things

Year in Review – The Best Post of 2023

It has been another year around the sun, and it is time to look back and reflect on those moments that made this year great. It has been nice to know that the recent lockdowns brought on by the pandemic are behind us, and the world has opened up again. This means that travel is back, and many people took advantage of this fact to get out there and see many places on their bucket lists. I was no different. I was in eight different countries last year, three of which I have never been in before. During that time, I was able to tell you all about my experiences in this blog, and what follows are the posts from last year that connect with you the most.

10. Reverend’s Ridge Campground – Golden Gate State Park, Colorado

Every year my siblings get together during the summer to go camping some place in the Colorado mountains. It has always been one of my favorite trips of the year because I get to visit with my family in one of my favorite places in the world, the Rocky Mountains. Usually, we get site at the state park close to Golden, Colorado, and spend our time hiking, cooking, and hanging around a campfire. It is a great place to visit if you find yourself in Colorado during the summer, and one I would recommend looking into.

9. The Old Quarter – Hanoi, Vietnam

It had been a few years since I had made it to Vietnam, and the last time I was out there, they were still putting in place the infrastructure to turn it into the tourist destination it has become today. Even before this, the Old Quarter in the heart of one of its greatest cities, Hanoi, held a fond memory in my mind. It is the place where all of the Vietnamese people converge to enjoy a night out. It has amazing food, jazz can be heard playing on the street corners, and there are tons of shops to find that perfect souvenir. I didn’t think it was possible, but it had become even busier than the first time I had gone out and visited, but still was worth the effort to make it back to.

8. The Isle of Skye – Scotland

There were many highlights from my trip to Scotland, but the one that stood out the most had to be the Isle of Skye. We arrived by ferry, and left by bridge, but spent the whole time exploring every nook and cranny that this island had to offer. Some of the best hikes in the country can be found here with views of mountains, rock formations, and the ocean that stretches out beyond. I was lucky enough to be out there during the off-season, but even then, we had to plan ahead to make sure we got reservations at restaurants, but still there were many times where it felt like we had the island to ourselves. It is one of those places that I know I will come back to visit again some day, and it holds some of the fondest memories from the year for me.

7. Things

This was one of two poems I posted this year that made the list. It had been one of my favorite ones that I have written because it highlights one of the biggest reasons why I started this blog in the first place. I wanted to share those memories with people out there, and inspire them to go out and collect some of their own.

6. The Turning of the Page

This was the first post I added this last year, and the second sonnet to appear on this list. It reflects on the time that I spent last holiday season in Oman, and like many poems I write at the end of the year and the start of a new one, it had me thinking about where my life had taken me. I know that nothing really changes on New Year’s Day, but it still is a nice time to take reflection of our lives, and think about where the next step in them will take. It is the reason you see so many posts like this one at the end of the year.

5. Arthur’s Seat – Edinburgh, Scotland

Edinburgh is easily one of my favorite large cities in the world. It is so atmospheric, and it reminds me of walking into a Charles Dickens’s story. One of the spots that I enjoyed the most stood at the edge of town. At this spot, a big hill, or small mountain, (depending on your perspective) beckons for you to hike to its top. Of course, I had to heed that call with a bunch of other people on one of the coldest days I experienced while out there. They call it Arthur’s Seat even though it has no connection to this legendary king. It is still worth the effort to see the view from the top.

4. Betrayal at House on the Hill – A Review

Like a lot of people, during the Covid years, I got back into board gaming. It was something that I enjoyed a lot during my youth, and now that there are a bunch of games being created with adults like me in mind, it was the perfect time to get back into the hobby. Since then, I have spent some time with the games I have been adding to my collection by writing reviews about them. This year, I wrote about a classic light role playing game, Betrayal at House on the Hill. This wasn’t going to make the list this year, but right around Christmas time, it got a surge of hits as people started to wonder if this was a good gift or not. I just hope my review was helpful to them in deciding whether or not it was.

3. Ma’in Hot Spa – Jordan

Though many of my travel posts come from other countries that I live near, I still do some traveling in the country I live in. I discovered a hidden spot this past year that has easily become one of my favorite in Jordan. It is not as dramatic as Petra, or Wadi Rum. It is not as touristy as the Dead Sea, or Aqaba. It is not as historic as Jerash, or Amman. But it is the place that many of the people of Jordan go to in order to unwind. Hidden in the mountains near the Dead Sea is a hot spring call Ma’in that I have found is the perfect place to unwind.

2. A Quick Tuk Tuk Ride – Chennai, India

I travelled with my school’s track and field team to compete in a meet in Chennai, India this last year. It was a really busy trip, and I spent most of my time going back and forth between the school and the hotel with the team. I did have a short amount of time where I was able to get away to do some shopping for my wife for Valentine’s Day, and got to ride in a tuk tuk to get that shopping done. It was not the most unique experience of my life time, but it did make me reminiscent of my time spent living in Thailand.

1. Denver International Airport – It is still weird

It always surprises me what becomes the most popular post of the year. I usually think it would have to do with the ones I spend a lot of time on, and have deep philosophical things that I contemplate on. And then there are ones like this one where I got stuck waiting in Denver International Airport while waiting for the late arrival of my wife’s plane. I used to work at this airport, and it is currently undergoing a renovation, but it still has retained its weird nature. This post talked about how proud I am of my hometown as it retains its strangeness in this iconic airport.

