Off The Beaten Track: Barcelona, Mi Amor

Yolanda in New York,
the city of her birth

Yolanda L. Comedy is a world traveler and an independent consultant who works on science and technology policy issues while chipping away at the possibility of a novel writing career. Somewhere along the way, she has learned that she has so much to say that can’t be captured in her technical papers and policy speak. However, she has had a wonderful career with opportunities that include: a Ph.D. from Indiana University in Political Science and Public Policy; an American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellowship; and working at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and at IBM, and starting her own consulting business.

Love at first sight is one of the more inexplicable of human emotions. Why we gravitate to certain people and to certain places is perhaps a mystery, perhaps a culmination of who we are, where we’ve been, what we feel inside. I fill my life with a lot of things. I love music and art, I’m a crazy tennis fan, I surround myself with beauty and love long walks on a beautiful day. And I live to travel. I have been all over the world, sometimes for days, sometimes for over a year. Most places I visit, I’m glad I did and I return home with new memories, new experiences, the continual building of my character. But some very small number of places capture me and I come home feeling nostalgia, such a longing. When I leave these places I feel as though I’ve left my home not returned to it. Barcelona was such a place.

One of the floats ( a shooting star) at the Three Kings Parade.
The parade went right past our hotel!

Barcelona has a heart and a soul and a vibe that is just wonderful! The lifestyle that I saw included such a dedication to friends and family and food. I went to Barcelona this past New Year’s. Fortunately, they have a big Christmas celebration and parade in January as well.

I loved the dedication to food in Barcelona. A normal day in the life of food: I settled into my seat around two o’clock, my friend across from me, and a room full of people, filling the tables and bar seats or waiting for a seat anywhere. The windows were large and expansive, bringing the busy La Rambla area inside, even on a crisp January day. We ordered our carafe of sangria within minutes of sitting down. We explored the menu of tapas, looked at them through the behind-glass displays, and my friend and I negotiated carefully on our shared dinner, making certain we tried new things and felt the comfort of foods we already knew we loved. And then we dined…for hours. We laughed and talked with each other, our waiters, and people next to us. We coveted the food of others when our stomachs would allow us to eat no more.

Overlooking Barcelona from the La Sagrada Familia

And then we opted for a Barcelona favorite. We went out on to the streets and lingered at shops and stands. We watched people. We admired the women smartly dressed. We smiled at couples, young and old, strolling hand in hand. We wondered why so many people sold birds and wished we could take back some of the beautiful bouquets of flowers that we saw. We bought irresistible scarves and hats—nothing like we see at home. The energy of the crowds carried us, and we walked for much longer than we had planned, hoping to walk off some of the food we ate. We’d now barely have time to get back to the hotel to bathe and change for dinner!

Yolanda at Gaudi La Pedrera

Art and artists fill the streets of Barcelona. I would have never said that I liked the famous architect Antoni Gaudi before visiting Barcelona. What I saw in picture books looked strange and, yes, gaudy. But after my visit to Barcelona I quickly learned to love and appreciate his incredible vision, his refusal to be ordinary, and the dreams that must have inspired his art. I got tired of the word wow, which I seemed to say over and over again every time I saw his work.  

A Roman Catholic church, La Sagrada Família, a hundred-year work in progress, is worth the long lines to get inside, even on a cold day. I wanted to explore every nook and begin to understand the passion it took to design La Sagrada Família as well as the perseverance
it has taken to try to complete Gaudi’s vision. Gaudi’s apartments, La Pedrera in the center of town, are alluring and fanciful, while still livable within its extreme character.

La Pedrera, Gaudi's Apartment building

La Sagrada Familia

Barcelona is a place worth visiting for a New Year’s celebration. We spent New Year’s Eve at Port Olimpic. What energy at the marina as well! We wandered around and finally were lured into a restaurant with an expensive New Year’s Eve fixed-price menu. We opted to order off of the regular menu, but the couple and their children next to us were very kind and shared all of their New Year’s goodies, giving us the full experience. They gave us hats and whistles, champagne, and food we would have never tried otherwise. They smiled with us and laughed at us. The people all around us were dressed beautifully, such class. The musicians were only part of the entertainment. Diners would break out into song or dance at the drop of a hat. After midnight, people began to file out with their sleepy children in tow. We left and joined the younger crowd, spilling out of restaurants and bars at Port Olimpic. Dancing in the street. Packed like sardines, but festive and seductive. Our goal was to watch the sunrise on the beach – popular in Barcelona, we had read – but alas, the need for sleep overpowered us and sent us back on the one of the best subway systems in the world to our hotel.

