Nobody walks in L.A.

I know because while growing up in the SoCal sprawl, my mom drove me to school, which was about three blocks from our house — even when I was 17 and it was 75 degrees outside and she would have rather stayed in her pajamas.

Nobody walks in Sedona, either. After dinner on a balmy evening in July, just after a monsoon storm has rolled through and the air smells of wet sage, all I wanted to do was wander somewhere — anywhere. Let me window shop or find a new neighborhood where spicy cooking smells waft out of open windows. Let me stumble upon some desolate park where I can swing on the swings without judgement. Instead, we would go home and doze in front of a rerun on Netflix.

Don’t get me wrong. People walk in the West, but it’s with purpose. We walk the dog. We hike. Hell, we invented the power walk. But we don’t wander. “Not all who wander are lost” is a clever meme. But in places like Paris, wandering is an art. (Ah, but every aspect of life is an art form in Paris.) The French have a word for it: un flâneur. It roughly translates to someone who walks with no real destination, no agenda. A loafer, by our over-achieving standards. In Paris, they walk for the sake of walking. For the open-endedness of it. For the possibilities. The adventure. The surrender. The romance. I spent time in Paris, perfecting the art of flaneurie. Because I strolled, I have a set of amber earrings that I purchased in broken French. I waltzed into a mid-day dance party in one of the most exclusive boutiques in town and pretended like I belonged. I found hidden alcoves of the Louvre, and I stood outside of a tea shop where the aroma was so strong I can still conjure it if I close my eyes and concentrate. You learn a lot about yourself, your neighborhood and your neighbors when you ditch the agenda and just put one foot in front of the other.

So I moved to Boston to walk.

I sold my car, my Cherry Bomb, in order to jump on the T and emerge in an unknown neighborhood where people don’t pronounce their r’s and where Irish pubs exist next door to doggie daycare centers. Where mounds of snow slowly begin to melt weeks after the temperatures have reached the 80s in Arizona. The snowmelt reveals these odd, dark patches of soggy potato-chip bags, disintegrating napkins, Dunkin Donuts coffee cups and crushed packets of Marlboro Lites along the sidewalks. The ugly little ranch house we loved so dearly is gone so that I can meet Daniel downtown on a Saturday night, and we can hold gloved hands and meander down Public Alleyway 101 simply because the name reminds us of a Depeche Mode album. We read plaques placed on statues of dead white guys who we vaguely remember learning about in high school, and we peer into windows where hipsters wearing the wrong shoes for the barely-above-freezing temperatures drink Cosmopolitans not because they like them but because it’s ironic.

The backyard filled with fruit trees and grapevines and irises is now owned by a retired couple from the Bronx while we live in an apartment and wonder about the constant barrage of footsteps above us (a toddler? pack of puppies? bowling alley???). Last night, I swear I heard my neighbor doing her laundry. In the Italian language, there’s no word for “privacy.” That made sense when we went for a walk late at night in Rome and listened to couples argue and spied granny panties hanging from clotheslines. It makes sense again living in a city.

So I walk to distract and escape. I walk early in the morning when the Mexican moms are shepherding their kids to school and the Colombian abuelas are heading to the market with fabric bags on wheels. I watch Middle Eastern men share a smoke outside their market entrances and intense millennials rush to meet the train, earbuds firmly in place, eyes fixed on their smartphones. Look up!, I want to shout. Remove your earbuds and listen to the thrumming, humming rhythm of the city, the melody of underground traffic tunnels, subway trains, planes taking flight from the nearby international airport and barges in the harbor. The sound of traffic sirens, car horns and construction. The heartbeat of Boston. Your heartbeat.

I walk when the cold wind makes mascara run into my eyes and when sudden humidity brings an oh-so-attractive sheen to my upper lip. I walk because I’m still uncomfortable driving in the city (and because it’s absurdly expensive to park). I walk because I want the exercise. I walk for inspiration for this blog. I walk because I can.

I walk because that’s what I came here to do.

The Art of Walking was originally published in An Editor, A-Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

She stands in a neon-lit glass window wearing nothing but black pleather pasties and a g-string. She could be a mannequin in a lingerie shop on Hollywood Boulevard except that she’s animatedly talking on her cellphone instead of gazing at you with hooded eyes. And she isn’t white. And this isn’t Hollywood Boulevard. It’s the Red Light District in Antwerp, where you’re sort of on a date. You sneak furtive glances out of the corners of your eyes but spend an equal amount of time studying the sidewalks, which are completely devoid of trash.

Because here’s what was hard for my not-so-far-removed-from-Puritanical-times-American-brain to grasp: They want you to watch.

At the next storefront, two women in purple lace teddies sit on barstools next to each other, engrossed in conversation. In the same window but on the other side of a partition, a young blonde in CFM stilettos eats chow mein from a takeout container, idly flipping the pages of a magazine, her legs spread wide. In the next window, an older Asian woman lounges on a velvet settee, a whip by her side. Some of the women stare at passersby provocatively. Most pretend like we don’t exist. Your pace quickens unconsciously. A wave of confusion washes over you, intensified by the fact that you can actually check-in to the Red Light District on Facebook. What are you doing here? Are you site-seeing? Playing the part of the voyeur? Slumming it? Shopping?? All of the above???

Whatever I had expected when I heard the phrase “Red Light District,” it wasn’t this.

