Daycation: Almost Japan

こんにちは (Kon'nichiwa) from Mile Marker 13,140!

The Shofuso Japanese House and Garden is like dipping your toes into 17th century Japan without leaving 21st century Philly.

It's so peaceful -- I imagine I could live here.

But in real life -- I wouldn't last a day.

(Let's just say, I don't squat well!) 

At Mile 13,140, I step into my 14th year as an above-knee amputee.  

In socks!

It's November 9, and I want to celebrate my Alive Day, but the past few weeks have been exhausting, sorrowful, and filled with difficult news.  

I don't have the energy (or leg time) to go big or go far, but I'm still so grateful to be alive.  

So I'm searching out joy -- at least for a mile or two.

Enter the DAYCATION.

It's short.

It's sweet.
It takes minimal planning.  
And it stays close to home.

Is there nothing more perfect for an adaptive traveler?!

Friends Jasmine and Mark join me for a quick drive to the Shofuso Japanese Cultural Center in West Fairmount Park.  

Technically, we're still in Philly.  Does it even count as a daycation?  

(Jasmine says yes, and she introduced me to the word, so we're going with it!)

Anyway, a daycation is just what the doctor ordered. :)

Here, Japanese maples turn coral in the sun.
A school of koi circles the pond, eyes bulging, mouths gulping.

It's mesmerizing.

House rules.  We remove our shoes.  

Shoe-covers are provided for those who can't walk in socks, but they look a bit slippery.  

I decide to give socks a try.  Luckily, there's a bench to sit on to take off my shoes.

Even after 14 years, this gets a laugh!

The wood is warm in the sun, icy in the shade; the planks and bamboo are unexpectedly soft.  These sensations surprise me.

Because I live in shoes. 

My right foot rejoices.  But I'm surprised, even more, that on these surfaces, my prosthetic (left) foot does have some traction. 

At home, I've learned the hard way not to walk in socks.  (Remember Souperficial Wounds??)

But in "almost Japan," it almost works.  I watch my footing carefully, but it feels almost right.

The house is embedded in nature, its boxy rooms connected by wooden bridges through the foliage.  

Like a treehouse built into the landscape!

There's a Japanese tea cermony about to happen.  We're not invited, but I watch from afar.  

On the sidelines, I spy a hidden pile of modern thermoses and hot pots.  I love a peek behind the scenes. :)

We learn a few tidbits about Shinto, and the Minka style of housing.  

Then I lace up my sneakers again and use trekking poles to navigate the rocky garden paths.

I'm most charmed by one of the guides, Jennie, who tells us about her own recent trip to Japan.  

She describes how, in a restuarant in a rural town, the chef emerged from the kitchen to talk with her friend about her gluten allergy before preparing their food.  They were touched by his welcome and kindness.

I am too.  I love the human side of travel!

A mere hour later, we're back in the car, heading toward Chinatown.

Our daycation ends with a steaming bowl of ramen at a restaurant we've never tried -- Megumi.

It's a 5-Star end to the morning.

And best of all, it's on the way home!

This daycation -- a short, sweet adventure -- leaves me refreshed.  I'm ready to welcome another year on this journey.

Here's to travel near and far! 

Wherever you are, thank you for walking with me.

xo,

Rebecca

The Air Tonight

Mile Marker 13,133:  

Hello from Love Park, where the air is buzzing, bracing, and bittersweet.

I'm heading to the bus stop on my way home from work.  

It's not a great leg day.  I would have driven back and forth, but I was worried about tonight. I imagined road closures, protests, and chaos in the city.  I didn't want to be stuck in traffic.

But as I walk, I see there's none of that.  

It's an ordinary evening, yet also extraordinary, because tomorrow is Election Day.  And no one knows what's to come.

I wander among the murals here,

absorbing their messages, admiring their art,

feeling their energy.

People smile.  I smile back. 

A boy with gold curls runs under the spray of the fountain.

Two students play pingpong, backbacks dropped at their feet. 

Excitement and cameraderie hang in the air.

I join a dozen others who've gathered around the portal.  

It's a new addition to Philly -- an international camera set smackdab in the center of the city, a living sculpture that connects us digitally, in real time, with three other cities around the world.  

It's kind of miraculous.

We're waving to people in Lublin, Poland, where it's 10 PM.  A man and woman wave back at us.  Hold up peace signs.  Twirl each other in dance.  

