This is me, Chris, beginning this story. I wanted to include a more lengthy “note” to start things off due to the fact that the circumstances in which Geary (Gert) and I met were especially serendipitous and especially fun for me. I met Geary and his wife, Nikola, on my bike journey across Germany last […]
I’m on a train, bound for Rome. Yes, Rome, and yes I’ll be there for the funeral of Pope Francis tomorrow – Saturday. Crazy idea? Well, maybe. I’m sure the city is going to be nuts, and I’m not sure I’ll go through the effort to try and attend the mass at St. Peter’s Square. […]
I’ve parked myself in Barletta. It’s a beautiful, bustling, smallish seaside city in southern Italy – perfect for a two-day layover, even more perfect because it’s Easter weekend and the city is abuzz with local families spending the holiday weekend together, lingering in the piazzas during the day, attending mass, strolling the narrow streets by […]
As I write, I’m sitting on the very old, very hard mattress of my room at a bed and breakfast north of the town of Mesagne in southern Italy. Looking out the large window to my right I see that another gray, windy day awaits me. It will be Day 3 of my bicycle journey […]
After 5 hard years of therapy I decided to attend one of those tear-you down, build-you -back-up weekend retreats at the urging of my wife of 28 years. We’d been drifting farther and farther apart. Not fighting, not angry, just distant and detached.We’d talked about separating. When I took my seat in the group of […]
50 Years and the Sounds of the Journey Reaching 50 is a significant milestone, because I remember when my dad turned 50, he celebrated with a big family party, and his siblings gave him a centennial gift, a valuable gold coin. So, a little over a year ago, I began planning this big event to […]
Snow is on the mountain peaks of the Austrian Alps out my train window. The valley fields are green or a newly plowed under shade of dark brown. The Inn River guides our way. I departed Munich, Germany this morning at 7:30 a.m. This train will take me south, over the mountains, through Austria, and […]
In the Parc Montsouris, in Paris, on a sunny Sunday of March 2025 (Gregorian Calendar). “Creating beauty through courage, hope, and connection” … That is inspiring. And intimidating. I shall begin by exploring what my personal human experience can reveal about that. There have been many beautiful moments in my life, and many of them […]
Rolling on the River: Finding All the Good Stuff in a Whitewater Kayak I’d like to tell you about the Whiskey River Rollers, a group of strangers who became friends during Covid through whitewater kayaking. Before sitting down to write this story, I hadn’t connected the Whiskey River Rollers with “creating beauty through courage, hope, […]
My name is Dieter, I’m from Germany and I’m 62 years old. I was diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis in 2007. This disease restricts my freedom of movement considerably, as my lower spine and my chest have stiffened. My rib cage has stiffened. As a result of the stiffening, my rib cage only moves 1cm and […]