Antwerp was an afterthought. A one-night stop on our beer-fueled Belgium road trip. In June, the sun doesn’t set until just after 10 p.m. this far north in Europe, which means it’s not entirely dark until after 11 p.m. So it was only dusk when, hand in hand, we strolled through Flemish neighborhoods that were all but destroyed in World War II, a trusty Rick Steves guidebook firmly — but discreetly — tucked under my arm. Cheeky Mr. Steves warned about Antwerp’s somewhat-seedy yet well-regulated Red Light District. His walking tour provided routes for avoiding the three-block neighborhood, and he warned about entering it at night. But traveling makes me bold, and curiosity propelled us around stout metal poles adorned with red LED lights, the only clue that you’re entering the area. The concrete buildings here are benign, the gutters clean. There’s none of the customary graffiti or the dank smell of urine. You truly could be wandering through a pedestrian-only shopping district in suburban Southern California only with peep-show theaters and adult toy stores instead of H&M and Pottery Barn. I glanced over at Daniel, who looked a little queasy. It was the same look he got whenever I suggested visiting strip clubs in Vegas. Altruistically, I offered to go it alone, to which he adamantly refused.

Seeing mostly naked women selling their bodies like commodities behind picture windows is disconcerting. The fact that it was basically daylight outside made it downright uncomfortable, like being on a double date with friends who unabashedly make out in your backseat. You fiddle with the radio and try not to look, but you are still intrigued.

You know that they — the prostitutes and your friends — want you to watch. How you handle it says more about your character than theirs.

Equally as compelling are the handful of people wandering the wide streets. Locals walk home from work, their eyes deliberately trained on their phones. Couples hurry to dinner. The Red Light District isn’t located in some far-flung ghetto away from the city center: It’s actually in the middle of a seemingly middle-class neighborhood. As you’d expect, there’s the occasional group of young men meandering along, boisterous and loud. But they aren’t the ones who give you the heebie jeebies. It’s the quiet prowlers casting covert looks at the women in the windows who are in the neighborhood to do business. They are the ones who spark your imagination in a traffic-accident kind of way. Only once did I witness a man walk through a mirrored door and into a storefront. I didn’t watch to see if one of the women on display would leave her post. That felt too intimate.

We walked the Red Light District twice, once on our way to dinner and then on our way back to our Airbnb after indulging in mediocre burgers and (more) beer, when it was a bit darker. The scene was the same both times. So was my reaction. As a feminist who has long supported legalized, regulated prostitution, I felt both defiant and vindicated. As a woman, I felt a weird mixture of sadness, nervousness and triumph. As a wife, I felt embarrassed and maybe a little turned on. As a tourist, I felt audacious.

They want you to watch. What you do is up to you.

Date Night in the Red Light District was originally published in An Editor, A-Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I deplaned on a tarmac on an island that’s 21 miles long and 13 degrees north of the equator. Awkwardly juggling my luggage down the steep stairs, the first thing that struck me was the heavy air. It carried no scent of the sea. No scent of tropical flowers and fruits. No smell of rain. Instead it smelled of asphalt and jet fuel with the occasional whiff of Coppertone. Apparently some of my fellow passengers didn’t realize they’d arrive in Barbados after sunset.

We made our way through immigration, two pale faces in a sea of black and brown. The heavy thunk of the passport stamp always makes my heart feel full, as if I’m physically receiving the mark, not the flimsy book that still looks a little too new for my tastes.

We tried in vain to find restrooms. Instead, we found a taxi stand and a representative from our resort. A cab was hailed. Bajans (pronounced “bay-jins”), as the residents of Barbados are known, drive on the right side of the car and the right side of the road, a throwback to the days when Barbados was a British colony before it gained independence in 1966. We climbed into the backseat and were greeted by loud Christmas music. The Jackson 5 told us that Santa Claus was coming to town. The date was October 26.

Our driver gave us a vague answer when we asked about the weather. October is the wettest month in Barbados, and though we could see the moon and a smattering of stars, we still had visions of being cooped up in our hotel room for the next week. I watched the city of Bridgetown fly by outside my window. There were gas stations and a fast food chain called Chefette and more roundabouts than we have in Sedona. Then he made a sharp right and we were suddenly in a neighborhood, the bright lights and traffic of the main highway in the rearview mirror. Chefette gave way to chattel houses painted in bright colors with groups of young men hanging around outside. There were laundry on clotheslines and a few boarded up windows. I felt my guard go up. There was no sign of the beach, restaurants or a resort. I thought about the Barbadian cash in my wallet and my kitties back home as the streets became narrower and darker and the Christmas music continued.

I was already rattled. The flight from Miami to Bridgetown had been jarring, to say the least. “We’re expecting a smooth flight,” reported our captain as I settled into my seat and scrolled through the in-flight entertainment, daydreaming about ocean views and sailing lessons. Not 30 seconds later the plane hit a bump. And then another. The seatbelt light came on, and we were advised to take our seats. I took a deep breath. The turbulence got worse, and now the flight attendants were told to buckle up. I clutched my good-luck charm and muted my movie. The plane lurched and jerked and bounced. Another announcement: Make sure those seat belts are tight. I felt my face flush, and I grabbed Daniel’s hand. He gave mine a squeeze and continued watching “Baywatch,” unperturbed. And then the most serious announcement of all: “Ladies and gentlemen, please look at the people seated around you. If they are sleeping and not wearing their seat belt, please wake them up right away and tell them to fasten their seat belts.” I thought I was going to cry.

It went on like that for at least an hour. I had visions of plummeting into the Caribbean sea before I even had a chance to see those rumored crystal-clear waters. Then, as quickly as the turbulence began, the flight smoothed out, and the flight attendants resumed their rounds. I ordered a glass of wine and tried to finish my movie and still my beating heart.

Back in the cab, it occurred to me that I had survived the flight only to find myself in a taxi in a shady neighborhood on a tiny island at 10 p.m. on a Thursday in October with Christmas music blaring from the speakers. Of course this was how it was going to end.

It didn’t end, though. Another roundabout led to a pretty sign announcing the entrance to Hilton Barbados Resort. We opened the car doors and were greeted by the strangest, high-pitched, chirruping I’d ever heard. Our cab driver told us it was crickets. We thought we had misunderstood him and would ask several other people on the island over the course of a week about the strange song only to learn that it was, indeed, crickets.

