I might want to write about optimism, but if look back on a few posts where I share thoughts on various things other than travels, I don’t know where I’ll come up with ideas that are optimistic.

Life is good, marriage is great, food has been terrific, and adventures are amazing, but looking out at society, I’m filled with dread. The simple solution might seem to be that I should turn away from society at large, but it is all who have come before me that have produced the art, literature, culture, science, and advances that I currently enjoy. So, why can’t I focus on those things that are currently at work and producing progress? For those things to propel us forward and my optimism to find traction, I require hope in some plurality of people that I believe are aiming for advancement instead of regression.

Come on and break out of this, John; you were supposed to write about some track of optimism that would launch us into 2022, and I just know you can bring this forth.

Well, for one, my health seems to be okay, but this is the last year of my 50s, and so I’ll admit I’m leery of what my 60s might have in store for me as old age will take on the serious appearance of what it is. All the same, I’ll be as optimistic as possible so long as my wherewithal keeps me walking 5 miles a day, eating healthy, and happy to get out of bed.

I’m enthusiastically still buying books, including Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings, Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, Miss Lonelyhearts, The Tears of a Man Flow Inward: Growing Up in the Civil War in Burundi, Of Grammatology, Saving Beauty, Religion and Nothingness, Illuminations: Essays and Reflections, Dostoyevsky and The Flood of Language, Passions of Our Time, In the Dust of This Planet: Horror of Philosophy, The Neganthropocene, and The History of Philosophy. All of these arrived just in the last 90 days of 2021.

We have planned 24 excursions out of Phoenix this year, including three visits to the Los Angeles area, Mexico City and Chiapas in Mexico, the Oregon Coast, Monterey, California, Death Valley, and the Grand Canyon, San Diego, a couple of trips to Utah, Nevada, three visits to different areas of New Mexico, Colorado, Yellowstone, and finally no less than half a dozen locations around Arizona. Ambition that will require a bit of stamina to maintain such a busy schedule will certainly not allow age to intrude.

With a pantry full of Chinese, Korean, Indian, Japanese, German, Burmese, Thai, and Mexican ingredients, Caroline and I will continue our adventures into cuisines from around the globe. Having favorites in all of those foods, it can become difficult to deviate and add new dishes as there are only so many dinners in a year that two people can eat, but we’ll try. On the tried-and-true front, I’m happy to announce that for the first time in maybe half-a-dozen years, I’ve shredded over 20 pounds of cabbage and pressed it into a crock for making sauerkraut. A batch of homemade granola is in the dehydrator, and when we return from our upcoming visit to Los Angeles, I’ll take on the full-day task of converting 20 pounds of red onions, paprika, and cilantro into a huge batch of Burmese curry base. Almost forgot to share that I recently turned 12 pounds of ginger into fermented ginger for those Burmese ginger salads we love so much, enough to last us into the summer.

Neither Caroline nor I are short of projects that require tending to as we continue to work through a backlog of stuff that only seems to grow, kind of like our reading list, destination wishes, and culinary curiosities.

Something that’s been in short supply the past couple of pandemic years is local cultural events typically focused on live music, special art exhibits, and various talks, and on the current horizon, there still seems to be nothing but the good news front. The Metropolitan Opera in New York City resumed its live simulcasts last year, and here in 2022, we already have tickets for Rigoletto, Don Carlos, Lucia Di Lammermoor, and finally, Hamlet.

Somewhere in this mix of the known and familiar, we’ll have to inject serendipity, spontaneity, and the unknown, but I feel certain that our intention to discover new things will open our senses to those opportunities. Finding triumph in growth and deep experience from year to year has been a signature of long-standing in our lives and will hopefully carry forward for years to come.