The Story of How I Got Here
What do you do when you’ve lost your vitality?
When the zest that buoyed you through decades seems to have vanished?
It’s a question we ask ourselves when inertia threatens our very existence. One, I asked myself at 64, when I sensed my vitality plummeting. One, I hazard, many of us ask as we grow older.
At the time, I was living in a small mountain town, close to my daughter and grandchildren. Languishing, not flourishing. Then it hit me. The same realization from a decade earlier after the death of my 23-year-old daughter. What was I doing with my one wild and precious life?
Not enough.
What if I died next year? In five years? Ten? What did I want those years to look like?
To live a life as wide as it is long had been my modus operandi for as long as I could remember, and I needed to widen my life.
And so, it began. An online advertisement for a women-only jungle trekking tour in Northern Thailand set my heart racing.
In my bones I knew it was the challenge I needed to loosen the threads that kept me stuck, and remind me that I was, in fact, ALIVE.
Four months later I gave up my apartment, packed my few belongings into a carry-on suitcase, and flew away.
What followed was 14-months of travel with no agenda.
Was it always easy? No, but I knew that far off lands would offer me the space to see beyond what I looked past at home. It always does.
I’d learned, after my 2-year journey leaving my daughter’s ashes around the world, that long-term solo travel revitalizes me like nothing else can. My bestselling book, The Suitcase and the Jar, Travels with a Daughter’s Ashes tells the story of that transformative journey.
Travel makes life clearer. It confirms my experience that to live with vitality is the best legacy of love. It’s our birthright. Yours and mine.