A restaurant at Port Olímpic on New Year's Eve

If you dare to be seduced by Barcelona’s charms, it’s worth a trip to Castell (castle or fort) de Montjuïc for the spectacular views of the Mediterranean and the city. Did I mention La Catedral de Barcelona? The city tour bus, while it screams tourist, is worth it—Barcelona has many neighborhoods and much scenery to enjoy. Lastly, don’t miss the Font Màgica or the Magic Fountain. At dusk, there is a wonderful music and light show where the fountain changes shapes and colors for around 20 minutes with the Palau National illuminated in the background. 

I want to be back in Barcelona, feeling the pulse of the city, eating good food, walking and exploring, seeing the ocean and just living life the way I think it was meant to be lived—with passion and togetherness and the heart and soul of people and history and beauty.

The Cutting Edge

By Patricia Winton

As a child, I was mesmerized by a pair of scissors in my great-great aunt’s handwork basket. They were shaped somewhat like a Great Blue Heron, with an elongated bill as the blades. She made lace by tatting, and she used these little scissors to clip the thread. She had a piece of red string tied to one of the finger holes, which she said helped her find the scissors in the bottom of her work basket.

She died when I was seven, but she gave me those scissors before she went. I have them still, tucked into my sewing basket in Rome.

This early fascination with scissors, I suppose, made it inevitable that by now I would own more than a dozen pairs. I have scissors in every room and a pair on the terrace. I hate struggling to open recalcitrant packaging, so I like to have scissors handy to do the job for me.

Folding Scissors

I carry them in my pencil case and my book bag. I even have a small pair with blades that retract into the handles, making them security friendly at airports because it’s impossible to stab someone with them. I also have a special pair for cutting buttonholes after making them with a sewing machine.

As I began thinking about inventions for this post, scissors seemed like the place to begin. Leonardo da Vinci has been erroneously credited with inventing them, but they’re much older than that.

The first scissors were probably forged around 1500 B.C. in Egypt from a single piece of bronze. The metal was bent into an elongated U shape with the tips flattened into blades. To cut, the user had to squeeze the handle, forcing the two blades to cross each other.

Scissors from ancient Egypt

Examples of this type of scissors have been unearthed in archaeological sites in Egypt, Asia, and Roman settlements throughout Italy. A Grecian urn dated around 220 B.C. contains an image of scissors.

The modern type of scissors, with two blades held together with a rivet or screw were invented in ancient Rome around 100 A.D. Roman-era documents relating to guilds cite scissors as tools used by tailors, haberdashers, and smiths. The guilds for tailors, drapers, and leather workers also designed scissors into their crests.

By around 1000 A.D. there were even guilds for scissor makers. The scissors at that time were made by hand, and the maker who could produce a fine blade was very much in demand. And while Leonardo obviously didn’t invent scissors, he probably made some improvements to their design, thereby making them easier to use.

The real breakthrough in the evolution of scissors came in 1761, when Robert Hinchliffe of Sheffield, England, first used cast steel to manufacture them. The molten steel was poured into molds, creating a uniformity that ensured their faithful reproduction. From this period until late 19th century, scissors often had elaborately designed handles, but designs were simplified to better accommodate mass production later on.

Buttonhole Scissors

Now, there are many specialized scissors: blunt-tipped, blunt-bladed scissors for children; pinking shears for dressmakers; curved-bladed ones for clipping toenails; decorated blades for crafts; and indescribable ones for snipping nose hair.

So as I look at my little Great Blue Heron scissors, I’m amused to think that I live in the city where this type of scissors got their start.
 



I blog each Monday on Italian Intrigues. Please drop by.

Little Red Seeds, A Little Red in the Face, and the Well-Read Wiki Reader

By Supriya Savkoor

Before I launch into our topic of the week, a little throat clearing.

