TRANSCENDING TRAVEL

There is a particular kind of light that happens just before evening in Santo Domingo.

The sun hasn’t surrendered yet, but it has stopped arguing with the night.

Everything turns warmer.

Buildings soften around the edges. The sky begins flirting with peach and gold, and somewhere beyond the concrete, traffic, balconies, music and tangled electrical wires, the Caribbean Sea is doing what it was doing long before any of us arrived with our complicated lives.

I am nineteen floors above the city watching it happen.

For once, I don’t need to know what happens next. Normally I come here with an itinerary from my clients.

Everything booked, organized and ready for me to just “do it”.

That is usual for me.

They want to know what time I’m leaving, eating, who is coming, where I’m going and preferably whether there are any good restaurants nearby.

But tonight I don’t want an itinerary.

I want possibility.

So I stand at the window and watch Santo Domingo become evening.

Somewhere below me, somebody is cooking.

I can’t see the kitchen, but I can smell dinner slipping into the night air.

Garlic…. Something frying…. mmmmm… Something smoky.

Something I can’t identify but would happily eat.

A horn sounds somewhere below. Then another. Music escapes from a car.

A motorcycle cuts through traffic with the confidence of someone who apparently received a private exemption from the laws of physics.

I laugh….

The city doesn’t seem particularly interested in whether I have figured out my life. There is something wonderfully liberating about that.

Because I haven’t…. Well… Not completely. Maybe none of us have.

We make plans and call them certainty.

We create timelines and call them control.

We decide where love should go.

Where careers should go.

Where money should come from.

When success should arrive.

Who should stay and Who should leave.

What should happen next.

Then life picks up the itinerary, folds it into a paper airplane and throws it directly into the ocean.

Perhaps that’s not always a tragedy.

Maybe sometimes the unanswered question is the doorway.

SOMEWHERE TO GO

SANTO DOMINGO, DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

If you come to Santo Domingo, don’t make the mistake of treating it simply as the place where your airplane lands before you disappear toward a resort.

Stay awhile and let the city introduce herself…. Go to the Zona Colonial…. Walk without trying to accomplish anything.

Look upward…. Balconies…. Old stone…. Colors.

Doors that make you wonder what lives behind them.

Find your way toward the water.

Sit somewhere longer than necessary.

Watch people and Listen…. Eat something you have never tasted then Let yourself become temporarily unavailable to your normal life.

But Santo Domingo taught me something else about travel.

Sometimes the destination isn’t only the city.

Sometimes the destination is a moment.

And some of my favorite moments here happened after I came back upstairs. Back to the apartment and Back to the kitchen…. Back to dinner…. And yes Back to us.

Eventually, he would come and yes… Sometimes later than I wanted.

Sometimes after I had looked at the time far more times than I care to admit.

But when he finally walked through that door and it became just the two of us, something shifted.

The outside world became quieter.

And somehow, we always ended up around food.

I cooked…. We ate…. We talked…. We laughed…. We watched The Hangover in Spanish…. We shared the ordinary details of ourselves.

And every time I cooked for him, he tells me some version of the same thing…

I love your cooking baby. I can eat your food every day.

Everyday…. Lol

There is something about hearing that from the man I love that reaches a completely different place inside me.

Because cooking has never been only cooking to me.

Food is one of the ways I love… Maybe one of the oldest.

I understand the intimacy of feeding someone.

I understand what it means to remember what someone likes.

How they like it seasoned.

What they reach for first.

What makes them take another bite before they’ve finished the one already in their mouth.

There is nurturing in that. Trust. Closeness. Something ancient. I made this for you. Sit with me and Eat.

And then there is the avocado…. Always the avocado…. He brings them…. He cuts them. That somehow became his part.

I can make the entire dinner, but the avocado belongs to him.

He stands there cutting it, slicing it and placing it beside whatever I’ve made.

Fish…. Meat…. Rice…. Vegetables.

Whatever happens to be on our table that night.

There is avocado…. Every meal.

I don’t know exactly when I started noticing how much I loved that little ritual.

Maybe because it doesn’t look romantic from the outside.

Nobody writes great love songs about a man cutting an avocado.

Maybe somebody should.

Because intimacy isn’t always flowers, champagne or declarations beneath moonlight.

Sometimes intimacy is knowing that while you’re standing over the stove seasoning the fish, the man you love is beside you cutting the avocado.

