week 1976, one year after our first date. The fight scene is what people remember, but it’s only eight minutes of screen time. At heart, Rocky is a love story. That’s why it’s my Thanksgiving movie.

Rocky likes Adrian, a painfully shy woman who works in a pet shop. Adrian lives with her domineering brother, Paulie, who invites Rocky for Thanksgiving dinner, assuring him that Adrian is excited to see him. She is not. When Rocky arrives, she hides in her room. Drunk and frustrated, Paulie pulls the turkey out of the oven and throws it into the back alley. With her dinner ruined, Adrian reluctantly agrees to leave with Rocky. They go to a deserted ice rink, and later, in his apartment, share their first kiss.

A fictional first date on Thanksgiving night 1975, fifty years ago - the exact same night Lori and I went on ours.

So, yes, I watch Rocky every November, because, for a few minutes, I’m that young, clueless boy again - doing everything wrong, who somehow, through God’s grace, finds the right one. And I’m so thankful I did.

Every love story is different. Ours was unscripted, improbable, and full of mistakes. But God has a way of writing love stories with unlikely beginnings and surprising endings. Sometimes all He needs is a pause long enough for someone to say yes.

If your own love story began in an unexpected moment, or if you’re carrying memories that still glow after loss, I’d love to hear about them. Every life has its turning points, the places where grace still surprises you. They’re often where God does His best work.

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My friend stared at me across the table. His eyes narrowed.

“You’re not an old man!”

He wasn’t joking. We talk that way, two longtime friends challenging each other’s nonsense. We’re iron sharpening iron, keeping our edges honed as we age. I’d been insisting that at seventy, I was old. Which, I said, meant he was too. That really got him going.

Psalm 90:10 tells us, “The years of life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty.” So, by that definition, at seventy, I’m definitely an old man. Pretending otherwise is to deny reality.

To make my point, I not only mentioned scripture but also our dwindling number of years left. On that basis alone, I’m an old man. He countered, pointing to my active lifestyle as evidence that I was still young. I couldn’t do what I do if I were old.

I argued from the calendar; he argued from evidence. I was being real; he was being realistic.

When I look in the mirror, I see white hair, wrinkles, and a hairline in retreat. I’m seventy years old, but my friends assure me I don’t look a day over seventy-five. But in my mind? I’m seven, not seventy.

Seriously.

I feel like a boy trapped in an old man’s body, a seven-year-old who never quite grew up. I still look at the world through innocent, trusting eyes, full of optimism and hope. I’m immature and unaware of the pitfalls. I’m ready for a day of fighting pirates. I’m a seventy-year-old Peter Pan stuck in Neverland with Tinker Bell and the Lost Boys.

That’s the real me.

So, in a way, my friend is right. I may be an old man, but I’m not that old.

Old is a mindset, not a Social Security check.

Nevertheless, as we age, we eventually grow old. To my chagrin, I see that “old” mindset creeping into my everyday way of thinking. Slowly, surely, bit by bit, seven-year-old me is giving way to seventy-year-old me, and I’m not happy about it. I feel “old” creeping in, sneaking past my defenses. It’s subtle: the slow trade of curiosity for caution, of energy for excuses.

Below is what it looks like when old age tries to move in, and how I’m showing it the door.

1. My body complains.

I’m aware my body is aging. My joints creak. My muscles ache. My back goes out more than I do. My body is simply wearing out. It protests whenever I want to get out of a chair. Like a stubborn donkey, it refuses to move. A mental kick in the pants doesn’t help much either.

So, I keep exercising. I know if I don’t, it’ll deteriorate faster. I’m fighting against time to maintain speed, endurance, strength, flexibility, and balance.

To grow old is to lose mobility. So, I keep moving.

2. My brain blinks.

My mind isn’t quite as sharp as it once was. I forget why I go to the kitchen. I don’t think I’m senile, though I suppose that’s precisely what someone who is might say. I’m still sharp enough to cut through nonsense, but my ability to learn has a dull edge. I’m less apt to quickly catch on or entertain new ideas. I’m still a bright light in the strand, but every now and then I blink off.