That’s the thing about Barbados: It’s different. For weeks leading up to the trip, it hadn’t occurred to me that we were traveling to a foreign country. I didn’t fish out my pristine passport until the morning we left. In my mind, we were going to the Caribbean equivalent of Hawaii. But then we landed in what is almost a developing nation (with a literacy rate of 99.7 percent, mind you). Perhaps more than any place we’ve ever been, even Peru, we were aware that we were foreigners. Too white for the tropical sun that seared our skin red on the first day of vacation. Too casual for the resort bar where islanders wore colorful mini dresses, stilettos and slacks. Too worried about rain that never fell, despite the forecast that promised showers 24/7. Too paranoid for a simple cab ride. Too inexperienced to even recognize the sound of crickets.

But that’s what I love about traveling to a different country. That feeling of being onstage and a little bit out of your own skin. The feeling that at any moment there’s an equal chance that you’ll wander into the wrong neighborhood or the best restaurant you’ve ever experienced. The adventurous, dangerous, enticing, unknown, exhausting, exhilarating, exciting, eye-opening journey that promises only one thing: Priceless memories.

Just Go With It. You Probably Won’t Get Mugged. was originally published in An Editor, A-Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

At 1:30 a.m., you race down the stairs of the Bir-Hakeim metro station. The rubber souls of your Converse don’t make a sound. You don’t need to pause at the map — you know your way. The subway graffiti doesn’t catch your eye — you memorized it yesterday. You reach your platform, fingers crossed that you haven’t missed the last train. The digital sign tells you that it will arrive in 11 minutes. That’s when you realize you’re the only person waiting for the train. There isn’t a soul in sight. Suddenly your dress feels a little too short, your handbag a little too expensive, the latest terrorist attack a little too recent. You take a seat on a metal bench, distract yourself by practicing your French on the adverts on the opposite wall and wait. Eleven minutes feels like an eternity.

Isn’t this the situation they warned you about back home? Travel smart. Don’t get caught in dangerous situations. Be alert. You normally wouldn’t be alone, but the love of your life left for home 72 hours ago. Tears streamed down your face as you watched him pull his red suitcase across the courtyard of your Airbnb to his waiting Uber. He glanced over his shoulder and gave you a sad smile. He wanted you to be brave. You wanted to make him proud. But you swore you’d never be able to navigate the city alone, much less figure out the bustling, intimidating, metro system. There was no way you could find your way in this suddenly foreign city, the city of your dreams just a few days ago, without him holding your hand.You contemplated booking an early flight home and had visions of spending the week holed up in your appartement reading Mark Twain.

But you didn’t do that.

You did cry for 24 hours, mascara smudges under your eyes like some sad girl in a Lana Del Rey video. You walked the city streets in the rain. You ate in restaurants by yourself and ordered the wrong thing. Your heart ached at the sight of couples making out at the Luxembourg Gardens. Everything — posters of cats, girlfriends giggling over glasses of rosé, football matches on TV — reminded you of what was happening half a world away.

The next day you pulled your shit together and got on the metro because that’s what your heroines would do.

It was crowded with girls in messy ponytails, boys wearing headphones, couples arguing, immigrants pushing strollers and shifting shopping bags. And it was thrilling — like the first time you rode a roller coaster or your first day of college or signing the paperwork on your first house. You practiced nonchalance. You slouched your shoulders to fit in. You willed your expression into boredom when actually you were thrumming with adrenalin and confidence and self-reliance and grit. You aren’t used to this feeling — you have to fight for it. You suddenly think about sixth-grade summer camp. You didn’t go. And more often than not, slumber parties happened at your house, within your control. New isn’t really you. Neither is brave. Or uncomfortable. Or alone.

But against all odds, you’ve got this. In fact, you’re good at this.

Five days later, you sit on the edge of that bench and watch the clock count down from 11 minutes to 10 and then nine and then eight and then lucky number seven. You hear trains coming and going on other platforms. You watch the stairs out of the corner of your eye. You look around for abandoned backpacks. You tug at the hem of the too-short dress that seemed like a good idea when the chic saleswoman talked you into it. You count backwards and realize it’s 4:30 p.m. at home. The love of your life is still at work, and the sun is shining outside his office. One of your friends is starting her bartending shift. Another is ending her day teaching summer school. Another is bringing in her horses for the afternoon. The cats are probably sleeping near the air-conditioning vent. And you’re waiting for the last train. In Paris. Alone. Alive. At last.

The train pulls into the station two minutes early.

I Never Attended Summer Camp, But I Can Ride the Metro was originally published in An Editor, A-Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The water off the southwest coast of Barbados is a variegated shade of turquoise that changes according to the position of the sun, the tide and the clouds in the sky. Even after the recent devastating hurricanes in the Caribbean (none of which hit Barbados), it’s still the clearest water I’ve ever seen, and it’s invitingly, lovingly, warm. Like a bath at the end of a stressful day, it embraces you. When you look over the side of a boat, you can see small silver fish glinting in the sunlight. When you stand knee deep in the ocean, you can watch the sand and shells swirl around your feet.

And about that sand. I’m convinced it’s not sand but rather something that belongs in the baking aisle at the grocery store. It’s the color of raw sugar and the consistency of brown sugar. When you sit on your lounge chair — because almost all of the beaches in Barbados boast lounge chairs and umbrellas for rent — and stare at that hypnotic ocean, you can’t help but sift the sugary coolness through your toes. In some spots, watercress-like sprouts that grow along the shoreline. The sand is comprised of bits of coral, which, for reasons I don’t understand, means that it doesn’t get hot, not even at midday 13 degrees north of the equator. You aren’t going to burn the soles of your feet when you make a mad dash to the beach bar for a refill on your rum punch. Just watch out for the rather large sand-colored crabs that dart back and forth from one hidey-hole to the next.