Sometimes love looks ridiculously ordinary.

And perhaps that is precisely why it becomes unforgettable.

SOMETHING TO TASTE

GARLIC-LIME FISH, SWEET PLANTAINS & OUR AVOCADO

Tonight tastes like citrus, garlic and something slightly sweet.

I season the fish with Garlic…. Lime…. Salt… Pepper…. Herbs…. And my secret love spices.

A little olive oil warming in the pan.

The fish hits the heat and the kitchen begins smelling like somebody knows exactly what she’s doing.

There are sweet plantains turning caramel-colored around the edges.

Maybe tomatoes and cucumber dressed with lime and herbs.

Something cold to drink…. Coconut water…. Sparkling water with lime.

Something tropical.

And somewhere beside me, he is cutting the avocado.

I love the choreography of it. My hands moving around the stove.

His hands slicing the avocado. He comes closer to see what I’m making.

Maybe he steals a taste before I’m finished.

I smile… He laughs…. And then he tells me again how much he loves my cooking.

How he could eat this every day. Something inside me softens.

Because underneath those words I hear something more.

I like being here. I like this thing we do. I like sitting at this table with you.

Maybe he doesn’t mean every one of those sentences each time he compliments dinner.

But that is what the ritual means to me.

There is a frequency between us when I cook for him.

A love frequency.

Not some abstract spiritual frequency floating somewhere above the kitchen.

Something I can actually feel.

It is in the garlic hitting the warm pan.

It is in him cutting the avocado.

It is in the way we move around each other.

It is in the plate I place in front of him.

It is in his first bite.

It is in the pleasure I feel watching him enjoy something I created.

It is in conversation over dinner.

It is in laughter.

It is in those quiet moments when neither of us needs to fill the room with words.

It is trust. Nurturing. Closeness. He always eats his dinner with me. That matters. We sit together.

Not one of us eating while the other disappears into another room. Together.

There is something sacred in that word that I think we sometimes overlook because we’re waiting for sacred things to announce themselves with thunder.

Together…. Two plates…. Two people…. One table.

One avocado cut by his hands…. A meal prepared by mine… His offering…. Mine…. Sometimes that’s the ceremony.

And maybe this is another reason travel stays inside us long after the suitcase has been unpacked.

Taste becomes memory.

Smell becomes memory.

A particular song playing while something cooks becomes memory.

Even an avocado becomes memory.

Years from now, I could be somewhere completely different, cut open a perfectly ripe avocado, smell garlic warming in olive oil, squeeze lime over fish and suddenly be transported back here.

Back to Santo Domingo. Back to this kitchen. Back to him sitting beside me.

Back to the way he tells me he could eat my cooking every day.

That’s one of the strange gifts of food.

It remembers for us.

SOMETHING TO DESIRE

A LIFE YOU DON’T CONSTANTLY NEED TO ESCAPE FROM

Sitting beside him at dinner made me think about the kind of life I actually desire.

Not endless vacations. Not perpetual luxury. Not running away every time life becomes uncomfortable.

Something much more radical.

I want ordinary days I love living.

I want mornings that don’t begin with dread.

Work that uses something real inside me.

Money that isn’t always attached to panic.

A home where my body understands that it is safe to rest.

Food I enjoy preparing.

People I love around my table.

A man I love sitting next to me, enjoying something I’ve made.

A relationship where love isn’t only spoken but lived through the tiny rituals that belong only to us.

Someone bringing the avocado because that’s simply what he does.

Something creative waiting on my desk.

A trip on the calendar.

A book beside my bed.

Enough quiet to hear myself think.

Enough adventure to keep surprising myself.

Enough love to feel deeply connected.

Enough self-love that I never have to disappear inside another person.

And enough freedom to change my mind.

Maybe our deepest desires aren’t actually the things pasted onto our vision boards.

Maybe beneath the house, money, passport stamps, relationship, beautiful clothes and photographs of faraway places is something much simpler.

Maybe we’re trying to create a life where we can finally exhale.

A life where an ordinary dinner can feel abundant.

A life where Friday night doesn’t need reservations at the hottest restaurant because there is fish sizzling in your kitchen, music playing, someone you love cutting avocado beside you and nowhere else you particularly need to be.

So here is the question I’m carrying this Sunday….

If nobody else ever saw my life, what would make it beautiful to me?

