My life partner and I met in Minneapolis in 1982, when we were activists in solidarity with El Salvador. David became a Minneapolis Public School Social Worker, I earned a doctorate, and taught college history. We lived in South Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, where we watched our child grow, cared for pets, planted gardens, and continued our peace, anti-racism, immigrant rights, and labor activism. When we were 54, we bicycled around the perimeter of the United States. I wrote a book about that experience: Allegiance to Winds and Waters:
We turned 65 in 2023 and decided to spend retirement —as long as we could— on the road. To prepare for living out of a backpack, we sold our home and divested ourselves of things that seemed precious until they were gone. My books went to a community center.
We have been traveling since November 2023. We usually stay one month in each place. We will do it for as long as we want to/can, living on our social security and pensions. We travel without a car, and do what we can afford, have the energy to do, and can reach by walking or public transit. For all these reasons, we don’t do many of the things that other tourists do. We mostly, but not always, stay in places that are not prime tourist destinations. We stay in tiny towns and the biggest cities.
In my blog, I write about our experiences with a historian’s eye and an internationalist lens. I am continuing to observe the rural/urban divide, which was a major theme of the bicycle book. I am also interested in how people remember the past and how that influences their ability to build the lives they want. l write about aging, dilemmas of ethical travel, and what is happening back in the US. Our travels began shortly after October 7, 2023. How the world and I—an internationalist Jew and daughter of a Holocaust refugee—react to the intensifying Israeli siege of Gaza is a major theme of the blog posts.
Everywhere, I look for social movements that can build the other world that is possible.
Here are links to some of the blogs I have written since November 2023, in alphabetical order by country.