There’s something else about the beaches in Barbados: They are all public. That beach in front of your pricey resort? Not private. This means that anyone can approach you while you’re in the midst of island bliss and try to sell you their services or wares. And trust me, approach they will. Here’s a snapshot of what we were offered during four hours on the beach.

Bird feeders carved from coconut shells. (“Not made in China — I promise.”)

Half of an aloe vera leaf. (“It will make that sunburn into a tan.”)

Bracelets made from semiprecious stones and chord. (I’ll admit, we bought a couple of those.)

A ride on someone’s personal jet ski.

A coconut shell filled with a rum cocktail made with ingredient’s from the salesman’s cooler. (“This is how you spend your time on the beach.”)

Cocaine. (“You’re into a little sniff sniff, no?”)

Marijuana. (“Don’t worry, mon. It’s legal.” Note: It’s not.)

Our picture taken with a leashed green monkey named Socks. (“Don’t worry, mon. He won’t bite.”)

A full aloe vera leaf. (“You both looking a little red.” We should have listened to him and bought the leaf.)

A pedicure. (Or at least I think he was offering a pedicure… “Hey pretty lady! You want your feet done?”)

A massage. (??)

The Russian women next to us fled for the waves every time a solicitor approached, but we actually had fun talking to them. The bracelet man recommended a great restaurant where locals hang out on Friday nights. The weed man’s assertion that marijuana is legal in Barbados led to a very interesting follow-up conversation with a taxi driver, who informed us that it’s frequently undercover cops selling weed on the beaches. And the heartbreaking site of the monkey on the leash prompted us to talk to a local conservationist about the plight of the maligned primate.

You never know what you’re going to discover when someone thinks you like a little sniff sniff.

Cocaine and Coconuts: The Beaches of Barbados was originally published in An Editor, A-Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

First, a preface.

I can’t sing. Period. I remember auditioning for a musical production of Alice in Wonderland in the sixth grade (before I realized my vocal limitations) because I thought that my long blonde hair made me a shoo-in for the role of Alice. I got two lines into Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star before the director kindly told me she’d heard enough. I was cast as an iris. My sole line: “What kind of flower are you?”

My freshman year of high school, I was forced into a women’s ensemble choir class after I dropped out of yearbook(long story). When the teacher called me into his studio and asked me to sing in order to figure out my range, he visibly cringed when I attempted an ascending scale. He quickly labeled me a second soprano, most likely because there wasn’t a section in the choir for girls who thought notes were something that you passed, not something that you held. I avoided his gaze for the rest of the year.

The standing joke between my friends and I is that there isn’t enough alcohol in the world to get me to sing karaoke.

But in Sun Studio, I sang my heart out. In front of an audience. All because of Elvis.

The day started with a trip to Graceland. It was one of those sites that I’d always wanted to see but never thought I’d experience, mostly because red-state Tennessee has never been at the top of my travel list. But I digress. There we were, peering past a velvet rope at Elvis and Priscilla’s wedding china in the dining room. Gazing into the living room that vaguely smelled like talcum powder and mothballs. Gawking at green shag carpeting in the jungle room and sequined pant suits on the racquet ball court. Getting emotional in front of the piano Elvis played the morning he died and then shedding actual tears in front of his grave with its flickering eternal flame. Elvis died on my dad’s birthday the year that I was born. I’ve always had a crush on the King.

That afternoon, we made our way to Sun Studio in downtown Memphis. In my mind’s eye, a beacon of light shone down from heaven on its hallowed walls. In reality, we’d driven by it the night before and hadn’t even realized it. The “birthplace of rock ’n’roll” is located in a brick flatiron-style building on a busy street not far from the banks of the Mississippi River, and it’s relatively nondescript save for the giant guitar outside. The iconic yellow logo is painted on the side of the building, and at the sight of it, my pulse began to race like I was getting ready to ride a roller coaster. When we stepped inside the crowded lobby/soda fountain, I couldn’t stop grinning. There was a massive photo of Elvis, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis hanging above the soda fountain, and on the back wall I found memorabilia from U2’s time at Sun Studio where they recorded tracks for Rattle and Hum in 1988. I was giddy before the tour even began.

Our guide was a lively 20-something who gave us the studio’s history, led us through a tiny museum and told us the story of Sun Studio’s founder, Sam Phillips. The culmination of the tour was the actual studio itself, something I wasn’t expecting. I thought we might get to look through a window and into the recording room, but instead we crept downstairs and were suddenly inside in the tiny space. For a music geek, to be standing on Sun Studio’s concrete floor and breathing the same air that some of my legends breathed was almost too much to bear. The walls are white and adorned with large black-and-white photos of some of Sun’s most illustrious clients (including my Irish lads). There’s wood storage cabinets and a window covered in metal mini blinds. The ceiling is adorned with white 12-by-12 tiles with holes drilled into them. Truthfully, it’s a bit bland. But the atmosphere in the room pulsates with an electricity, history and emotion that’s palpable. The air is thick, dense with all of the music that’s been created there. It’s as if the notes and lyrics are still hanging in the air, the billions of chords clashing into one another to create one cacophonous symphony. If you’re still enough, you can hear it.

Our tour group spread out as best as possible, and our guide brought our attention to strips of duct tape on the floor. “That’s where Scotty Moore played guitar on Elvis’ first Sun Studio single, That’s All Right, in 1954,” she said, gesturing to one piece of tape. “Can you give us your best air guitar?” she asked the poor man standing on the tape. He blushed and half-assed a guitar solo. She pointed to another spot on the floor and informed us that was where Bill Black had played bass. “Give us your best bass line!” she urged the man standing there. He put a bit more effort into it than the first victim.

With some flourish, the perky guide grabbed a rectangular Shure microphone on a metal stand and said, “And this, my friends is the microphone Elvis used to record That’s All Right while he was standing…right…there.” Dramatically, she pointed to a red X on the concrete floor.

A red X directly below my feet.