We wave back -- well, Philly style :)

The calm feels temporary though, like we're standing on a precipice. 

It reminds me of the earthquake in 2011, my first day back to work after the accident, when we joined together in uncertainty.  Or those first few days of COVID, when we realized how fragile our connections are.  

I'm glad to be here now because... who knows what will happen tomorrow?  

My prosthesis is beginning to poke, so I make my way toward 15th & Market to catch the bus.

As I pass the LOVE statue, I see two young men taking photos of each other.  I offer to take one of them together. 

They pose, arms over shoulders, with the Parkway spread behind them.  It's the iconic Philly shot.

"It's my first time in Philadelphia," one of them tells me as I hand the phone back.  His name is Naman, and he's from India.  His cousin, who's lived here for 20 years, is showing him around.

Naman asks if he can get a picture with me. 

"With me?" I say.  It makes me laugh.  But it also feels natural, like -- of course -- why shouldn't we be friends on this ordinary, extraordinary afternoon?

I wish him happy and safe travels!

When I finally reach the bus stop, the 33 bus is just pulling away.  (This, too, is typical of Philly.)

So I stand there a while longer, feeling the pinch of my prosthesis.  Taking it all in.  

Leaves rustle.

Lights change.

Pigeons fly.

Motors hum. 

People of all shapes, sizes, and colors walk, jog, scoot, bike, and roll through the crosswalks.  

I want to freeze this moment, bottle up this connection and community, hold tightly to this joy of "not knowing" what's to come.

I want to stand here forever, breathing in this air full of hope. 

 

Walk on,

Rebecca

*This postcard is for my friend Jodie, who cheered me on always, and devoted her entire career to bringing our city together.  Jodie, you would have loved the air tonight.  I'll miss you and so will Philly. xoxo

Buongiorno et bon matin...

...from the Italian Market!

Yes, I know that's a language mashup, but that's where I am.  

Qui. Maintenant.  Here. Now.

Mile 12,615 =  Kilomètre 20,302

I'm gearing up for travel.

In just two weeks, I leave for Paris -- yes, Paris! -- to join travel writer Rolf Potts, and a whole new group of classmates for the advanced version of the travel memoir class I took there last summer.  I can't wait!

So I'd better brush up on my writing -- and walking.

Here at home, my little red car, "Happy," has just passed her 10,000th mile.

To celebrate, and sneak in some walking/writing, we drive down to our old favorite, Gleaner's, for a coffee and stroll through the Italian Market. 

The smell of baking bread leads the way.  
It fades into roasted coffee,

sugared dough,

melted tar, 

and garbage juice, spilled from a leaky bag.

In the first three blocks, I hear four languages:  Spanish, Italian, Cambodian (I think), and Greek. 

  

And this one??

It's barely 7:30.  The sun is still low.  The sidewalks are shady.  The breeze feels uncommonly cool.

I pass a bookstore, not yet open, with boxes stacked outside.  A scribbled sign says FREE.  The middle box sags with paperbacks of The Babysitter's Club, piled high like a mound of rainbow jimmies.  (Or "sprinkles" for you out-of-towners.) 

When I reach Passyunk (say "Pash-yunk"), a cheesesteak truck is parked inside an overgrown community garden.  

Pretty much Philly in a nutshell.

I turn onto a narrow street of rowhomes.  

A mirrored chrome railing reminds me of an 80's rollerskating rink.  A toddler's kitchen playset sits atop a metal grate.  How many toys (and shoes) have been dropped through those cracks?

It's a good leg day so far.  

On days like this, I feel like I could walk miles.  But I know better.  

The sun is getting higher.  

My prosthetic's getting looser.  

While I'm comfortable, like now, my feet and mind can wander.  But it's early yet.  

I need to save energy -- and precious leg time -- for the rest of the day.

So I turn up 7th, back toward the car.  

This patch of road used to be part of my bike route to work.  I pedaled through here every morning for years.  

I knew where cars rolled through the 4-way stop.  I knew where every pothole was.  

It looks different now. 

Smoother.  Brighter.

I almost don't recognize it.

But then, come the bikers.  

They whisper by in clusters, two and three at a time, helmets strapped, backpacks bouncing behind them in crates and saddlebags.  

7th Street, I realize, has become a bike superhighway.  

It feels good to walk among them.

When I arrive back at the car, my coffee cup is empty, but my notebook is full. 

And I'm happy to be here.