I sharpen my mind by learning new things. I let friends challenge my ideas and I admit when I’m wrong. I take classes online. I memorize names. I continue to learn new songs on my guitar. I work Sudoku and Wordle puzzles every day. I write. I think. I meditate on scripture and read a lot.

To grow old is to vegetate. So, I cultivate my brain instead.

3. My courage waivers.

I used to take chances, but now I’m more risk-averse. I’ve lived long enough to understand consequences - a sure sign of maturity, or maybe cowardice. I may sound heroic in private, but I’m cautious in public. I have a young man’s bravado in an old man’s body.

Yet life is risky. So, I take risks anyway. I travel alone. I ride my bike on busy roads. I live by myself. I hike dangerous trails solo. But I know my limits and when to turn back. Experience teaches judgment, and age brings new freedom: Who cares if I fail?

To grow old is to be ruled more and more by fear. So, I live boldly.

4. My world shrinks.

My scope of influence has narrowed. Before I retired, people pretended to care about what I had to say. I had position and a bit of honor. After retirement, my daily social contacts vanished, and my circle of friends shrank. I talk to myself now and am relieved that we agree most of the time.

So, I will make the effort to stay connected. I stay active at church, ride with my bicycle club, reach out to old friends, and make new ones wherever I go.

To grow old is to be forgotten. So, I make myself memorable.

5. My gaze drifts backwards.

When I was young, I leaned into the future, but not so much anymore. Back then, I looked forward to the next challenge, the next opportunity. Now I feel satisfied with where I am: fulfilled, not frustrated. I don’t push forward automatically like I did in my early years. I tell the same stories repeatedly because black-and-white reruns dominate my memories. I’m content with where I’ve been, no longer needing to make headlines.

Still, something inside tells me I’m not done yet. I resist my tendency to live in the past so that I can live fully in the present. I make new memories. I travel. I explore. I dream. I give myself new goals and find fresh things to aim for.

To grow old is to run out of reasons to keep going. So, I keep finding them.

6. My imagination hibernates.

The older I get, the less inventive I become. My creativity has checked out of the hotel. My ingenuity retired when I did. Without a bit of prodding, my resourcefulness won’t even get out of bed in the morning.

So, I prod.

I write. I fool around with my guitar. I doodle. I tempt my imagination to come out and play by dangling nonsensical questions as bait—questions without answers. Would I rather be a kite or a parachute? What is a babbling brook trying to say? Why is brown, brown?

I let my imagination wander off into the hinterland and write out whatever it brings back. Sometimes the answers are silly, sometimes profound, but they always wake up my creativity.

To grow old is to become set in your ways, a premature rigor mortis of the mind. So, I push myself over a cliff just to see if I can still fly like Peter Pan.

I know time will conquer me ultimately, but I’m doing my part to sidestep and resist it. I’m staying active in all aspects of my life: physically, cognitively, emotionally, socially, and creatively. I’m putting up a valiant resistance.

I may be an old man, but I’m not old.

Not yet.

Do you see “old” trying to creep into your own life, into your routines, your imagination, your courage? How do you push back? Share your own resistance tactics in the comments. I’d love to borrow a few.

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Thanks for walking this stretch of the road with me. I’m still figuring out what it means to age with curiosity instead of complaint. If this piece resonated, share it with someone who might need a nudge to keep their own seven-year-old self alive a little longer. We’re all in this slow, beautiful aging process together.

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I was on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. The whole experience felt surreal, as if I were living someone else’s life, dreaming a stranger’s dream. Yet, there I was, wide awake. I could see Alcatraz in the Bay and the outline of the city, floating like a ghost from the past, still hazy in the morning fog. I’d driven over the Bridge before, but this time, on foot, the slower pace let me soak it all in.

A year earlier, the mourning fog of grief had just begun to lift. The question of what life might look like without her was starting to come into focus, and a new idea was dawning. Maybe I could retire, I thought. Maybe I should.

