True grace

Moments of true grace are perhaps not that frequent. I can remember a few. A few years ago I was in Rome taking pictures. I wandered into a wedding taking place at a church near some ruins. I was snapping away, when the wedding party began to leave the church and walk toward me. I got in the bride’s way, and with consummate politeness, she said, “Scusa me”. I scurried away with great admiration for her.

In 1993 we were trekking in Nepal under the auspices of Mountain travel/Sobek, the adventure travel company. There were two retired professors from the University of Colorado in our group. This was a trip of a lifetime for them. One was 78 and one was 70. Several days into the trip the older man suffered heatstroke and made the decision to go back to Kathmandu with assigned porters from our group. His friend decided to accompany him, though he realized he would never come back to Nepal, a country he had dreamed visiting for many years.

 

While in college I began to feel I needed to do something else for a while. I decided to go to Florida and work for a winter. I know my parents thought it was a dumb idea, but they never stood in my way and helped me make the leave happen. They were worried, but they were very kind to me.