I arrived to a grey, wet Paris on a wave of humanity flowing through Charles de Gaulle airport on Sunday morning. We spilled out onto taxi stands and bus stops, docile from lack of sleep on our overnight flights, and easily maneuvered through an unintelligible tide of rapid negotiations for fares and destinations. I was too early to check in at my hotel, a tiny semi-boutique sandwiched between towering stone buildings in the 14th arrondissement. I left my pack behind the counter—noting that mine was not the only one and thus confirming the hostel-like vibe of the place. And I then stepped out into a drowsy Sunday afternoon in Paris.

Living this way for more than two weeks has me considering what slowing down like this would mean in my own daily life back in the States. I’ve realized that in many ways I still haven’t climbed fully out of the isolation that COVID required. I rarely eat out, and my socializing doesn’t often involve interacting with people I don’t know. And while I won’t be walking the 7 miles to work every day, or frequenting the Old Port bars, I can see hosting a gathering and inviting people I don’t know very well. Or becoming a morning regular at a neighborhood coffee shop.

Dinner at the pub is always ordered at the bar with the bartender and then brought out usually by the kitchen help or a runner, depending on the staffing situation (we have found that, as in the States, there is a serious shortage of help here). For your pint—or whatever you’re drinking—you’ll place your order at the bar, and then chat with the bartender while they pull it. As a non-drinker, I’ve been pleasantly surprised with just how many pubs have NA beer available. Sure, sometimes it’s just Heineken (which I will politely decline), but others will have local NA ales or porters that are quite good.

It would be an egregious omission if I didn’t tell you that we have gotten a little lost more than once. We have our different ways of approaching this: Steve, first and foremost, refers back to the guidebook. This is a solid plan. The writer has not been wrong once, and so has proven that she is a reliable source. Given the data, re-reading her instructions is surely the best course of action. For my part, I look around (which can be highly distracting here. In every direction, the views are breathtaking!). In many cases there are paths leading in several directions, but a look just beyond where we are may reveal a landmark that makes the way ahead clear.

Skipton to Grassington, July 5th

The sun rises early and sets late here, and I’ve felt my own internal clock responding to these long days of light. My brain seems a bit on overdrive as Steve and I navigate our new surroundings, each in our own ways. This kind of traveling together—by foot, bus, rail—is it’s own kind of relating, and we are rediscovering how to make space for the different ways we process unfamiliar territory.

This morning I am sitting at a kitchen table in a quiet upper story apartment in Leeds. I am keeping company with a pair of pigeons and a silent army of stone spires lining the lichen-covered slate rooftops just over the narrow cobble lane below my window. Outside, I hear the morning noise of cities the world over - busses, demolition, the whine of a drill, the slightly frenzied stop and go of traffic.

When I told Amber—my only full-time employee, and an intensely scheduled mom to two hockey-playing teenagers—of our plans to take two weeks in July to walk 100 miles across Northern England, she didn’t really hold back. “That sounds like the worst vacation ever.” We laughed at that, of course. We both understand the allure of spending a week on a tropical patch of sand with nothing but a book and an ice-cold beverage to keep us company. But, even so, I was surprised that a trip like the one Steve and I had just spent weeks planning wouldn’t be universally appealing. I mean, right?