Walk on,

Rebecca

Infinity in One Block

Hello from Mile 12,480.

At 7:40 AM, the clouds hang low, but the heat stands on tiptoe, poised to soar.

It's summer in Old City.  I'm used to it.  

I get out early.  

Walk when I can.

It's a "good leg day" so far.

So on the way back from getting coffee, I don't go straight home.  Instead, I pass the doorway of my apartment building and cross the street onto Elfreth's Alley.

It's 100 (or maybe fewer) feet from my door, but when I step onto that cobblestone walkway, I travel.  

Not just because Philadelphians have been walking this block since colonial days, but because I've been walking this block.  For the dozen years I've lived across the street from it, Elfreth's Alley has always been there for me. 

It gives me a place to travel -- without going anywhere at all.

For a few summers, I volunteered at the museum here, meeting travelers from around the world.  I loved answering their questions:

"People still live here?" they'd ask, pointing to an Amazon package on a doorstep. 

(Yes, and they get deliveries.) 

"Women were really homeowners?" 

(Yep, and business owners too.)

And my favorite... 

"Where can we get ice cream?"  

(Franklin Fountain -- try the peach!)

During the pandemic, I wrote a middle grade novel set here.  To this day, each time I walk past the 2nd house on the left -- with its olive green gate and fanshaped flag on the door -- I think, "That's where the Mitternights live."  The Mitternights are an imaginary family who exist only on my pages.

On so many mornings like this one, I walked here with my foster daughter, "Rainbow."  She'd dart between the houses, beneath the canopy of trees that mark a narrow opening called Bladen's Court.  

There, she'd hop along the stones till she reached the old water pump, where she'd hang from the handle, pretending to yank it.  I'd saunter behind, focusing my footwork and sipping my coffee.

To me, it was an easy place we could go for fresh air.  To her, the Alley was a playground.

On this block, I've "sweated out" of my prothesis. 

I've toured with out-of-town friends.

I've crowded with tourists under a tiny roof in a thunderstorm.

I've tripped over the cobblestones. 

I've even fantasized about buying one of these houses, fixing it up, and opening an Airbnb.  I've told my neighborhood friends we should do it together.  They're not quite on board - yet. 

When you get to know a place -- really know it -- it holds unlimited possibility.  You see it up close.  It can encompass the past and future, a whole world in just a few steps.

(In my view, anyway.)

I've signed up for another travel writing class -- the "advanced" version of the one I took last year with Rolf Potts. 

I am super excited for the opportunity.  I'll be in Paris again -- to learn, observe, and write about the city in new ways!

But also... I'm a bit rusty.  

And sort of an imposter.

My classmates will be worldly and well-traveled.  (I've checked out their websites!)  Some have written books.  Some have made a life out of going to, living in, and writing about new places.  

They don't seem to walk the same few blocks day after day.

I wonder what I'll write about.  How my adventures will compare.

It's not a new question.  I expressed it to Rolf last year at my one-on-one writing conference.  

Is there a place for me as a travel writer -- one who takes small steps in small spaces?

He thought there was.  He encouraged me to go deep, to shape my experiences into stories only I could tell.  

I don't go everywhere and can't do everything, yet is there something special -- even unique -- about slowing down and zooming in?

Day to day, I may not travel far.  

But I can see infinity in one block.

And maybe that's a perpective the world needs too.

Walk on,

Rebecca

There's No Ice in Florida

Summer greetings from Mile 12,445...

The Florida Panthers won the Stanley Cup.

(Stick with me...)

With the Flyers well into their summer break, I didn't even follow the Stanley Cup Playoffs this year.  And anyway, it's mid-June.

In my mind, too hot for hockey.

In fact, if I hadn't heard that one-liner on the morning news, I wouldn't have even known who was playing.  

But it's true.  

The Florida Panthers beat the Edmonton Oilers last night. 

And they didn't just win.  They did it in historic fashion.

The announcement comes on NPR as I'm putting in my contact lenses at the bathroom counter.

Wait, I think.  How could this happen?

There's no ice in Florida!

It's funny how things stick with us.  

My dad imparted this simple truth to me when, around age 7, I asked him why Florida didn't have a hockey team.  

It was the 1970's, and I was decked out in Flyers gear.

Orange and black yarn ties on my pigtails,
a pint-sized Bobby Clarke jersey,
and a hockey-sized gap between my front teeth.  

