Even now sometimes i have my moments
Moments where i feel like
I’m gonna fall apart
Can’t let it consume me
Let it go
Breathe just breathe
You’ve come so far
To go back
I know it hurts
You cry when you don’t want to
It’s trying to release
He’s gone
Your dad is gone
In the wind
You severely question
How can he not love you
Not be there for their for you
To still have breath in your lungs
But alas be gone
I never thought you would leave me again father
Why don’t you want me
When i am made up of half of your DNA
I can’t even say i hate you
I Love you Dad
But i have to let you go
You abandoned me
Came back
Left again
Came Back
Left again
Why come if you never intended to stay
Leave
You can’t be the reason
Theirs’s no peace
I will always love you
I have to live
To explore
Without a painful memory of you
Here is our long distance goodbye

Dear Unsealers,

I wrote this on the tarmac of my local airport as I witnessed my 16 year old son take his first solo flight. He didn’t even have a drivers license, yet he strapped into the cockpit of a single engine plane and piloting towards the runway. I felt helpless, proud, scared to death, and wanting to run behind his plane all at once. After what felt like a heart stopping forever, he skillfully landed the plane and taxied in. This moment will always be surreal and magical for me.

AIRBORNE

You sail across the mid-day sky

The wind upon my sullen face

You climb to heights unseen

I feel weightless

Like a feather tossed along by the playful wind

My mind is blank, like sterile moonlight

Your heart is warm, like the velvety morning sun

I feel helpless and hopeful

You are falling, drifting, gliding across the open horizon

I can move and love, freely

You can feel all of Earth beneath your unmarred feet

I hold the Universe across my fragile shoulders

And the silence roars into my ears

Along with the bristling of my every hair

The windy tears dry upon my sunburnt cheeks

You are weightless, drifting, soaring

And after seconds that seem like fragments of eternity

Gently, you land, into my embrace

Outward beauty is fleeting

Taken away by the years

Like waves brushing sand back into the sea

But a beautiful souls never fades

It shines brighter, like a perennial diamond, as the years progress

When our outward mask fades away

The beautiful soul can be seen, fully, in all its splendor

Why do we confuse physical beauty with permanence,

When we know full well its ephemeral nature?

Why not, instead, seek to make ourselves beautiful on the inside,

And have that live forever?

Loneliness, a friend of mine

They keep me company, they take my time

They visit often and stay too long

They whisper dark things, sing sad songs

They drink along and share my glass

Thus wishing that our time won’t pass

Loneliness, the jealous type

They shun the social scene and hype

Prefers to keep me in my room

To make my mind a heavy tomb

Of grey-scale thoughts, of shadowed dreams

And feed me lethargy in reams

If I reach out or you reach in

My friend’s departure will begin

And pull me to the Sun and light

They’re only gone when when you’re in sight

Dear Unsealers,

Kalimera, from my office cubicle.

It’s been four days since I’ve returned back to NYC from Greece. I’ve been alternating between being glad to be back home after the fourteen day trip and missing being out on the road. As this trip has been quite an odyssey, of the non-Homeric kind.

Never did I imagine being able to climb up the Acropolis and seeing the Parthenon bathed in morning daylight. Or the twists and turns at Mycenae, the elevation to reach the monastery at Meteora and the seas of humanity at Fira and Oia. But I did all of it.

Nor, did I imagine taking part in a Greek cooking lesson, and Greek dancing not once, but twice. Lest I forget, a soccer team, AEK Athens and their fans invaded our hotel in Crete with their chants bringing a smile to this soccer fan’s face.

And for the big finish, a catamaran cruise around the islands of Santorini.

With me at my most blissful state, going down the ladder with my shirt off into the water and not feeling self-conscious for even one second in doing so. Just soaking up the sunlight with my fellow travelers on a sunny day.

The thirty two travelers in the group began to be like family as the trip went on, looking out for me as one of the few solo travelers.

As I responded to the email from the customer service department of the travel company used to book this trip, I couldn’t help but feel sad after I pressed send. After nine months of waiting and fourteen days of travel, this chapter of the travel story is closed. I haven’t been adjusting well to being back on this side of the Atlantic, though.

The sadness of being home will pass. Yet, the memories of this trip will stay with me forever. And there’s always the next trip to plan for.

I’m hopeful that I’ll be back on the road traveling internationally at this time next year.

A heartfelt Yamas! to our guide Dina, to our drivers during the trip Yannis, Nikos and Vorgios, to the college students and professional dances that joined us in Crete and to the thirty one fellow travelers that joined me on this trip.

The company that one is with makes the journey all the more special, as this trip was.