She smiled a I’ve-won-karaoke-competitions-and-played-Alice-on-Broadway smile, handed me the microphone and said, “Give us your best Elvis impression,” just as That’s All Right begin to play through the speakers in the studio. My husband’s eyes met mine, and he visibly blanched. He could sense my terror. I felt the blood rush to my head, and I looked at the group in front of me, their cameraphones at the ready, their eyes showing no mercy. All of a sudden, I watched my hand reach out of it own volition and accept the microphone. Hubby’s jaw dropped. I pulled the mic close to my mouth, shut my eyes and began to belt out the lyrics to That’s All Right. At one point, I opened my eyes to see the crowd — including my shell-shocked husband — snapping pictures. I quickly closed them again and gave the performance my all. There might even have been some swiveling hips involved. I can’t be certain.

All I knew was that I was singing with Elvis Presley’s microphone in motherf*^%ing Sun Studio.

The song ended, and the tour guide said, “Well folks, that might be the best Elvis impersonation we’ve ever seen.” I got a round of applause. Yes, I’m sure she uses that line on everyone — I’ve known a tour guide or two in my life. And yes, I gave her an extra large tip for that little ego boost. But whether she wanted to ask me to quit after the first two lines of the song or she actually was entertained by the woman with the pink cheeks and skeleton scarf, it didn’t matter to me because I can actually say that I’ve performed in Sun Studio. Later, my husband and I would joke that Elvis must have stepped into my body while I was standing on that red x. Or perhaps he followed us to Sun Studio from Graceland. Those are honestly more logical explanations than my getting over my singing phobia, even for 60 seconds.

All Shook Up at Sun Studio was originally published in An Editor, A-Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Mexican Hat. Say those two words to either Daniel or me, and we will look at each other with a knowing smile. More than 10 years later, the town had taken on legendary status in the Finch-McCaffrey household. The Master Lock on the door of our hotel room, the Charlton Heston proclamation and those darn beans never fail to incite a burst of giggles.

So it was with plenty of humor that we drove into Mexican Hat in 2010 for the second time in our lives. We were on assignment with my boss in Monument Valley. We told her that we absolutely had to drive 30 minutes north of Monument Valley to Mexican Hat to see if our lodge and its infamous restaurant still existed. When we entered the town, it was obvious that nothing had changed. The upside down sombrero-shaped rock formation that inspired the town’s settlers to give it the moniker “Mexican Hat” still stood proud. The San Juan River flowed. And the Mexican Hat Lodge and Swinging Steak restaurant were right where we left them. Daniel and I roared with laughter when we drove up the lodge but then grew quiet when it appeared the place was deserted.

In fact, the whole town seemed deserted for a Friday night in November. The nearby motel parking lots were empty. The only person at the Stop-N-Go was a bored looking sheriff’s deputy in an SUV. Intrigued, we parked and began to wander around the lodge. The field that had served as our view 10 years ago was still barren. There was a pool filled with stagnant water that I hadn’t remembered. We tried to peek into the lobby and spot the Charlton Heston poster, but it was too dark inside. On a whim, we wandered through the Swinging Steak’s outdoor kitchen, though it was obvious there would be no steaks on a swing that night. That’s when we saw her.

A tiny, fuzzy kitten with a bowlegged trot came right up to us, and my heart melted. It had been less than two months since we lost our precious Talula, and I’d had cats on the brain. The little creature didn’t meow, but she was purring instantly when she saw us. Despite the threat of fleas and god knows what else, I scooped her up, and it was love at first sight. Her long gray-and-brown fur felt cottony, and she was covered in beautiful black stripes. Tufts of fur sprouted from her ears, reminding me of a bobcat. She had two sets of fangs, a distended belly and a knowing look in her green eyes. It was easy to see that she was young in years but an old soul at heart.

As I’m cuddling the little ball of fluff, a woman comes out (not Evon for those of you who read the first Mexican Hat story) and explains that the restaurant and lodge are closed for the season. We’re disappointed — we were looking forward to sharing some beans with the boss. Then the woman looked at me holding the kitty.

“You can take the cat,” she said. “Someone dropped her off, and we can’t have another cat around here.”

My heart felt like it was being squeezed by a vise. I thought of Stormer, at home and alone. I thought of the pain of losing Talula, the look in her eyes as her soul left her sick and broken body, and the bite mark she left on my index finger that had finally healed. We weren’t ready for another cat. We were staying in hotels in Monument Valley for three nights. We had a four-hour drive back to Sedona in my boss’s car, and she is allergic to cats. I reluctantly put her back on the ground when my boss, who’s not a cat lover, said, “I’ll come back for the cat if you really want her.”

For the rest of the weekend, those words echoed in my ears. I thought about the kitty while we were horseback riding with a Native American guide between Monument Valley’s towering sandstone monoliths. I thought about those double fangs while we ate fried chicken at Goulding’s Lodge. I thought about those bobcat ears while we hiked the Wildcat Trail at sunrise and while the Navajo flutist played a song for us under the stars in front of a roaring campfire. My head told me there was no way we could go back for her. We didn’t know what sort of diseases she might have, and we certainly couldn’t expose diabetic Stormer to anything. We weren’t set up for a kitten. We didn’t have money for more vet bills. And yet my heart called out for her. How could we leave her to her fate in godawful Mexican Hat? How could we ignore such an obvious sign: We’d talked about the town for years and, shortly after losing Talula, we find a cat at the very same lodge of lore? What would happen to her in the winter months? How long before she became pregnant or food for a coyote or target practice for the Charlton Heston fan club? And most importantly, hadn’t she already chosen us?

