Author Archives: paul

There was a time, not long after our daughter was born, when it felt like the whole world could shrink down to a few hundred square feet and still be complete. Standing in that freshly furnished nursery, looking at our tiny newborn sleeping in her crib, I remember thinking that if we moved to aContinue reading “Time Well Spent”

Christmas has a way of showing up early at my house—usually while the pumpkins are still on the porch. We haven’t even made it to Thanksgiving yet, and here I am talking about Christmas. Maybe it’s because I’ll be flying home from working overseas the day before my newest book is released—or maybe it’s becauseContinue reading “A Mississippi Christmas, Early”

LONDON—It shouldn’t work, but it does. Twenty-five Americans, most of them from the South, gathered around a breakfast table in Dublin. It’s the kind of setup that should feel like herding cats, yet, for some reason, it never feels like group travel. My wife and I don’t even like group tours. Though for nine yearsContinue reading “Where Are We Going Next?”

“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.” — Henry David Thoreau GALWAY, IRELAND— Not much in my life has ever gone according to plan, and that’s turned out to be the plan. The goal, at first, was simple: open one small restaurant, workContinue reading “How One Thing Became Everything”

PETROGNANO, TUSCANY — We were finishing dessert on the terrace last night when one of my Yonderlust Tours guests looked at the cap I wear most days and asked, “What’s that word mean?” Onward. People ask that all the time. He thought it might be a restaurant I owned or someone else’s business I wasContinue reading “Onward Part III”

At six years old, I wanted to be Darrin Stephens from Bewitched. He worked in advertising, came up with ideas, pitched them, and got paid for it. That seemed like magic. Somewhere around my preteen years, I decided being in a rock ’n’ roll band was the ticket. For a while it was architecture, thenContinue reading “So, I Guess This Is It”

When I was a kid, the number sixty-five always carried one meaning— retirement. That was the finish line. My maternal grandfather retired at sixty-five after a long career at AT&T, and everyone treated it like the natural order of things. You worked hard, did your time, then traded in the briefcase for a gold watchContinue reading “In the Blood”

“Since when is life about happiness? It should be about impact.” That line from Daniel Ek, the founder of Spotify, hit me square between the eyes when I heard it on a podcast recently. Happiness is the thing most of us chase. I did. We all want it, and we spend a lifetime trying toContinue reading “What I Learned About Impact”

“To the outside world we all grow old. But not to brothers and sisters. We know each other as we always were. We know each other’s hearts. We share private family jokes. … We live outside the touch of time.” — Clara Ortega There’s a rhythm to lunch with my brother. It starts the minuteContinue reading “He Ain’t Heavy”