With her gone, I no longer needed to keep working for health insurance. The apartment was quieter, and the expenses were fewer. I already had enough for just me. It wasn’t about money anymore; it was about meaning.

The thought of retiring was thrilling and terrifying at the same time. Leaving behind the responsibilities of work also meant leaving behind rewards and friendships. The office had given shape to my days and friends to my hours. Without it, what would be left?

I couldn’t just watch TV all day long. I needed something more than that. I needed a reason to get back up.

So, I signed up for the Golden Gate Half Marathon. It sounded ridiculous even then. But I needed a challenge, bold and audacious enough to jolt me awake, something that would remind me that I was still alive.

We need that sometimes, don’t we? BIG goals to keep us motivated. Without them, especially as we age, it’s too easy to sink into the recliner and never rise again.

Of course, at seventy now, my goals aren’t quite as ambitious. These days, “bold and audacious” might mean staying up past 10:00 at night or venturing to the mailbox in the rain. I set age-appropriate goals like learning to draw, taking that long-anticipated trip, running the next 5K, or hosting the family Christmas gathering.

Still, I find myself drawn to “inappropriate” goals for my age. They remind me I’m not done yet. So, who knows what I’ll get myself into next?

When I signed up for the Golden Gate Half, I’d planned to already be camping in California by race day, but that didn’t happen. I hadn’t even made it west of the Mississippi yet. But plans, like toddlers, tend to wander. Thankfully, the Lord holds the master plan. Otherwise, I’d really be lost.

So, I adjusted to my change in circumstances. I parked my RV at my sister’s house, flew west, and found a hotel near Fisherman’s Wharf.

My wife and I had stayed there years before. I remembered the chocolate, the sourdough, the fresh crabs. We’d gone to Chinatown, ridden the cable cars, and walked down Lombard Street. I planned to do all those things again.

Choosing San Francisco wasn’t just about the race. It was about her. Nostalgia and novelty, all rolled into one.

That’s a fair summary of my retirement years, really. Nostalgia because I’m an old man who misses his wife and his youth. Novelty because I want to stay young, and doing new things helps me maintain the illusion. I’m looking back with gratitude while reaching for something new.

Race morning dawned early, as they all do. The start was at Aquatic Park Cove and the finish was half a mile away at Ghirardelli Square, with 13.1 miles of challenge in between. I considered skipping ahead to the chocolate in record time, but I couldn’t do that. There’s more to running a race than crossing the finish line. A lot more.

San Francisco is hilly, and the race started with a short, steep climb that almost had me walking right away. A right turn at the top led to a more level run along the Bay before the big hills arrived. The worst was the approach to the Bridge itself. I walked most of it. But I wasn’t the only one. Suffering loves company.

And it’s okay to walk in races and in life. There are days when walking is winning.

By the time I reached the Bridge, the fastest runners were already heading back. I wasn’t quick, but I was steady. Running across the Golden Gate felt like a dream. I was in my sixties then, but when I was younger, I couldn’t have done this at all. I carried too many obligations and too many French fries. The weight of both had lightened with time.

Behind me were the hills of the Presidio. Ahead, Vista Point. To my right, Angel Island and Alcatraz sat in the Bay. I kept glancing at the scenery, too awed to care about the Saturday traffic beside me.

At Vista Point, many runners stopped for selfies. Not me. I had a race to finish. It was going to be a long run back.

You’ll notice that I hadn’t yet learned the art of pausing to enjoy the moment. It would take more time for my workaholic mindset to wear off. Another story there.

I was caught off guard when the course suddenly veered off-road down a steep, rutted trail that offered a breathtaking view of the Bridge. At the bottom, we passed through a private gate and climbed another steep hill on the other side. More walking ensued. More humility.

Into every life a little walking must come. Or sitting. Or, in the hardest times, just breathing.

Even a year later, I couldn’t forget the hard times.

