Vignettes on Returning II.

On family farms in Maine. We encounter the best of what we feel we have brought home. There are collaborative energies, commitments towards betterment for our world. It is not a paradox to us at all that American ideals count on heritage passed from our family, our country, our past.

In Oxford, conservation programs have encouraged habitat for spawning trout and migrating birds, forests are conserved with accessible shared roads and trails, homes are made efficient through local government incentives. Over and over again, we hear stories of neighborhood bartering, of exchanges of services, natural bounty, knowledge and good will.

In Bowdoinham, plans are afoot to encourage pasturing of cattle and sheep. On the river in Eliot, years of monitoring may once again provide viable recreational clamming and shell fishing opportunities not known for generations.

Our country and our world are tuned to the impacts of people. We will continue to write this blog in order to provoke ongoing commitment on how travel can enhance local efforts and manifest larger global change.

Read more...

Vignettes on Returning I.

From a small garden planted in late Tokyo Autumn to edits on a new friend’s photography book in Scotland, we have embedded memories from travel filled with positive interactions of service, exchange, collaboration. What we can offer from our travels are the vignettes of shared wisdom, mutual interest, cross pollinated efforts gained along the way.

What we do not record in our blog here, gets picked up by us organically in conversations and virtual updates. A tale to ramble out of us in springy passion whenever we reencounter family and friends.

Returning home causes a turn inwards. We celebrate and find new excitement in our country reflecting on its past, more hopeful than ever for its useful and meaningful future.

Here in New England our own family histories and current family engagements allow for soft reentry coming back from United Kingdom and Ireland. Climate, habitat, society and aesthetics all closely mirror where we recently visited - from Derbyshire to Hume, from Kennington to Dublin’s Four Courts.

Read more...