Lord Byron’s She Walks in Beauty

“She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes…”

The Exhilaration of Travel

“The value of life deepens incalculably with the privileges of travel.” Nathaniel Parker Willis, a 19th-century American author. In the last few years, Kristine and I took several trips. The last two years have limited those wonderful opportunities.

In my imagination, I find us in Seattle watching the fishmongers throwing fish to be wrapped in Pike Place Market. Or, seated for a scrumptious breakfast at the market’s Athenian Seafood Restaurant and Bar, vintage 1909. That was the year of my father’s birth. In essence, downtown Seattle is a wonderful place to walk.

I can contrast that with our time spent in Jerusalem. I thought I had seen hills in San Francisco, but Jerusalem’s terrain exceeded even that. The changes in altitude made it a glorious place to walk along the cobblestone. 

In my imagination I look over those many hills from a high point of the city and later move underground near the Temple Mount. I am in a city of contrasts, antiquity, and great beauty. 

And then the indescribable, praying by the Wailing Wall. There is no way to calculate the depth of that trip.