Thirty-seven days into self-isolation I asked my husband Hank, “Are you lonely?” Like much of the world’s population, we are physical-distancing and staying home to help prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus COVID-19. Would this, I worried, lead to loneliness? And, in turn, to biological effects as deadly as the virus itself? Instead, isolation has brought clarity to something we'd innately suspected all along.
It’s been almost a year since I wrote about the death of my father and the complex emotions I experienced as a result of being in South America when he passed.
This time, it is aging (I celebrated my 54th birthday this month) in an ancient city in Portugal that inspired me to share my thoughts about politics, travel, and hope.