I still hadn’t made a decision when we were getting ready to return to Sedona on Monday morning. Daniel was clearly struggling with the same issue. I decided to take a walk around the hotel before we left. When I returned to the room, we both looked at each other and said what the other one was thinking: We have to go back for the cat. Only by this point she had a name: Gloria. My boss agreed to drive back to Mexican Hat, and I had butterflies in my stomach. Were we doing the right thing? Would Stormer be okay? Would the kitten destroy my boss’s car on the ride home? We agreed that we wouldn’t hunt for Gloria. If she came up to us, we would take her home. Otherwise, we would leave without her. Part of me hoped we wouldn’t find her, but in my heart, I knew she was waiting for us.

When we got to the lodge, there was no sign of cat or human. I walked into the Swinging Steak and called out, “Kitty, kitty!” That was all it took. Gloria came trotting up to us, purring just as loudly as before. I swept her up, looked closely into those green eyes and knew she was ours. A man came out of the lobby/living room and talked to us briefly. He said that Gloria had been around other cats and that she’d been sleeping in the outdoor oven. “She’s not going to have a very good life once we open for the season,” he said. “We can’t have a cat around here.”

So that settled it. Gloria sat on Daniel’s lap in the backseat the entire drive back to Sedona. She didn’t make a peep. We stopped in Flagstaff for kitten food and supplies. She seemed to know we were shopping for her, so she dozed with her eyes half closed, something she continues to do today. I’d never seen a cat so well behaved in a car. And she was even better at home. She instantly made the extra bedroom her own. She didn’t cry to come out, didn’t have an accident on the floor and didn’t complain about the food. A few days later, she received a clean bill of health from our vet, who thought Gloria was about 5 months old, and so we introduced her to Stormer. They were fast friends, and Gloria spent days sleeping on our bed next to him. We knew she was too young to spend all of her time napping with the old man, so we decided to find her a companion closer to her own age. A week later, we paid a visit to the Humane Society of Sedona, and sweet little noodley Eleanor Rigby became Gloria’s adopted sister. Gloria continues to take the role very seriously.

My BFF, who quickly dubbed Gloria “Bobcat,” said Talula sent Gloria to us, and I think she’s right. Watching Gloria and Eleanor tear around the house those first few months, climbing the Christmas tree and making nice with Stormer, was pure joy. I loved looking at the world through their wondering kitten eyes. Sometimes, when I watched at them, I missed Talula even more, and I would get a lump in my throat when I thought about saying goodbye. It’s inevitable, but aren’t we blessed with the time we get to share with our fur babies? Aren’t we blessed with all they teach us? Nap frequently. Everything is a toy. Be brave — taste it. Fart when you feel like it. Survey your domain from the highest vantage point possible. Sleep in the lap of a stranger. If you spy a dish of water, drink it. If someone leaves out the butter, lick it. Cheese is yummy. Tear up the newspaper. Growl from the front window when you spot a dog. Bite when necessary. Play in the toilet. Bathe your friends.

We didn’t rescue Gloria and Eleanor — they rescued us. And for that reason, I’ll always have a soft spot in my heart for Mexican Hat. The legend continues.

Return to Mexican Hat: Gloria’s Story was originally published in An Editor, A-Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Somewhere 30,000 feet above Texas, Tori Amos sang “Gold Dust” in my ear.

The song had never meant much to me before, but as we headed toward Miami and ultimately Key Largo, I began to cry. I wore a locket with Talula’s picture in it, and I grasped it in my hand like the gold dust in the song. It would be months before I could listen to Tori Amos sing “Talula.” That’s what happens when you name your animals after songs.

The last two months had been the hardest of my life. I wasn’t prepared for that. It started innocently enough with flowers on the fireplace. Then there was persistent crying outside the shower. Weight loss and vomiting. There was the vet visit and the diagnosis: extreme kidney failure. That was followed by two weeks of intravenous fluids using a needle so big that it made me feel faint. It took two people to administer those fluids, and we had to do it daily. I still remember the pop of the needle as it penetrated the scruff of her neck. There were Maalox doses that made her foam at the mouth and get sticky spittle in her beautiful blonde fur. There was the night that we had to leave the house because we couldn’t stand the sadness and because she wouldn’t come out from underneath the bed. Then there was our last night together when her frail, emaciated, broken body lay on top of mine. I didn’t turn over once. In the morning, we looked at each other, then she sat in the window and refused to look at me again. Her green eyes were cloudy. She gazed at the ground underneath the juniper tree like she could see something I couldn’t. I called the vet, and then I called Daniel. I couldn’t tell him through the sobs, couldn’t make my words understood: It’s time. He came home, and the three of us made the 25-minute drive to the vet. Only two of us returned home.

The trip to Key Largo was already booked when she got sick. The morning we drove to the airport and left her brother all alone in the house, I thought my heart was going to burst. I had lost people I loved, but up until this point, nothing compared to the pain of losing Talula. It felt silly sometimes. I had a hard time talking about it. Talula wasn’t a person. She wasn’t very loving cat, either. But I had never lost anyone who I had spent every single day with. I had never lost anyone who depended on me. Who woke me on weekend mornings to brush her fur in a very specific sunny spot in the dining room. Who patiently waited for me to finish my cereal so she could daintily dip her paws into the milk and lick them clean. Who would slink into the kitchen when I made turkey sandwiches because sliced turkey from the deli was her weakness.

I had never lost someone and felt like it was my fault.

So I put on a brave face and remembered how badly I had wanted to visit Florida when I was in the sixth grade and obsessed with all things flamingo. I pictured us sipping fruity cocktails on the beach and swimming in the warm Gulf waters. I tried to not think about Stormer at home by himself for the first time in his life.

And then I lost it over Texas.

This is what I remember from that trip. Our first night in Miami, we made our way to South Beach, determined to have fun. Just about every restaurant on the beach advertised BOGO drinks. I ordered the champagne mojito, two of my favorite things on Earth. It arrived in a glass the size of a fishbowl. We gawked at the girls who walked past our table wearing gold-lame G-strings and triangle bikini tops and high heels, clearly on their way out for the night. By the time my free drink arrived, I was drunk texting my girlfriends and god only knows who else. After dinner, we wandered down to the beach, where I promptly puked in the sand. Daniel half carried me to the car where I curled up on the floorboard, dizzy and clutching Talula’s locket. Back in the hotel, I curled up on the bathroom floor and prayed for death. Daniel had to text my aforementioned girlfriends to tell them that I was safe.

