EXPIRATION: JANUARY 2023

I was 17 when I applied for my first passport to spend the summer in Olden i Nordfjord, Norway, as an American Field Service exchange student.  (FYI: that trans-Atlantic crossing back in 1959 took seven days aboard the S. S. Groote Beer. In Norway, I quickly learned that the locals enjoy five meals a day and I never missed one, so I returned to the States 15 pounds heavier. And, today I am still in touch with my Norwegian “sister,” Eli Sunde.)

Several years later, I carried that same passport on a family trip to Europe. (FYI: I tasted my first gazpacho in Seville, my first cheese fondue in Geneva, my first Bolognese in Florence and my first baklava in Mykonos. I also remember standing nervously in long lines at the immigration check-in booths, looking up at less-than-smiley uniformed officers who eyeballed me like I was on the Interpol most-wanted list.)

Ten years after that, my first passport expired, and I needed a new one with a new name for a honeymoon to Paris, Portofino, Florence, Rome and Majorca. (FYI: memories of that trip lasted longer than the marriage.) 

Every subsequent decade, when my valid-for-10-years passport expired, I’d apply for a new one. As a travel writer penning articles for newspapers and magazines, I flew off to go dog sledding in Lapland, or paddling down a muddy river in the steamy Borneo jungle looking for orangutans in their natural habitat (now THAT was a wild trip), or tracking Cape Buffalo and elephants on a walking safari in Zimbabwe. I visited Tangiers, London, Fiji, Madeira, the Algarve, Lausanne and so many others that I ran out of pages and needed to get an appendix on my passport.

My current passport expires January 2023. It’s not an especially exciting passport to flip through because most of the pages are blank, other than entry stamps to Shannon, Amsterdam and St. Lucia. But these past few years, and definitely during Covid, we didn’t wave goodbye to the Statue of Liberty. 

So I asked Mr. Wonderful: Should I get my passport renewed? “Absolutely!” he said. 

Hmmm. I reminded him that we’re STILL missing a huge suitcase that got lost at the Milan airport 15 years ago en route to a friend’s wedding in Tuscany. “Remember, we had to buy new clothes so we didn’t look like fruit pickers at the reception? Plus, airlines are cancelling hundreds of flights these days and there are huge delays. Plus, passengers are doing hand combat in the aisles over masks and flight attendants are beleaguered. What fun is that?”

But the truth is: I’m not sure I want to go through the hassle of an exhausting jet-lag-inducing ankle-puffing flight to Europe where nobody likes us much anymore anyway. Everything costs too many Euros. And suppose Mr. Wonderful or I get sick? 

I’ve turned into a fuddy-duddy.

Not so long ago, I couldn’t wait to pack my suitcase and head out the door. Travel was exciting, stimulating, educational and fun. And the shopping! I still treasure hand-painted pottery we bought in Siena and the blue and yellow Provencal tablecloth I found at a market in Aix. 

But just in case Mr. W. figures out some way to get me airlifted to a Viking cruise on the Rhine — directly into my stateroom-with-balcony — I’ll renew it.

Hope springs eternal?  It does here in the Wells woods.