Morning Musings

It should bother me, perhaps, that in my late forties I have gotten no closer to visiting Brazil than these Mundo Novo beans (pictured above), from one of my favorite local roasters, Liminal Coffee, discovered earlier this year at the San Mateo, California farmers’ market.  In response to my third posting in the past week of Seal Point Park, along the San Francisco Bay Trail, pictured below, on another social networking site, a friend, an expat, acknowledged my sense of decency and expressed his hope that in the same vein I develop a sense of adventure.  I thanked him and, tongue in cheek, noted that I have a nice local hike planned for this weekend.  An IP law delegation to Washington, D.C., planned for last spring, was replaced this week with a virtual visit, informative, satisfying, but not quite the same.  A friend is moving next week to Germany, perhaps indefinitely.  I attended his going away gathering yesterday, wishing him safe travels and requesting regular reports.  In solidarity, I am climbing The Magic Mountain (Mann), given the infeasibility, for me, of a physical visit, at least in the near future.  Someone I met at a dinner party a few weeks ago will be vacationing this summer in Greece, which requires only proof of a COVID vaccination for entry.   I can already picture the spartan beauty of Eos, a moonscape as any, and the black sand beaches of Santorini, both which I visited more than twenty years ago, backpacking after graduate school.  Croatia, I have been told, is still open for business, having never really closed, after a brief shutdown last spring and early summer.  In The Innocents Abroad, Mark Twain, a far less intrepid traveler, breached a quarantine in Rome due to a cholera outbreak and associated “fumigation” to document his travels to the Eternal City. 

For me, and perhaps for others, the global pandemic has dampened, if not temporarily extinguished, the international travel spirits.  While many countries no longer require quarantine upon entry, many, if not most, require proof of a negative COVID test, even for fully vaccinated travelers, and re-entry, to the United States, requires a negative test.  Add to this other possible travel restrictions (e.g., cantons, in Switzerland), and other uncertainties and shortages (no rental cars in some domestic locales, etc.), and you can see, perhaps, why I am not jumping to get into the fray.  There is a broader issue, that transcends that past fifteen or so months, namely that, for me, the international travel train may have left the station. For some time, I had considered applying to roles abroad, working at a multinational where such a temporary transfer was at least theoretically a possibility.  Suffice to say, I could never figure out how to, with my other responsibilities, make that work, so it never happened.  Kudos to those who have.  This all said, more incrementally, a different setting would probably do me some good. 

Lastly, returning to the subject of books, a friend recently recommended Discover Your True North (George), on becoming an authentic leader.  I have read quite a few leadership books over the years, and this one might be a good addition to my library, scattered throughout various nooks and crannies in my house; provided that, I can convince my spouse to provide a waiver for the unspoken rule that for every new book in, one needs to go out.  I have not read leadership or organizational behavior or dynamics books for some time.  Just as for travel, it is probably time to re-engage. Comments welcomed.