I’ve been just the teeniest bit embarrassed about my post from a couple of weeks ago, the one where I researched my ancestors through antiquity then shared it with all of you in a loosely packaged, thesis-length blog post. (Remember the part about my Australoid tribal ancestors from pre-historic times? Groan. Yes, I really did cover that, though I probably owe you some money if you made it that far. At least a couple friends thought so, though none of them passed my pop quiz.)

The reason for my over-enthusiasm about the whole topic was that I’d always thought of myself as just a boring purebred, growing up listening to friends recount what percentage blood they had that was Dutch, Cherokee, Spanish, Irish, Czech, you name it. I remember asking my dad after school one day if there was even the slightest possibility we might have a slightly more exotic lineage than just plain old Konkani. No, he said a little too quickly. Probably seeing the dejection on my face, he added, “we might be a little tiny bit Portuguese. But no. Probably not even that.” After all, how long could he pull that one off?

So when recently one of our topics was word migrations, I thought tracing the origin of my Saraswat roots might give me just a little something to write about, a paragraph or two, if that. By the time I finished my Internet search, unraveling those many disparate but apparently connected threads to my roots, I had one large, messy heap of cross-cultural factoids that left me in awe of my genetic forebears, who, if not mixed blood, at least crossed paths with Aryans, Dravidians, Sumerians, Ethiopians, Arabs, Persians, and who knows what other great, ancient people. If only Wiki and Google had been around when I was a kid, right?

And here’s the other thing: during that brief period of intense research and wonder, I learned another little tidbit about my ancestory that relates to this week’s topic on inventions. (You see, I was not digressing! Not this time.)

Years ago, my mother in-law had brought us a little game from India called gudfale (pronounced “good-fullee,” with a short U sound). She’d bought it from a roadside vendor when she was a kid, “paid only four annas” for it, or about the Indian equivalent of a quarter. I’d visited India so many times as a kid, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t come across the game yet, so I kept pressing her with questions about it. I think that’s when she herself made the realization that while it had been a common pastime in the region on India’s western coast, known as the Konkan Coast, where she grew up, she too hadn’t seen the game elsewhere in the country.

You can probably tell from the photo why it was love at first sight for me. Carved out of a single slab of rich, dark wood, it contains two rows of little cup-like openings. The game itself is pretty simple. Two players distribute an equal number of shiny red seeds in each of the openings, then take turns moving a pile on their side of the board to each consecutive cup around the board until the reach an empty cup. Once they get to that empty spot, they skip it and collect whatever seeds lie in the next cup holding seeds. They keep going, round and round, until one player runs out of seeds. Whoever wins the most, wins the game.

Believe me, it’s much simpler than it sounds. But it wasn’t the play that fascinated me as much as the simple beauty of the wood itself, not to mention those bright, shiny red seeds that I’d sort of remembered as tamarind or pomegranate. I really can’t remember what fruit she’d said they came from, really, only that their glossy rich color appeared naturally. I remember this because I found it so hard to believe those seeds weren’t painted. Now I know she was right. Thanks again, Wiki.)

But be forewarned: I have my next thesis topic. The reason my mother in-law only found gudfale on India’s western coast and not the rest of India is probably because of the significant influx of Ethiopians known as Siddhis who’d emigrated there between the 16^th and 19^th centuries. Siddhi is a term of respect that came from either “sayyid” or “saydi” meaning master. The Siddhis likely brought mancala, which they called gebeta, to India with them. Perhaps you’ve heard of the African game “mancala”? Same thing. Be prepared to ooh and aah when you take a look at this picture from Africa.

It’s a sculpture of two Lobi children from Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, or Ghana playing mancala, but scholars believe the game originated in Ethiopia itself back in the 6^th or 7^th century. Here's proof from Aksum, Ethiopia, in one of the earliest known archaeological findings.

Since then the game has spread all over the world – the Middle East, Europe, other parts of Asia, even farther south on the Indian coast. And it goes by many names. But isn’t it a wonder that the Ethiopians could have brought it directly with them to this thin mostly rural strip in India where it’s still played centuries later?

And the game continues to move through cultures and generations. 