Heading back toward the city, we crossed the Bridge again, this time with the Pacific Ocean on my right. The smooth, glassy water stretched endlessly to the horizon. Somewhere beyond it, West met East.

The vastness of it all was staggering. I was seeing just a small piece of a big ocean, but even that small piece seemed huge. I had trouble extrapolating from what I could see to the immensity of the whole that I couldn’t. The Pacific was immeasurably bigger than anything my little mind could comprehend.

God’s grace is like that, more than we can ever think or imagine. A vast ocean of unmerited favor and love. I can hardly take it in.

Selah.

Halfway back, the wind shifted. A Pacific breeze slipped free from behind the bridge towers, reminding me how alive I still was. It cooled me, lifted my spirits, and pushed me forward toward the city skyline.

Finally, I descended from the Bridge and prepared to cruise into the finish. I was done with the hills, or so I thought, but cruelly, the last mile was a long, slow uphill climb. I briefly considered what I might do to the course designer if I ever met him in a dark alley behind Ghirardelli’s.

But at the 13-mile marker, the road mercifully turned downhill, letting us run the final stretch at full tilt. Or at least pretend to. Some youngster in her fifties beat me to the finish line, though.

It wasn’t my fastest race, but that wasn’t why I was there.

I ran it for her.

And for me.

There had been pain and moments I wanted to quit. But I endured, found beauty in the stunning views and the struggle, and a quiet strength I didn’t know I still had. It became a defining moment, a symbolic start to my solo journey. I had found my new beginning.

I could, and would, learn to thrive again.

We each have our own Bridge to cross, our own race that marks a turning point from what was to what’s next. Are you running it right now? Have you run it in the past? Would you share your story with us?

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The music was loud, the lights flashing, and I was dancing, or rather, I was trying to dance. Around me, Ukrainian teens moved in perfect rhythm to songs I didn’t recognize. I was the old man in the group, and it showed.

A conga line (do they still call it that?) formed, and I joined in, but when the song changed, we all spun off in different directions. I ended up in a circle with half a dozen teens, including the two most popular girls. And yes, just like an American summer camp, there were popular kids and camp romances.

Somewhere between my two left feet and my seventies groove (age seventy, not 1970s), the circle I was in started copying my moves. Whenever I changed, they followed. They laughed at my awkward attempts to keep the tempo, and I laughed along with them. They say imitation is the highest form of flattery. I prefer to think of it that way, even though several of them might have been recording my “performance” for a cringy viral TikTok.

It was one of many moments that week when I forgot about the war in Ukraine. And that was the point.

The Children of Mariupol

We’d come to Poland, four of us from my church in Tennessee, to help at a Trauma Relief Camp for children from Ukraine. We were meeting similar teams from four other churches. These Ukrainian children didn’t ask for war. They didn’t deserve it. But they carried its weight in their personal stories.

All of them, along with their chaperones, had lived in Mariupol before the invasion. Their city was attacked on day one, held out for eighty-five days, and then fell. Ninety percent of its residential buildings were damaged or destroyed. Thousands died.

They escaped when they could, how they could, and with what they could carry. Most of them now lived in Dnipro, a city less than a hundred miles from the frontlines. It took them twenty-eight hours by bus to reach the camp.

We could handle a few delayed flights.

A Place Called Proem

The camp was held at Proem, a Christian retreat center in central Poland, situated among tall pines and overlooking the Pilica River. It’s been a place of renewal for thirty-five years, and that week, it became a haven for children who badly needed the respite.

There were cabins and campfires, a climbing wall and miniature golf, rabbits and goats, even a few alpacas. But what mattered most wasn’t the activities; it was the laughter and smiles of the children. We wanted them to have a few days to be children, far from air raids, missile attacks, and the ever-present specter of war.

Learning to Breathe Again

Letting time stretch out a bit for them was part of their trauma relief. They needed space to breathe, to make friends, to sit by the river, but we didn’t let them drift.

After a late breakfast, we had Chapel each morning, beginning with a dance to get everyone moving. We sang a worship song and heard a Bible story in Ukrainian. David and Goliath might seem old hat to you, but to most of them it was brand new - a story about courage in the face of seemingly impossible odds.

