Ran my fingers across the world

On the eve of a new year, we are meant to reflect on all that we accomplished (and didn’t) and put forward our hopes and goals for the new year. I find this hard to do as I get older because time seems so warped, and change is hard to measure. When I reflect back to 2023 to see what has changed for me, I am left with blurry memories and vague recollections, much like the three years of living during the pandemic. But there were some bright spots and standout moments.

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Our last New Year’s Eve was spent crisscrossing most of Italy, ending in the heel, also known as Puglia (where my family is from), with the idea that we wouldn’t return for a long while. Not that we don’t love Italy, but we spent almost six years living there, and maybe it is time to see other places if we do decide to travel. I had just learned I was granted tenure at Columbia University and would join the new Climate School faculty in July of 2023. Exciting. Now comes the hard part – we had to sell our house and downsize our belongings to snuggly fit into a smaller Columbia-subsidized apartment in NYC. Offloading a house in the middle of a housing crisis with high interest rates is stressful and borderline nightmarish, but we managed to do it. Plus, moving just sucks. No matter how often you do it (and for us, we are at 25 times), it is just a massive hassle. So, the first half of 2023 was one significant stressball transition phase.

Things fell into place once we got to NY in June. We live in the Upper West Side, where I have worked for a long time and where we have lived before, so it all seems routine and familiar. Are we too comfortable and normalized? God forbid that we get too comfortable. It may be time to move to another borough and start another walkabout MaPhattan project. Brooklyn beckons, but the ever-evolving NYC landscape is unpredictable, and it is hard to know where to move that won’t become overly gentrified or where you are not participating in such a predictable path.

On the work front, I published, in collaboration with many stellar scientists, 18 papers, the final one being the Food Systems Countdown Initiative paper and report. I started a new job as a Professor of Climate and Food at Columbia’s Climate School and as the Interim Director of the International Research Institute of Climate and Society. It has been an interesting adjustment since leaving Hopkins, with a lot of my team going on to spread their wings in other institutions. The Food Systems Dashboard is going strong along with other various projects.

On a personal note, we, the Sound Furies, finished our fifth album, Times Edit. My favorite song is Mandelbrot’s Coastline. I traveled a hell of a lot less and will continue on that path in 2024. What I will do in 2024 is spend some time curating and sharing all the photos I have taken on my 60+ country travels. 2023 was filled with ordinary experiences — I got COVID, which sucked. I walked an average of 5.8 miles per day, up from last year, which was 5.2 miles. I tried out the Peleton (there is one in my building) and found it ridiculous but effective. I ate red meat maybe five times and tried my best only to take public transport (maybe got in a taxi/uber 4-5 times) if walking wasn’t an option. I continue to bake sourdough…I decided I like folk music (maybe it’s my age) and succulents (maybe it’s my age). We celebrated our 27th wedding anniversary. I turned 52. We ate in 55 restaurants since arriving in NYC (hey, don’t give me shit, I’m in the food business).

Looking to 2024, the new year brings the opportunity to turn over a new leaf, improve, and make a change. But change is ruthlessly tough, and we are often hard on ourselves when we don’t make those changes “successfully.” And I must admit, I am worried about the changes to come. The poem, What they did yesterday afternoon, by Warsan Shire has been running through my head:

“later that night
i held an atlas in my lap
ran my fingers across the whole world
and whispered
where does it hurt?

it answered
everywhere
everywhere
everywhere.”

Almost half of the world will be voting for new leaders in 2024, and democracy looks pretty fragile to me. I worry about the U.S. elections, as I am sure almost every American does, and the results will impact future decisions about our lives and goals. I am also profoundly concerned about the lack of action on mitigating climate change, what that will mean for everyone, particularly the poorest and most vulnerable, how much they will need to adapt, and with what resources.

But as the late Sam Cooke beautifully sang, a change is gonna come – the question is, are we ready for whatever comes? Because things don’t always change for the better, but they do change. Rebecca Solnit, author of Hope in the Dark, wrote, "Incremental change can happen quietly, and change is rarely straightforward. Victories slip by unheralded while failures are more readily detected.” I will remain hopeful in 2024 as I run my fingers across the world. I am going to remain hopeful. Not because I think everything is going to be okay. But hope for the possibility that the change that is coming pushes us forward to a more sustainable future.  

Experiencing places in the quiet

My partner and I have a habit of traveling to places when no one else is around, which is often called “off-season” or “low season.” Sometimes we come to places where we happen to be the only people in the entire hotel. Last year, we traveled to Sardinia in November. COVID-19 was still surging, but it had not really touched Sardinia in any significant way. We stayed in some of the most beautiful hotels without a soul in sight. We swam in the ocean and yes, it was a bit cold, but we got some sun on our skin, and enjoyed the incredible bounty of seafood that is so delicious that time of year (shellfish). Right now, we are in Puglia – a very popular destination these days – but only in the summer. Puglia is the heel of Italy, where they grow a ton of olive oil and enjoy their cima di rapa and taralli. To Puglians, their high season is from May to September. After that, “chiuso.” Even though it may be 70 degrees outside, out come the puffy jackets and hats, and no more swimming in the crystal-clear blue waters of the Mediterranean. Anyone who does is “pazza.” What bliss it is to be in places that aren’t “shoulder to shoulder” with other American, British, and German tourists. Instead, we catch a glimpse of how Italians really live, breathing a sigh of relief when they can have their cities back to themselves.

Alone in Chioggia

We have always done this. Gone to the unpopular places in off-season. Vegas on Christmas. Ski towns in the spring. Namibia in December. It calms us. In fact, it delights us middle-aged folk who are in their autumn years. Of course, the weather is not totally ideal, and not everything is open and in its right place, but there is quietness, stillness, and abandonment that is calming and almost meditating. Here in Puglia, sometimes we have restaurants to ourselves. Where we are staying now, at a Masseria, which are 16th-century farmhouses typically found in the Puglia region, we have our own personal gourmet chef (and waiter) for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Who can beat that?  There are no lines, no need to book much of anything, no obnoxious parties on boats, or loud blaring TVs in the hotel room next door. One may argue that this type of travel is like buying the winter coat during the spring sale, and there is some grain of truth in that, but everything is definitely cheaper.  And, it is just, well, quiet.

And we still get to partake in the beautiful scenery of the cities, nature, and food. What more could you ask for? Speaking of food, Puglian food is quite good. See this mouth-watering visual post. They are all about olive oil, bread (so much bread), and seafood. They are also known for pasta shaped like ears, also known as orecchiette.  They also have this bread that is very hard, called frisella that sailors brought with them across long seas journeys because they lasted a good long time. The photo shows this frisella cooked in tomatoes with spinach and burrata. Yum. They are also known for their zuppa di pesce. We had some, but it was not my favorite. We had lots of pesce crude (raw) and of course, vongole. They like their clams here. Maybe that is where I got my obsession with clams. You see, my family comes from Puglia, Foggia (a not-so-pretty but heavily industrial town in Northern Puglia - not the trendy Salento). Clams are in my genes.

All this to say, sometimes it is better to be in places that are not instagrammable, that don’t bring forth bragging rights. With almost every travel experience having become spoiled, overcrowded, and overphotographed, sometimes experiencing places in abandonment and in the quiet puts a new perspective on them and within yourself. It is in the quiet where I feel most alive.