I woke up the next morning feeling stupid and embarrassed and with a massive headache. It seemed to set the tone for the entire trip. The traffic from Miami to Key Largo was worse than rush hour on the 405. We drove past crocodile crossing signs. We arrived at our resort only to discover that it had seen better days. The following morning, we drove 100 miles on US-1 down to Key West, blasting The Beach Boys “Kokomo,” only to find humidity so intense that all we could do was rent a scooter and drive around the island, desperate for the breeze... in October. I ate my first oyster and thought it tasted like snot. We wandered past a clothing-optional bar. On the drive back to Key Largo, we discovered that the gas stations in the Keys shut off their pumps at 10 p.m. We didn’t realize this until we tried several, which resulted in our credit card being frozen. We got back to the hotel on a wing and a prayer. The following day, the remnants of Hurricane Paula hit, and we spent the day in our hotel room, playing Scrabble. Daniel hates Scrabble.

On day two of the storm, we took a glass-bottom boat tour, but the water was so cloudy from the hurricane that we couldn’t see anything. Based on a recommendation from friends, we drove to Islamorada to feed the tarpon. I wore the same scarf I wore the day Talula died, only this time it was around my head to tame my hair in the humidity. A woman feeding the tarpon next to us got too close, and a toothy fish attached to her hand all the way up to her forearm. When it let go, her hand was bloody, and she was white as a ghost and shaking. We made a hasty retreat and spent the rest of the afternoon in Starbucks.

The day we left, the sun came out, and we had one hour on the beach. Our five days in paradise were reduced to one hell of a hangover and one hour of putting our toes in the sand. And it was a perfect hour. We took silly selfies at the closed tiki bar before selfies were even a thing. We watched fish swim in crystal-clear water. And in that hour I found a way to make peace with my grief. I tucked Talula into a corner of my heart where she’ll always be near.

When someone asks me about the Florida Keys, I tell them to go to Hawaii. And I think of Talula.

We adopted Talula on September 9, 1997. She passed away on September 9, 2010. She hated men and matted fur. She loved lesbians and lunchmeat. She’s part of our story. I still miss her.

Grief in the Gulf was originally published in An Editor, A-Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Mexican Hat, Utah. If you sneeze as you are driving through it, you will miss it. For that matter, if you sneeze while trying to locate it on a map, you will miss it. They say that Barstow is the armpit of California and, if that is true, then Mexican Hat must be the butt crack of Utah. Why I ever thought it would be fun to spend the night in such a place is beyond me. The year was 2000, and I was trying to break up the drive from Moab to the Grand Canyon. Mexican Hat, on the banks of the San Juan River, fell halfway in between. Besides, as I made the reservation I reasoned, how could I pass up a town with such a curious name?

We stumbled upon Mexican Hat’s namesake just north of the town limits: an oddly shaped, rather small, rock formation jutting up from the surrounding red cliffs. Apparently the founders of Mexican Hat thought the protrusion looked like an up-side-down sombrero, but they decided to be clever and call their settlement Mexican Hat instead (either that or they weren’t too keen on the idea of their town having a Spanish name, as evidenced by the high concentration of pure bred white folk residing in Mexican Hat).

Daniel and I made our way carefully to our motel — one of only three motels in the entire town. Lucky for us, ours was in the center of town, right across the highway from the hustle and bustle and pulsating nightlife of the Stop-N-Go. Wondering what we had gotten ourselves into, we walked into the motel lobby, which obviously also served as the owner’s living room. The carcasses of stuffed animals stared at us from wood-paneled walls, their glass eyes begging us to release them from taxidermy hell.

A craggy old woman came out from the back room and took all of our information. Evon was her name, which I remembered from making my reservation a few months earlier. When I had asked for a confirmation number for my room, she had snorted and claimed her name was confirmation enough.

Behind Evon was a large framed sign that proudly boasted: “Charlton Heston is My President.” A chill went up my spine as I thought of the unfortunate animals whose eyes I could still feel boring into my back. At the same time, I had to suppress my laughter. Who were these people? Charlton Heston? At this time, Clinton was serving his second term in office, and I could only imagine how much that pissed off Evon.

She handed us our room key as Daniel tentatively inquired about a place to eat in town, obviously contemplating a dinner of Snickers and Snapple from the Stop-N-Go. She informed us that she ran a little restaurant outside on the patio that opened “about the time it gets dark.” She warned us health-conscious Californians that they only served beef. Daniel was getting into the act now, and he felt the need to inquire whether or not it was “local beef.” She looked at us as if we had just asked about the religion of Brigham Young. “It’s all local,” she barked and with that bit of knowledge, we made our way to our room.

We found it on the second floor of the motel complete with a lovely view of a dirt field and a broken-down swing set. The first thing we noticed was that there was no door to our room, just a sliding glass window… that was unlocked. We opened the window apprehensively, wondering if housekeeping was still in the room. That’s when we noticed that the slider locked with a Master Lock. I remembered a commercial boasting that you could not even shoot a bullet through a Master Lock, and I decided that Evon’s president was surely proud.

Admittedly, the room was clean, even if it hadn’t been redecorated since 1973. (I was especially fond of the swinging lamp above the bed with its plastic cord and burnt-orange lampshade.) ‘Round about time the sun started to set, we made our way down the backstairs to the patio where a large barbecue was already cooking massive slabs of beef. (No vegetarians in Mexican Hat, I would bet on that.) Served on tin plates, we were fed a small salad, a huge helping of pinto beans, a roll and about a quarter of a cow each. All of this was served by a young man who looked as if he had just finished touring with Willie Nelson, complete with the oversized cowboy hat, Wranglers three sizes too tight and boots that were made out of some sort of endangered species. Daniel was enjoying the atmosphere entirely too much, and he felt the need to call Willie Nelson’s roadie over to our table to request another helping of the “wonderful beans.” This tickled the cowboy as if the beans were his own personal recipe (which they very well could have been). “Sure, Buddy! I’ll bring you some more beans,” he exclaimed, much to my dismay, being the woman who had to sleep with Daniel that night.

