Traveling

Ohio river

I remember as a very young man how I yearned to travel! I didn't have a career yet (or so I thought) and traveling even short distances strained my budget. Many decades and hundreds of trips later I recall my youthful yearning with a tinge of....of...of....nostalgia? Amusement? Perhaps just satisfaction: I listen to people complaining about travel, about airports, hotels with a bit of my youthful perspective: I travel a lot, it's true. And love every minute!

Hotel room at Comfort Suite

 In some ways, all hotel rooms are the same. Beds and bathrooms...but just this year I've probably stayed in a few dozen different ones--and each has its own quirks, own little character. Some, like this one are strangely satisfying: a nice couch, a good desk, comfortable mattress, functional shower AND bath! And best of all a fantastic view: although I confess I only really need one bed. One bed would have been sufficient and a tad cozier even! But then some people have multiple houses and that's not enough!

Room with a view

That's downtown Cincinnati in the distance and the Ohio river in front: the view I saw as soon as I got settled in my room, taken from my window. All the traveling I've done has not diminished the genuine excitement, the thrill of a wonderful sensation of a "room with a view". I recall my mentor Paul (who was about the age I am now when he said it): "Panayoti, you only age on the outside: inside I'm still a kid": and he was. And I hope the same can be said of me. The capacity for excitement, for unalloyed satisfaction with the passing view, the joy in colors, textures and the quiddity of the moment: that for me is what makes life rewarding. That and the four "F's": friends, family, food and flowers! Such a "filosopher" I've become!

Clouds from both sides now

I do like the convenience of aisle seats...but on a morning flight I usually book a window where I can spend a ridiculous amount of time just gazing out at the clouds. I know clouds (like hotel rooms) are pretty much all the same. I look around the plane, and nowadays half the people are looking at their phones. Have we become so jaded that we cease to marvel that we're hurling over the planet in a metal tube, with the Universe flying past us outside the other little window? I even marvel quite often that we're hurling through space on a tiny sphere at tens of thousands of miles a minute or something unfathomable.  I hope never to lose that sense of wonder. I can't resist gazing, staring, marveling at that miraculous Universe and thanking my lucky stars!