“This year has taken me from sea to shining sea. Sarasota and her Gulf Stream waters continued to wash me with goodness and grace and I know I will soon return. I walked the miracle mile in Chicago, and was perplexed by the unusual 30 foot tall silver jelly Bean located in Millennium Park. San Francisco massaged me with her cool chill of the Pacific Ocean, and I tasted the freshest, juiciest fruit of my life at the Farmer’s Market on Pier 39. My heart leapt in Atlanta, with a comforting nostalgia of home, but with an understanding my time to reside there is a few years away. Raleigh-Durham was close enough to the Blue Ridge Mountains to ignite my color war spirit, and remind me of the invincible summers that I will never abandon. And then I stepped onto the island of New York City. And I felt present. I felt the Now. I realized that I want to see the world, and at a time in my life when I won’t have the flexibility to travel, I could bring the world to me. The late actor Peter Boyle had it right when he said, ‘You see more life experience in one trip to the corner to buy the paper in New York than you do in a month in another place.’”