Coincidentally, in just the past few weeks, my nine-year-old daughter started learning how to play mancala at school. Her elementary school web site includes hot links to the history of the game, strategies for playing, and all kinds of interesting pictures such as this one taken in a Sri Lankan hotel lobby.

And my daughter? She prefers the following version: http://www.mathplayground.com/mancala.html

Rocking and Rolling -- The History of Rollerskates

By Alli Sinclair

My oldest kiddy-bop has just reached the age when rollerskates are a tad more interesting than The Wiggles. (And I can’t tell you how relieved I am about that!) I used to be an avid rollerskater back in my day (not telling how many) and hubby still enjoys the odd rollerblade here and there, so Miss Five is finding herself involved in interesting family discussions -- to rollerskate or rollerblade, that is the question.

So I can back up why rollerskating is better (and yay for its recent revival!), I delved into the history of these strange shoes with wheels and was surprised as to how far back this invention dates. The impact this invention has had on culture is quite impressive.

In Holland, in the early 1700s, the main mode of transport in winter was to skate the frozen canals. A clever Dutchman figured skating on dry land could be a good summer alternative, so he nailed some wooden spools to a strip of wood and attached them to his shoes. Voilà! Skeelers were invented.

In 1760, Joseph Merlin, a London instrument maker and inventor took it a step further, wearing his shoes on wheels to a masquerade party and proceeding to entertain the crowd while skating and playing the violin. Watching Mr Merlin zip around the floor entranced the guests -- until he smashed into a mirror that took up the entire length of one wall.

Taking it mainstream in 1818, a German ballet company held the Ballett Der Maler oder die Wintervergnügungen that was originally planned as an ice-skating extravaganza. When they realised ice on stage was a tad impractical, it opted to perform the ballet with rollerskates. Yay for creativity!

In 1819, Monsieur Petibledin became the first person to get a patent issued for rollerskates. He invented a boot with a wooden sole and fitted four copper rollers to it, arranged in a straight line. By 1823, another patent was submitted, this time by Robert John Tyers from London, who called his contraption the Rolito. This skate had five wheels in a single row, which were attached to the bottom of a boot, but unfortunately it couldn’t follow curved paths. Kind of a problem if there’s a pond straight ahead.

Back to Germany, and in 1840, lucky patrons at the Corse Halle Tavern in Berlin, were served drinks by barmaids rolling through expansive beer halls. Perhaps the halls gave the Londoners the idea of opening up the first public rink in 1857 at Floral Hall. Not to be outdone by the British, the Americans opened The Coliseum in Chicago in1902. Opening night had over 7,000 people attending. Later, in 1908, Madison Square Gardens in New York City, became a skating rink, and soon, from that moment on, hundreds of rinks opened across the States and Europe. The sport grew in popularity and new versions were invented -- ballroom roller dancing, polo skating, speed skating, and good old recreational skating.

In 1863, American James Plimpton designed a pair of skates that were more practical and a little less dangerous (in theory). He placed one pair of wheels under the heel and the other pair under the ball of the foot. The wooden wheels were attached to rubber springs that made the ride a little more comfy and meant the skater could change direction without twisting his or her ankle or breaking a leg. This invention was the closest to what we know as the current version of four-wheeled rollerskates.

As with any invention, improvements were made over time. By 1884, skates became lighter and easier to manoeuvre with the addition of pin ball-bearing wheels. By 1960, plastics improved further, and finally by the time the 1970s and 1980s rolled around (pun intended), disco roller-skating took over skating rinks. Hollywood cottoned on, and movies such as Xanadu and Rollerball appealed to the masses. Seriously, there was no shame in those decades.

In 1979, the Olson brothers, a couple of hockey players who lived in Minnesota, discovered an antique pair of skates that had wheels in a single line as opposed to the two sets of two. The brothers took the elements from these skates and merged them with modern materials, designing what we now know as “inline skates”. They formed the company Rollerblade Inc. in 1983, and sold inline skates exclusively around the world. Unfortunately, their design had many faults, so the brothers sold the company to new owners who improved the design. They incorporated fibreglass, which better protected the wheels so dust couldn’t get in, and the skates were a lot easier to put on. When they shifted the toe break to the back, the new model was complete.

