Traveling From Home

If I had my druthers, I’d be packing a suitcase. But this isn’t the time to travel up the Rhine past castles and vineyards and through the mountains, where my forebears once lived. It isn’t the year to fly to Hawaii to stay with my sister-and brother-in-law to see the Haleakalā sunset and walk the black-sand beaches. It’s not even the year to cash in on an Amtrak deal for a coast-to-coast train trip

This is the year to stay home—to take care of the sick and the old, the people I love.

So we talked yesterday, my husband and I, and we decided to travel at home. Starting tonight. It is, after all, Emily Dickinson’s birthday. So we’re headed for Amherst, Massachusetts via the Drexel Theater for talks on Dickinson’s life, a birthday cake, a poetry contest, and the screening of the award-winning film, Showdown in Amherst.

We’re invited to dress in Victorian-style clothing. But we won’t. We’re too old. Mostly, we’re too inhibited.

In a few weeks, we’ll travel to San Juan in the Upper West Side of Manhattan. West Side Story will take us back to a time when love struggled to rise above hatred and the fear of immigrants and the plague of racism. It probably won’t feel like we’ve traveled far.

We haven’t made a bucket list, yet. But we’ll probably include live train webcams that to take us through Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and across Kansas and up the coast of Italy and through the mountains of Norway, all while we read on our recliners about faraway places and long-ago times.

We can always tag along with Rick Steves. And with just a thirty-minute drive we can eat Polish food at Pierogi Mountain or Argentinian food at the Barroluco or Somalian food in Hoyo’s Kitchen.

With Ken Burns we can zoom in on the Mayo Clinic and the Vietnam War and the expedition of Lewis and Clark. And with Getty Art Conversations, we can feel smart with art as we visit impressive museums around the world.

All this without packing a suitcase, without booking a hotel room or buying air fare or arranging for someone to come water the plants.

And mostly, all this while staying close to those who need care.