At the Flyers game that day, we stopped at the souvenir stand, and Dad bought me a sheet of shiny vinyl stickers with the emblems of every team in the NHL.  That's when I noticed Florida was missing.

I knew about Florida.  My grandparents lived there.   

It was hot down there.  Of course they couldn't play hockey.

(Even at home, we only went ice skating in the winter!)

There was no ice in Florida!

So when I hear the news about the Panthers, it stops me in my tracks.  

I mean, I knew they were a team now.  But in that one moment, I'm gobsmacked by the complexity of the world.  

If Florida beats Edmonton in hockey, does that mean anything is possible?

At Mile 12,445 I am walking again.  Pretty well, actually.  

To that end, I'm glad anything is possible.  I'm thankful for the life-saving advances that have carried me this far and the modern technology that encompasses each of my steps.

(When there was no ice in Florida, bionic legs weren't around either!)

But also... this complex world is overwhelming.

I could jump to catastrophe here.  I could talk about disappearing glaciers and climate change that's happening because of... well... everything... including ice rinks in Florida.

But I won't go there.

I'll just say that putting on my prosthesis, day after day, in a world where anything is possible -- for better or worse -- is equal parts exhilarating and exhausting.  

Sometimes, I yearn for those simpler days when I followed Dad's footsteps up a thousand concrete stairs and settled into his lap at the very top row of The Spectrum.  

It was the middle of winter (of course), and we were cheering on our favorite team.  

As an adult, I'm sure he carried the weight of a complicated world on his shoulders. 

But if he did, he never let on.

Instead, he kept it pint-sized.  My-sized.

And handed it to me in manageable pieces -- one simple truth at a time.

There's no ice in Florida.

Apologies to Panthers fans. :)

Walk on,
Rebecca

One Great Thing

Hello from Mile Marker 12,290...

Walking hasn't been so great.

Don't get me wrong.  I'm SO glad to be back on my feet again -- going anywhere at all.  Getting used to being in my prosthetic socket, with all its pressure points and pain, is just part of the process.  

Still, it's been wearing me down.

On Saturday night, I call my friend Beth.

We've just received the tragic news that our friend Gary has passed away. 

It is completely unexpected.  He was our age.  A physical therapist AND a firefighter.  Smart.  Caring.  Brave.  The kind of person our world needs more of.

We'd been friends a long time -- 
all the way back to our skating days.

Beth and I feel the loss together.  Reminisce about our many years in the skate club and how much things have changed since then.  

I tell her I feel caught between wanting to do everything (because "life is short") and not wanting to do anything (because "life is hard"). 

How do we navigate a world like that?

Then Beth tells me about a man she knows from her hiking club. 

He's in his 70's and always upbeat, despite aches and pains and rough terrain.

She asked him once how he stays so positive.  

"Even on the worst days," he told her, "I try to find one thing that makes each day great."

He gave her some examples. (They were really small things!)

Beth and I laugh it off.  It's probably not that simple.  

But we start listing "great" things anyway -- things we usually take for granted...

Our health.

Electricity.
A warm bed.
Food in the fridge. 

We both know the truth:  These are really big things -- and they prove how great we have it. 

The next morning Beth texts me:  

It's a great day because the sun is shining.

I look out the window.  She's right.  

And when I open the window, the air outside smells like spring.

That's when I notice my grandmother's begonia has a new brand-new bloom.  

I snap a pic.  Text it to Beth.

That's THREE great things already -- and it's still early!

Without planning to, we start texting each other here and there, tossing small "great things" back and forth like a badminton game.

Moroccan maple nut mix from my brother in Chicago.
Mile 88,888 on her car's odometer.

A quote on a coffee board near my doctor's appointment.

Once you start noticing great things,
they're everywhere!

Yesterday marked six months since my dad died. 

There is nothing great about it.

But I remember my dad had this special way of navigating hard times.  A unique combination of humor and hope.

Even at the end of his life -- sitting in his recliner at home or lying in bed at the hospital -- he would light up when I walked in the door.

"Hey Dad, how's it going?" I would ask.

"Great!"  he'd always answer.  His voice rose into that exclamation point no matter how bad he really felt.

I think my Dad would have liked the "one great thing" idea.   

He was pragmatic though.  He'd know it wouldn't change the world.

I know that too.

But maybe it'll change my corner of it.

Walk on,

Rebecca

P.S.  Find one great thing? I'd love to hear it! :)