Throughout the years, Rollerblade improved designs, and invented new models that were lighter and faster than previous models. In 1993, Rollerblade found a way to use the skater’s leg to stop the skate without relying on the original breaking method. Thus, Active Brake Technology was formed by attaching a fibreglass post to the top of the boot and the other end to a rubber brake that is hinged at the back wheel. This new change improved safety.

In our house, the halls will forever echo with heated discussions about whether traditional rollerskating or rollerblading is the best. Luckily, our kids have minds of their own and will ultimately decide what they’ll try. Who knows? In a few more years they might be riding the next generation of rollerskates and enjoying an evolved, modern past time for their generation. In the meantime, it’s fun to delve into the history of an invention that has brought great joy to many, and the odd broken bone.

I have to ask: which camp are you in?

Yakhchal - Persia's Ancient Icemakers

By Heidi Noroozy

Recently, I went shopping for a new refrigerator – a venture that quickly made my head swim. Double doors, top freezer, bottom freezer, pullout drawers, glass or wire shelves, with or without an icemaker that can deliver ice in multiple forms, from crushed to cube, in-door water dispenser, humidity sensors to prolong the life of perishables – refrigerators today can do everything except order groceries. It makes me yearn for simpler times.

Photo by Andreas Praefcke

What I’d really like is a plain old-fashioned icebox, a pretty wooden chest in my kitchen, lead-lined for insulation with a big slab of ice to keep things cold. Well, maybe I could do without lead in close proximity to my food. And I expect the interior might get a bit slushy as the ice melts. Besides, where can you find a reliable iceman these days? But at least I wouldn’t have to battle spoilage when the power goes out.

Or maybe I could just build an ancient Persian yakhchal in my back yard.

Invented around 400 B.C., a yakhchal is a kind of walk-in icebox that looks like a huge, conical beehive. In ancient times, they were built mainly near desert towns to store ice and keep food cold during the scorching summer months.

A yakhchal has two parts: one above ground and the other subterranean. The above-ground dome, which can be as high as 60 feet, is made of a special brick material called sarooj, a mixture of sand, clay, egg whites, lime, goat hair, and ash. The sarooj walls create a waterproof barrier and provide a kind of thermal insulation. Beneath the dome lies the ice pit, a deep cavern dug into the earth for storing ice.

Although “yakhchal” is the modern Farsi word for the contraption we call the fridge (and also a synonym for “glacier”), the ancient versions had a slightly different purpose. Sometimes they indeed stored food, but their main function was to make ice.

Yakhchal near Kerman, Iran

Yakhchals worked like this: a qanat, or underground irrigation trench (sort of like an upside-down aqueduct), transported water to the ice pit, where it would freeze during cold winter nights. The ice was then chopped into blocks and stored in separate chambers, where it could be easily removed as needed.

Some yakhchals operated according to a slightly different principle. Great slabs of ice would be hauled down from the mountains during the cold winter months and stored in the ice pit. As the ice slowly melted, trenches in the floor of the pit collected the runoff, where it refroze during the night and could be cut into blocks for easy transport. Pretty clever, don’t you think?

Most yakhchals had a wall built on the south side to block the searing rays of the sun and shade the ice pit. Tall towers, known as badgirs (wind catchers), were also added for ventilation. By circulating warm air from the surface and cold air from the ice pit, the badgirs acted as a kind of thermostat to better regulate the temperature inside the yakhchal.

I probably won’t build one of these practical ice houses in my small back yard. (Where would I put it?) But I am intrigued by the ingenuity of the ancients, who devised a way to meet the challenges of a harsh climate and enjoy the finer points of life: fresh food and cold drinks on hot summer days.

Off The Beaten Track: Scum! Travel Writer Jules Older

Jules and Effin at the Golden Gate Bridge

Jules Older hangs out at http://julesolder.com. He opines about San Francisco restaurants and New Zealand life on the apps, San Francisco Restaurants and Auckland Insider. He films the world, in brief snatches, at www.YouTube.com/julesolder. And he’s published his first ebook: SKIING THE EDGE: Humor, Humiliation, Holiness and Heart. 