There are those that search for a great, big home
Filled with bookcases, shelves, and cabinets
Where they can catalogue every tome,
Memento, and knickknack they went to get.
They will huddle down in a tattered chair
Gazing out upon their great collection,
Bragging about how no cupboard is bare,
And about the choice of each selection.
As night creeps on, they will look at their things,
And wonder what stories they have to tell.
Is there importance in toys, clothes, and rings?
Why be entranced by the powerless spell?
To obtain a life that will really please
The best things to collect are memories.

Things

I am already thinking about winter. It was one of the chores that I knew I had to do while I was in the United States because I knew that the clothes I had shipped to Jordan from Thailand would only be appropriate during the first couple of months out there, and then I would need some long sleeves, pants, and hats. I had some of that stuff in Thailand because my thought was we would travel to cooler places to get away from the tropical heat, but then, Covid. So I do have a weeks worth of clothes that will allow me survive in those conditions, and they are not for the really cold temperature that Amman can sometimes get to.

So this is why I have been thinking about winter.

Growing up in Colorado, and visiting Oregon often means that I do have these clothes, but I pushed them in some boxes and bags and left them in storage some place in one of these two states, and even then, I am not sure where I left them in those states. It has been a little game of hide and seek so far this summer, rummaging through this box and that one trying to find what I know is out there, and yesterday, I went to my storage unit in Colorado.

Lo and behold, I found the missing clothes among piles of things that I am not sure what they are anymore. This little game made me realize what has become of my life, and my things as they are strewn across the world. Of course right now I am living out of bags and have to rummage through them every morning to find the things that I need to be a part of society. I have some rare discs and records tucked away in a closet at my parents’ house, and a couple boxes of random stuff at my in-laws’ house. And somewhere, en route, there is a shipping container full of more stuff and things finding its way to my new place in Jordan. I have truly become a man of the world, and like a teenager does in their room, I have left myself wherever I just happen to drop it.

While looking at my stuff, and all of the places where it is, I am constantly thinking about a story I taught a couple of times early in my teaching career by D.H. Lawrence called “Things”. It told the story of a couple who started taking teaching jobs overseas. Of course, they did not want to bring all of their stuff with them, so they put some stuff in storage here, and other things in storage over there. They bought art and mementos along the way, but they did not have a place in their house to display them, so they stored those in other countries. They ended up having places all over the world to hold their stuff for them. I now thing of that story and realize that I am now living it. (I will put a link to the story at the end of the post if you are interested to read for yourself.)

There are a couple of themes that could be looked at while reading this story, but the one that stuck with me and the one that I always return to is how we no longer own our possessions, but instead they start to own us. Part of the lives of these characters was to tend to their things, and I am participating in the same ritual. Some of these things are easy to attend to; whereas, others are going to be a surprise when I return to them years later. I will have forgotten that I have some of these things, and it will be like a return to Christmas when I find them again. But it makes me start to wonder how much of it I really need, and how much of it I can give away.

My wife and I always talk about going to the storage unit every summer and reorganizing it to move to a smaller storage unit, but something always comes up that makes us put that off for another year. Basically, it is easier to maintain my things than to deal with them, but someday I will have to deal with them. Until then, I will just lock the door to the storage unit, push that box in the corner of the room where I found it, and track my shipment over the internet until it arrives, and I will continue to play this game with my things.

“Things” by D.H. Lawrence

Visiting my Stuff – Around the World Day 26

I used to teach a story by D.H. Lawrence called “Things”. It was a story of a couple who started to teach overseas, and because of that they collected storage units all over the world where they could keep their things. I will include a copy of the link to the story at the bottom of this post so if you want to read it you can. But the main idea behind the story was freedom. Are we truly free if we are tied to our things. I would really make the point with my students when I would ask them at the end of the lesson, “Do we own our possession, or do our possessions own us?” Many of them would believe that they were the ones that were in control in these situations because there was no way an inanimate object could control a person, but we started talking about houses and the amount of work that went into maintaining them, cars and the amount of money that it costs to keep them running, and they would really get angry with me when we started to explore our relationships with our phones.

I talked to them for a position of superiority, thinking I was above all of that nonsense of letting my possessions become the more important part of our relationship, but this was until I moved overseas. I knew that there would be certain things that I would like to keep, and I got a storage unit so that I could keep those things. I even have a monthly bill automatically paid so that I don’t lose my possessions on the rare chance that I forgot to pay a bill. It wasn’t a big unit, but I still packed it with various things. And despite this, I still got rid of a lot of stuff. I had simplified my life or so I thought.

But now every time I come back to Denver, I spend a day going over to my storage unit to visit my stuff. I can’t do anything really exciting with it because it is all thrown in a the small space, and some of the stuff that I really would like to visit again was placed far in the back when I started, thinking that I would keep the place well organized. Half of the time I find something and wonder why I kept it at all. It is a part of my life that I have not let go yet, and I wonder if I will ever be able to do so. It is the connection that keeps me coming back to this small little shed in the middle of the city.

I do know that if I ever come back to live in the United States that I will love to have these things, and it will make the transition easier, but I wonder if I will ever need a large home to collect all of my things in. I would have to say that one of the things I really do appreciate about the adventure that I embarked on three years ago is that I no longer need a huge space and a whole bunch of things in order to be happy. I can live a simpler life. I just have one thing hanging over my head that would make it complete, my storage unit. I don’t know if I am ready to get rid of it yet, but I now have a new appreciation of what D.H. Lawrence was getting at with his story. Can I be the master of my possessions or will they always be the master of me?

You can read the story talked about in this post by clicking on the link below:

https://www.counter-currents.com/2014/04/things/