Aging on the Run, Nationalism, PTSD and Historical Trauma
I began to write this as we pulled out of the bus station on our way to the Netherlands. Ten days in northwestern Germany was hard on me. My body told me so – a painful rash, heart palpitations, chest pains, and a headache that began each day the moment I woke up. We...
Aging on the Run, PTSD and Historical Trauma, Racism, Social Movements, Sustainable Economies
Brussels, like Paris, unfolded as a mash-up of old and new. While Paris was a hard 24 hours, Brussels was an inviting and fun three days. The difference was serendipity, not a true reflection of these two venerable places. This is the problem with short...
Aging on the Run, PTSD and Historical Trauma, Public History, Radical Hospitality, Social Movements
Berat— Albania’s oldest city —has 1,000 identically-shaped windows in its Ottoman-era old town and a Byzantine city on top of one of its mountains. The Osum River runs through the town with buildings hugging the slopes. A green ridged range covers its north...
Aging on the Run, PTSD and Historical Trauma, Public History
One of the books I gave away when we started this journey was Carolyn Forché’s Against Forgetting: Twentieth Century Poetry of Witness. I treasured this collection that recorded humanity’s ugliest moments so that we do not forget. I have spent a lifetime being...
Aging on the Run, Israel/Palestine, long term travel, Nationalism, PTSD and Historical Trauma, Public History
In Cádiz, we took a bus to Tarifa, Spain, where the Mediterranean and Atlantic meet, and a ferry to Tangier, Morocco. In Tarifa, we could see Africa across the water. There was a small police presence guarding the coast, and some public protest art depicting...
Aging on the Run, Israel/Palestine, long term travel, Nationalism, PTSD and Historical Trauma, Public History, Sustainable Economies
Overnight flight out of Boston to Cape Verde and then Lisbon. Flight attendants served tabouli salad, bread and butter, meat, potatoes, broccoli, red cake, coffee, and cookies. We ate this three-course meal at 1:30 in the morning, with two hours of flight...