She answered my question with a volume and anger that almost made me drop my plate.

“ARE YOU KIDDING? IT’S ‘CAUSE WE’RE SCUM!” 



“That must be it. Otherwise, I can't for the life of me figure out why more writers don’t become travel writers.”



“Jules, what planet are you from? Travel writers are seen as the scum of the journalism world. We’re lowlifes. Sellouts. Losers, Jules, losers. We’re seen as losers!”



Plate firmly in hand, I pondered this news as I sipped the very nice New Zealand pinot noir and took another nibble of the dainty lamb chop the waitress had handed me. At this gathering for travel writers in the penthouse of a swanky San Francisco hotel, I'd just been invited to tour a few swanky Colorado hotels during ski season. 

“Hmmm,” I said. “Then let’s do everything we can to keep it that way.”

Photo by Effin Older

Scum? Losers? The truth is, travel writing is probably the greatest discovery I've made since I gave up honest work to become a writer, lo these many years ago. I remember the day, the moment, the conversation that opened the world of travel writing to me…and pretty much ruined my academic career. The sudden realization that there were folks out there traveling the world for free and getting paid for it drove me — well, drove me to do it.

And when I gave up academia, I traded in a reliable, regular and rather remunerative check for a drastic pay cut, a complete loss of benefits and zero ability to plan for the future beyond the next two weeks, if that. In short, I walked into the world that 99 out of 100 writers inhabit.

Ah, but not completely. For I had one other thing going for me (and when I say “I” and “me” I really mean “we” and “us:” my writer-photographer wife Effin jumped on this ship right beside me.) The name of the ship: the SS Travel Writer.

Travel writing is what allows us to live, however briefly, like princes of the realm on pauper’s wages. Travel writing lets us jet around like movie stars without the hangers-on, like billionaires without the lawyers. Travel writing has led us on a life of adventure.

And travel writing has introduced me to all kinds of folks I'd never have met on my own, some of whom I've stayed friends with decades later. Folks like…

Dancing kids on Oahu. Photo by Jules Older

…the Newfoundland guide who got us wilderness-lost on skis (and who, despite that, is still a buddy), the Tokyo woman who makes her living curling eyelashes, the Maori hunting guide turned wild-food forager. Then there's the English noble who owns a Caribbean island (hated him on sight), the Hawaiian artist turned academic, the San Francisco Italian restaurateur who turned out to be the cousin of the Vermont Italian restaurateur…




And then there are the moments. Kayaking with humpback whales in Newfoundland. Birding on an island preserve in New Zealand. Swimming with rays in the Virgin Islands. Exploring an ancient Hawaiian cave, a hidden Vermont pond, a struggling Florida town, the most gorgeous beach in the Caribbean. 

And the events. The Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, the Tennessee Williams Festival in New Orleans, the Shellfish Festival on Prince Edward Island, the gloriously musical Winter Festival in Newfoundland. Even the Maple Festival, the Apple Pie Festival and the Granite Festival in small Vermont towns.

If that’s the punishment for being the scum of writerhood, I say, bring on the scum! And could I have just one more of those delightful lamb chops, m’dear?

Lost in the Woods

By Edith McClintock

When I was eighteen, I hiked into the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina for three weeks with a group of college students, a trip organized out of Montreat Anderson College in Ashville, North Carolina. We crossed 140 miles on land, 26 of them by bike, and another 42 by canoe on lakes and rivers and rapids. I summited five of the 10 highest mountains east of the Mississippi, rock climbed and rappelled two scary peaks called the Camel, and spent three days fasting alone in the woods.

For much of the trip, we were lost, both physically and emotionally. Sometimes it was only for a few minutes, but at the beginning, it was often for days at a time.

We carried everything on our backs, and slept under tarps. We received basic training on low impact camping and reading topographic maps from our two leaders, one an older college student, the other a teacher in the college’s outdoor recreation department. They were there to guide us emotionally and spiritually. Physically, they did little beyond pointing to a tiny spot on a map of green lines each morning and making their recommendations: “You need to camp there tonight,” or “You need to pick up your canoes here at noon.” Eventually, they left us completely.

