vacation | WOODY WOODBURN

Third try was indeed the charm.

After twice having a dream vacation canceled by the coronavirus nightmare, my better-half, who is half-Italian, and I finally made it to the land where her family roots reach deep into the fertile soil. Specifically, we sailed fully around the thigh-high boot setting out at Venice, through the narrow Strait of Messina at the toe, up the western coast and over to Barcelona with nine port stops en route.

The starting and ending bookends proved to be our favorites, although perhaps this was partly because we spent extra nights in both and were thus able to explore them a little more fully than the daytime destinations.

The ancient Colosseum in Rome was definitely photograph worthy!

A cruise, in my view, is sort of like speed dating in that you learn who (or where) you want to get to know better. In this case, we didn’t ask Croatia and Albania for their phone numbers. Don’t get me wrong, the former’s Old Town Dubrovnik – with white marble streets and forts of stone so magnificent “Game of Thrones” filmed myriad scenes there – was memorable, yet an afternoon inside these historic walls was plenty. Similarly, a few hours sufficed at the ancient sites of the Olympics in Olympia, Greece, and the Pompeii ruins near Naples, Italy.

Our two ports in France – Villefranche-sur-Mer and Toulon – are both gorgeous coastal locales, but to be honest we much prefer Ventura’s similar charms so feel no strong gravitational pull to return. Rome and Florence, however, like Venice and Barcelona, already beckon us back for longer sojourns.

In the coming weeks, I will share here some snapshots-in-words of my favorite experiences from our two-week trip: from memorable people and meals to the canals of Venice to the Colosseum in Rome to the breathtaking La Sagrada Familia cathedral in Barcelona, and more.

Speaking of snapshots, my cell phone camera kept freezing with the command: “Out of Storage. Free Up Space.” Just my luck…

…good luck, that is.

In these old lands I was forced to go old-school. Instead of mindlessly snap-snap-snapping endless digital photos, I was forced to point-and-shoot judiciously. It was like going back in time and using a camera with film that comes in 12, 24 or 36 exposures. Instead of paying to have prints made, I had to spend time deleting files.

So it was I found myself taking in the sites, and sights, in their full grandeur through naked eyes instead of miniaturized on a pixel screen. Thus, I found myself absorbing the scenes and memorizing the moments before selectively choosing the very best ones to photograph.

In this reframed frame of mind, it saddened me to see so many others touring these goosebump-inducing historic places, even a museum filled with Picasso artwork, while largely squinting at their tiny cameras. They seemed more concerned with reliving these experiences in the future rather than living them in the present. One romantic couple we encountered seemed to be experiencing their entire gondola ride through the canals of Venice digitally instead of actually.

Conversely, instead of hundreds of photos, so many as to be overwhelming, I came home with only a few “rolls” of selectively snapped images to be developed at Fotomat, so to speak. This was a silver lining, as mentioned, for it seems to me that too many pictures is like not being able to see the forest for the trees. Indeed, the graceful stone columns in La Sagrada Familia are meant to invoke towering trees, a forest of them, something one might miss if looking through a camera lens.

To be continued next week…

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

Woody writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @woodywoodburn. His SIGNED books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

Personalized Signed copies of WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” and “Strawberries in Wintertime: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” are available at WoodyWoodburn.com

A wonderful bird is the pelican.

So begins a poem you may be familiar with from your primary school days. Written by Dixon Lanier Merritt, rarely has a line of verse rung truer. Indeed, awed by its magnificent wingspan and graceful flight and fishing skill, the ancient Egyptians worshiped the wonderful pelican as a god.

Sailors, meanwhile, have long embraced pelicans as a spirit animal that will brave fierce storms and rough seas to save them from drowning.

Pelicans certainly are breathtaking to watch, one moment floating high above the ocean then suddenly diving almost vertically, like a kamikaze aircraft at stunning velocity, and folding their wings up tight an instant before plunging into the water to catch a meal.

I bring up these wonderful birds today because my wife recently saw a California brown pelican float down from the sky and land a 3-point shot away from her on the wooden deck of an Airnb beach house at Faria Beach. This was the day leading into the night of the blood moon lunar eclipse and my much-better-half says seeing the pelican so up-close was as thrilling as the distant astronomical sighting.

The pelican encounter was all the more special because Lisa was enjoying another encounter that in recent years has seemed nearly as rare as a lunar eclipse: her childhood nuclear family was together, just the “Original Six” as they dubbed themselves – 90-year-old parents, three daughters, one son – for four days at the beach without spouses and children.

With one bed too few, one sibling had to sleep on an air mattress. With only one bathroom, the quarters seemed as crowded as the wood-panel station wagon they all used to pile into for family trips back when the siblings were ages 5-and-up instead AARP-and-up.

And without question, it was perfectly wonderful.

For a long weekend, 2022 became 1972. Board games sent phone screens directly to Jail without passing Go. Serene walks on the beach replaced hectic commutes to work. Laughter echoed in rhythm with the crashing waves.

The arrival of the pelican was perfectly apropos. After all, this wonderful bird’s ability to glide over the water’s surface in seemingly slow motion while scanning patiently for prey is said to symbolize the importance of slowing down in our own lives.

Additionally, in many cultures when a pelican swoops into view it is believed to represent the gift of spending time with family. Some people furthermore see its trademark oversized throat pouch as symbolizing an abundance of love. Enhancing these motifs, parent pelicans will prick open a wound in their chests to provide chicks with their own blood’s nourishment when starvation threatens.

The above interpretations are how I wish to see the pelican with the Original Six. Sadly, however, less sunny symbolism rolled in like heavy fog. You see, the breathtaking bird’s surprise visitation ended in heartbreak. After resting on the wooden deck through sunset, it curled up off in a corner through the night and come morning only its spirit had flown away.

But I choose to focus on the lively excitement of the pelican’s arrival, not its deathly departure. I choose to focus on not when – or if – the stars will align again for a reunion of the Original Six again, but rather on the laughs they just enjoyed. Here is one more laugh, courtesy of Mr. Merritt:

“A wonderful bird is a pelican, / His bill will hold more than his belican.

“He can take in his beak / Food enough for a week;

“But I’m darned if I see how the helican.”

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WOODY WOODBURN

Writer, "Streaker" & Speaker

Tag Archives: vacation

Vacation Photos – Less Can Be More

A Wonderful Bird Is The Pelican