Thank You for this Life

Carla and I have been back in the States for a couple of weeks now, after six months of wandering through Turkey, Sicily, Montenegro, Croatia, and Greece. It is wonderful to be back with the people we love. My heart is here, and I’m happy to be home for a while. Yet I also miss the road. I miss the walking, the wandering, the feeling of waking up in a place that still feels new, then stepping outside with curiosity and letting the day unfold.

Travel has become part of who I am now. The movement, the surprise, the beauty, and the way each place slowly opens itself when we meet it with open eyes - all of it stays with me. And when I look back on these past six months, I am filled with gratitude for what we experienced.

So as this particular journey settles into memory, I wanted to say thank you in a way that felt large enough for what I was feeling. What follows began, in my mind, as a poem. But as I kept writing, my natural prose voice found its way in, and the piece became something between poetry and prose. Maybe that was the right shape for it all along. Mostly, I just wanted to honor this feeling as simply and honestly as I could.

Dear Life,

We are home now, at least for a while.

After six months of moving through the world, the suitcases are down, the walking shoes are resting, and the days have become quieter. But the journey has not really ended. Not fully. The places we have been are still moving through us.

And I keep wanting to say thank you.

Not to one person exactly, and not in any formal way. Just thank you to whatever this is. To life. To the universe. To the great mystery that keeps offering beauty so freely.

Thank you for the mornings when we stepped outside with no plan and found ourselves surrounded by more beauty than we knew what to do with.

Thank you for the sea, and for the way it keeps breathing against the shore.

Thank you for old streets, open markets, church bells, fresh bread, strong coffee, kind strangers, and the sound of languages we do not speak but somehow still feel.

Thank you for the people who became friends along the way, even when our time together was brief. Each one made the world feel a little kinder and closer, and reminded us that beneath the fear the world so often carries, there is still so much goodness waiting to be met.

And thank you, too, for the love waiting for us back home. For the family and friends who keep our hearts open even when we are far away, and whose love gives us room to breathe in this journey in a larger way than we ever could on our own.

Thank you, also, for the people who followed along from home and from wherever you happened to be. For every comment, every message, every kind word, every shared memory, and every bit of wonder you offered back to us. You made the journey feel less like something Carla and I were carrying alone, and more like something we were sharing with a much larger circle of people we love. I don’t know how to fully say what that has meant to me, but my heart felt it all.

Thank you for the flavors of each place. For meals shared at small tables. For the first bite of something new. For the simple joy of eating slowly and realizing that this, too, is part of knowing a place.

Thank you for the differences. For the many ways people live, love, pray, gather, laugh, and make a life. Thank you for reminding us that the world is not meant to be one thing.

And thank you for nature’s daily show. The light on the water. The mountains in the distance. The sky changing its mind. The birds calling out as if morning itself needed announcing.

Some days I feel almost overwhelmed by how much life has given me. Not because life has been easy, or because it has spared us from sorrow, but because there are moments when its beauty feels almost too large to hold. I have been given so many chances to see its wonder, to stand in the middle of it, to walk beside Carla through old towns and open landscapes, and feel, again and again, that this life is more beautiful than I know how to explain.

So thank you, life. Thank you for letting me see even a glimpse of your magic. Thank you for this world, for this journey, for the people I love, and for the beauty that keeps finding us. Thank you for this life.

Thank you.