Each morning, we picked someone from the group as the day’s leader, responsible for guiding and making decisions. At the beginning, I didn’t pay much attention to studying the maps, learning how to read my compass, or taking a turn scouting. I figured others knew how to do it better and would take charge. It wasn’t until I was wandering the side of a mountain in the dark, long after midnight, nearly 10 hours without water, deliriously searching for signs of our destination that I realized I had to change.

The rest of the group had sipped their water slower, even shared with me, and given up for the night, laying out their tarps and sleeping bags on the trail. I continued wandering in the dark, one of our leaders following. It was early enough in the trip that I thought if he saw my delirium from dehydration, my desperation, he would point out where I could find water, maybe share his own, if he had any. He didn’t. He was there only to make sure I didn’t tumble off the side of the mountain, or collapse in hysteria atop a blackberry patch. Eventually, I too had to give up, and I fell into a fitful, obsessive sleep on the trail, dreaming only of water.

It was the closest I came to an emotional breakdown. And it continued through the next morning, when I considered stealing a day-hiker’s water hidden behind a bush off the path. I didn’t, and eventually, late that afternoon, we found our destination, along with a pathetic stream of water dripping from a rock, which I sucked down joyfully.

After that, I learned to read the maps and compass, to take responsibility for scouting and paths taken each day, to negotiate decisions. To hoard water. We all grew stronger. Several who were prone to crying and collapsing in self-pity on the trail miraculously stopped; another, who had a bad knee and walked with a cane the first week, began taking the lead on hills.

But even after a week, we didn’t always make our destination. One night, after a day of hiking, biking, and canoeing, trying to catch up on several previous days we’d spent lost or moving too slow, I fell asleep in my canoe, my body giving out. Luckily, I had a partner who steered us to a forested island, although it still wasn’t our official destination. We crawled up the dark bank, and I fell asleep in a mound of pine needles, too tired to attempt food.

My strongest memories from that trip are of the physical hardships, and occasional pleasures. The 24 hours without water, my lips parched and cracked, my tongue dry. A juicy peach found in a wild grove on the side of a mountain ridge, a taste so sweet and pleasurable it will never be matched. The pain and tedium of step after step, switchback after muddy switchback, on blistered feet. Sinking into a cool river following five days of sweat and adversity in the hills above. Sleep more deep on the cold hard ground than I have experienced before or since in a lifetime of comfortable beds. The rush of sliding over a rapid and being sucked under water, losing my grip on my only paddle. Sunset over the gently rolling green mountains.

But when I read my journal from that trip this past week, there was little about the physical hardships. That night lost on the side of the mountain with no water that looms so large in my memory received only one sentence beginning with “hellish” in a 50-page journal. The pages, which I haven’t read in nearly 20 years, instead track the emotional and spiritual journey of those three weeks. It starts with my unhappiness during my previous semester in college, my impatience and dislike for several members of my group, fights and recriminations of trails not taken and who should not have been allowed on the trip.

The tone changes by week two. We begin to work together as a team, picking up on each other’s strengths and weaknesses. We learn to love and respect each other too, despite our differences. We get lost less. I learn patience, to enjoy each day as it comes. To not always hurry to the destination, as I did the first week. To not dismiss someone who can’t hike as fast, or who breaks down in tears. I learn their reasons, their stories. I learn to be kinder. And I also learn about myself, that I have an endurance to keep going, no matter the obstacle or pain, that I can take the lead and trust my instincts, but I can also walk at the back and help.

During my solo, the three days fasting alone in the woods at the end of the trip, I wrote a letter to myself to remember to take quiet time out of each day to sit and reflect or pray. To find contentment, joy, and appreciation in all situations and circumstances, and so many other things that I won’t go into here. Many lovely ideas, goals, and hope learned while lost in the woods.

But then I returned to Miami and a summer waitressing between my freshman and junior years in college. And I think I forgot a lot of what I’d learned, at least on a conscious level. Deeper, I think I’ve carried the lessons of those three weeks, though I still have to work on the patience and finding contentment and joy in everyday life. And most of all, remembering to read a map.

For more, visit my author website and/or personal blog, A Wandering Tale. Even better, order a copy of Monkey Love & Murder on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or the Book Depository (free shipping nearly anywhere in the world).