Don’t answer too quickly.

That question deserves better than the first respectable answer your mind produces.

A LITTLE MAGIC

THE LOVE FREQUENCY

I’ve been thinking about frequency differently.

We talk about raising our vibration as though we’re supposed to float through life permanently glowing.

But perhaps frequency is simpler.

Maybe frequency is what we repeatedly create.

The energy around the dinner table.

The music you play while cooking.

The way you greet someone when they walk through the door.

The way you touch.

The way you listen.

The way you feed yourself.

The way you feed someone you love.

The words repeatedly spoken inside a home.

The rituals so small nobody outside the relationship would understand why they matter.

Maybe we create frequency through repetition.

And eventually repetition becomes atmosphere.

Tonight, choose one ordinary thing and make it sacred…. Not expensive…. Not complicated… Ordinary…. Cut fruit beautifully…. Put dinner on the good good china.

Light a candle while you write.

Play music while you cook.

Pour coconut water into a beautiful glass.

Sit outside while the sun disappears.

Send someone you love a message simply because you thought of them.

Take something you normally rush through and give it your complete attention.

Then notice how different it feels.

Maybe magic isn’t something we summon.

Maybe sometimes magic is simply **attention infused with intention.

ONE THING TO DO

CREATE A RITUAL SOMEONE WOULD MISS

Before next Sunday, create one tiny ritual.

It can be for yourself…. Your partner…. Your children…. Your grandchildren…. Your sister…. A friend…. Someone you love.

It doesn’t have to cost anything.

Sunday pancakes. Friday fish. A walk after dinner. Fresh flowers on Wednesday. A particular song while cooking. Fruit cut and placed on the table. A handwritten note tucked somewhere unexpected. A five-minute call. An evening glass of coconut water outside.

The point isn’t the activity.

The point is repetition.

Because someday someone may remember you through the smallest thing.

A smell…. A song…. A recipe…. A phrase…. An avocado.

And suddenly an ordinary moment becomes a doorway through time.

BEFORE YOU GO…

Dinner is finished.

There are plates on the table.

The avocado is mostly gone.

Garlic and lime still linger faintly in the kitchen.

Santo Domingo is completely dark now except for thousands of lights scattered beneath us.

The city is still moving.

Somebody somewhere is laughing.

Somebody is falling in love.

Somebody is ending something.

Someone is beginning again.

Someone just received wonderful news.

Someone is worried about tomorrow.

And someone is sitting beside the person she loves, realizing that perhaps this moment is more important than she knows.

I look at him…. I look at the remains of dinner.

Nothing about this scene would necessarily look extraordinary to someone scrolling past it.

But I am beginning to understand something about the life I want.

I don’t need every beautiful moment to look extraordinary from the outside.

I want moments that **feel extraordinary from the inside.

Maybe that’s what travel has always given me.

Not simply places…. but.. Perspective.

A reminder that life is happening while I’m trying to figure out life.

That love is happening while I’m trying to understand love.

That abundance sometimes looks like enough food on the table.

That intimacy sometimes looks like two people eating dinner together.

That romance sometimes looks like a man arriving with avocados because he knows I love them, he picks the best ones and we’re going to need them.

And that perhaps the moments we think are merely ordinary are quietly becoming the memories we’ll someday ache to revisit.

And…. I know exactly where everything is going.

My life…. Our lives… My work…. My dreams…. Our Love.

Maybe I’m not supposed to know all of it yet.

Tonight I know this…

There is food on the table…. There is a city glowing outside the window…. There is someone I love sitting beside me…. Always beside me.

There is laughter…. As we watch The Hangover… There is closeness I hear his heart beat again… he hears mine.

There is trust…. There is desire…. There is an avocado on the plate.. well… there was an avocado on the plate 🙂

And for this moment, I am here….. Completely here and so is he… Maybe escape isn’t always about leaving.

Maybe sometimes escape is being so completely inside a moment that, for a little while, there is nowhere else you would rather be.

And maybe that is the life I am really trying to create.

Not one long vacation. Not a life without problems and not perfection.

A life filled with moments I am awake enough to recognize while I’m still living them.

Because sometimes the destination isn’t the thing that takes you somewhere.

Sometimes it’s the person sitting across from you.

Until next Sunday,

Asa

Writer • Traveler • Seeker of Beautiful Unordinary Things