After running across the street to check out the scene at the Stop-N-Go and buy some ice cream, Daniel and I decided to call it a night, and we headed back to our room to watch one of five channels that came in on our mini T.V. Fearful of being fed another cow for breakfast, we snuck out of Mexican Hat early the next morning, leaving the key in a box outside Evon’s living room/lobby. Hopefully we didn’t wake up the neighbors with our laughter as we drove out of town because unbeknownst to us, this would not be our last experience with Mexican Hat… To be continued.

Mexican Hat: Beantown, USA was originally published in An Editor, A-Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

There we were: Venice, Italy. Like a soap opera flashback, a dreamy haze surrounded the Grand Canal. Striped gondoliers wearing straw hats navigated under arched bridges teeming with pedestrians. The entire city seemed soft and blurred around the edges; like last night’s dream, I wanted to remember it, but it was always just out of reach, even while we were in it. We got delightfully lost down every narrow, cobblestone alley in the evening rain. Shop keepers hustled ornate masks and sparkling jewelry made from Murano glass to hoards (and hoards) of tourists who had arrived via cruise ship, lanyards dangling from their necks. There were lines to enter Basilica San Marco and lines to take the elevator to the top of the Campanile and lines to purchase scoops of pistachio gelato. But there was no line to enter Harry’s Bar.

I’d read about Harry’s long before we took the train from Florence to Venice. It was a favorite haunt of Ernest Hemingway (he mentions it in Over the River and Into the Trees) and Orson Welles. I’m a writer, so naturally I’m obsessed with all things Hemingway, cliche be damned. The idea of possibly sitting in the same booth as the writer of all writers made my right hand itch to grab a pen and write about war or boxing or Paris. The bar is remarkably nondescript. It sits at the edge of the Grand Canal, its entrance a simple frosted glass door etched with its moniker. Most of the cruise ship crowd walks right past it. We ducked inside and the hustle and bustle of the street gave way to cool quiet. A tuxedo-clad waiter led us to a table with an excellent view of the small but elegant room furnished with wood tables. A note on the menu kindly asked patrons to refrain from photography, a disappointment for sure but obviously a way to protect the bar’s storied clientele. (Side note: Would Hemingway have posed for a selfie? Methinks not.)

Due to my meticulous research for this trip (read: over planning), I didn’t need to crack the menu to know what I was going to order: a Bellini. Harry’s was reportedly the place where the Bellini — a cocktail of Prosecco and peach puree — had been invented (another reason that it was high on top of my list of Venetian sites). Nonetheless, I glanced through the cocktail list and felt my breath catch in my throat at the sight of the prices. The Bellini was 16.50 euros, which was approximately $25 back in 2012. Before I had a chance to alert my traveling companion, a man who hasn’t looked at a price tag since we got married and I took over the finances, our waiter approached. Determined to suck it up and not lose my cool, I ordered my Bellini, expecting Mr. Moneybags would do the same. Instead, he requested a single-barrel Scotch that wasn’t even on the menu. By this point on our trip, we’d visited Paris, Rome and Florence. In my mind’s eye, I began tallying up the trip to Hermes in Paris, the wine-fueled dinners in Rome, the leather jacket, gloves and satchel we’d purchased in Florence, and the colorful glass carafe and matching tumblers that we couldn’t live without, which was currently being shipped back to Arizona from the island of Murano. I’d be paying off this trip for many moons. But Moneybags had been battling a nasty head cold since we left Rome, and I didn’t have the heart to tell him that his Scotch probably cost as much as a night at our hotel. It’s funny how tiny details like credit card limits are forgotten when one is traveling (and trying to be cool).

Suddenly the door opened and a couple entered the bar, sans lanyard but obviously American just by the volume of their voices. They were pushing a massive stroller. The young woman wore a sundress and her partner was decked out in shorts and a T-shirt. Without waiting for the host to lead them to a table, they clumsily maneuvered the stroller across the dining room and chose the table next to ours. Our waiter hurried over and began to explain to the couple that Harry’s Bar has a strict dress code, even during the day: Absolutely no shorts allowed. The man began to protest. Loudly. Arrogantly. Indignantly. Then he proceeded to make a point of pulling out a pair of pants from the backpack strapped to the stroller and pulling them on over his shorts in front of the entire bar. The waiter was nonplussed. If you ever wonder why Americans have a bad reputation, just travel abroad once or twice, and you’ll get the picture.

The couple finished their drinks before we did, and I watched as they freaked out over their bill while my partner calmly sipped his Scotch like a gentleman from another era, oblivious to the meltdown happening next to us. When our bill was delivered, I quickly excused myself and headed upstairs to the restroom — let the gentleman pay, I thought. When I came back downstairs, I noticed that he was pale, and it wasn’t due to his head cold. Wordlessly, he showed me the bill: 51.50 euros or $77 for two drinks. We looked at each other…and burst out laughing. It’s moments like this that tell you what kind of a traveler you (and your companion) are. Do you burst into tears? Let it ruin the rest of your trip? Skip dinner to save some money? Nope. Instead, I carefully folded the receipt so as not to wrinkle it and then gave it a prominent place in my scrapbook when I got home. Harry’s Bar has become the butt of many a joke between me and Moneybags, but I’ve never had a Bellini that’s tasted quite the same.

Harry’s Bar: A Lesson on Cocktails and Dress Codes in Venice, Italy was originally published in An Editor, A-Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.