If the coronavirus pandemic has taught me anything, it is time and awareness.
And when it comes to travel, I have realized an important lesson as the majority of us remain cooped up and will be for the imminent future. That lesson is … no, the saying 'it will always be there' is not always true.
For example, if you know me you know of my affinity for Aruba. And that's after only one visit.
Some 24 years ago I was struck by the beauty of the island and, mostly, for seeing up close and personal what I only previously saw in pictures or on television - water on one side of the island that was the deepest, darkest blue I had ever laid eyes upon, and water on the other side that was an amalgam of aqua and silver and, in some places, almost crystal clear.
I found it fascinating, much as I did Aruba's Natural Bridge. In fact, I was discussing the island with a friend and fellow Aruba lover just this week and had mentioned the bridge, when she gently reminded me that it collapsed in 2005 due to erosion from hurricanes Matthew and Katrina.
I had forgotten, and it saddened me.
Yet it gave me a newfound sense of resolve when it comes to travel, both business and personal.
The coronavirus pandemic has not dampened my enthusiasm for travel or made me fearful. In fact, just the opposite. I am hungrier than ever.
I have done my fair share of traveling in what has been a lovely two-fold writing career. First as a sportswriter, now as a travel writer. But the reminder about the Natural Bridge made me remember all the times I said 'no' for a variety of reasons.
It wasn't the right time.
It was costly.
The team is in the playoffs and I can't go.
Who's going to watch the kids?
And I justified it by saying "It will always be there."
Guess what? It's not always going to be there, and that's why I have a determination now, more than ever, to get there and ride my wanderlust as far and as long as it will take me. I want to walk where my grandparents and ancestors walked in Italy, to step inside the magnificent Colosseum in Rome before any more of it chips away, to attend Mass given by the Pope in St. Peter's Square, to use my choppy Italian to communicate with the locals.
I want to linger in the therapeutic waters of the Dead Sea before it loses more than the third of its surface area and 80 feet of depth it has in the last 40 years.
I have seen everything there is to practically see in my beloved New York City - except from above. I want to conquer my fear of heights and see it, at least once, from the top of the Empire State Building.
Scientists say the ice caps atop Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania are receding so quickly they will be gone in 15 years. I'd like to get there before that happens.
I'd love to drive cross-country one day.
Heck, I'd love to drive the seven miles from my house in the Hudson Valley region of New York to see Val-Kill Cottage, the retreat and, later, personal residence of Eleanor Roosevelt, one of the most influential First Ladies in American history.
Granted, the pandemic has taken a huge bite out of travel, especially with the travel restrictions. But those are just excuses, and I sit here now and ask myself "What were my excuses before and, really, were they all that valid?" If we have learned anything from this virus, it's that time is precious. And priceless.
And I don't want the rest of my life, however long that might be, to be defined by the sea I never swam in or the Colosseum I never walked through.
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