After Chapel, one of my fellow Americans (with a translator) led a breathing and movement session. It was a simple way to release tension and something practical they could take back to Dnipro.

Campfires and Kickballs

Then came workshops in Sports, Creativity, and Building Resilience. All teams rotated through them, one workshop in the morning, one in the afternoon, and the third the next day.

Our Nashville team had five children, as did the four other teams, plus a translator. Our translator was a young man from Ukraine who now lived in Krakow. In the afternoons, our team met to talk about the day’s Bible story, about their lives in Ukraine and ours in America. The differences were both marked and minimal. The laughter was the same.

In the evenings, we played games, sang songs, and built fires. One night, we roasted Polish sausages; on two others, we made s’mores. One evening turned into a fashion show with old clothes and scraps of fabric. And then came the dance party.

That’s when I discovered the limits of my coordination.

Sports weren’t any better in that regard. I did fine with handball, but kickball was my downfall. It was new to the kids, so we explained the rules quickly and played a game of children vs. adults.

When my turn came to kick, I barely got the ball back to the pitcher but ran hard anyway, hoping to beat the throw. Then I saw a flash in the corner of my eye. I should’ve ducked. I didn’t.

The ball smacked me in the side of the face, but I kept running. The children gasped. I laughed. Then they laughed too.

I never want to take myself too seriously. I’ve done that way too often in my lifetime.

The next time up, I kicked the ball as hard as I could. The pitcher casually caught it. Out again. Running hard but going nowhere.

It reminded me of our trip getting there.

Running Late and Running on Faith

We’d missed a flight in Boston, sprinted through Amsterdam, and hoped our luggage would somehow find us in Poland. We’d left Nashville late because the flight crew needed an extra hour of sleep to be FAA-approved. That hour threw everything off.

By the time we reached Amsterdam, we had fifty minutes to make our next flight, which really meant forty, since the gate closes early. We had to get off the plane, cross the tarmac, clear Passport Control and Security, and find our gate. None of us had ever been there before.

The odds weren’t good, but we had prayer and a tip from a flight attendant on our side. She told us there was a special line for passengers with tight connections. That small kindness helped save us.

I jogged behind the others. This was getting old. I was getting old. It was the third time I’d had to rush to catch a flight on the way to Poland. I was doing my best O.J. Simpson impression. Think of old Hertz commercials. (I realize half my readers may need to Google that.) I imagined myself leaping over rails and suitcases. In reality, it was more of an old-man stumble to the finish line.

If only I’d had time for a selfie.

Framing the Moment

Photography has become a hobby of mine in retirement. I’ve taken so many pictures of myself, other people, and nature that I’ve learned what looks good, what’s mediocre, and what’s bad. Most are bad.

That experience came in handy during the Creativity workshop. After the children arranged flowers, I gave a short lesson on cellphone photography, covering lighting, framing, and the rule of thirds. They took photos around the camp and came back to show me what they’d captured.

Spring Will Come Again

Our final night in camp was a special one. The chapel leader shared his story of God’s grace in his life, speaking in Ukrainian uninterrupted by a translator. We listened through headsets as the translator’s voice whispered in our ears. God’s love was shining through.

Then three of the girls got up on stage and sang a Ukrainian song. We had turned in our headsets by then and didn’t understand the words, so I turned on Google Translate. The fragment I caught from the chorus was haunting:

“Spring will come, and we will be happy, because the war will end.”

That’s what they were singing as their parting gift to us.

I pray the war will indeed end soon. I’ll dance again on that day. I also pray for their happiness and that spring will come to Ukraine once more. Most of all, I pray that when it does come, the seeds planted in their hearts during our week together will bear much fruit in the warm sunshine of freedom.

What stories of resilience or unexpected joy have stayed with you long after the journey ended? Please share in the comments or send me a message. I’d love to hear how you’ve seen hope take root in surprising places.

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