Hilary Hopkins
I suppose really since you have my travel journals here to read, and the blog, you already know what sort of person I am! Among other parts of my life, travel is very important. I have sometimes thought that travel seems sacramental to me, something sacred or of spiritual importance that I am obligated to do. That because I have been given this matchless and profound gift of life on this planet, it is my obligation to lay my eyes on and celebrate as much of it as I can. I’ve often said, well, I don’t care where I go, how “ordinary” a place, there will be wonderful things there. I think that every thing is of equal importance, that there is nothing, no thing, that is of no consequence. Every thing, every place, is of great value to some other thing or person.
During my formal work life, I have had what I call serial serious careers, one after the other, trying to exercise as many of my callings as I could. I’ve been a Gr. 4 teacher, a director of a city program for elementary gifted kids, an education consultant and adjunct professor of creativity and critical thinking, a tour director (those big 50-passenger buses), a teacher/naturalist for the Audubon Society, and an author (one book about common plants and another about historic places in Boston). Now that I no longer do formal work, I volunteer in several interesting places. And I travel, and write about it and take pictures, and share those with other people. So far, right now, I have been to 104 countries.
I love science, music, art, people’s stories, eavesdropping (to the despair of my husband), hiking, kayaking and everything outdoors, smelling and touching stuff, trying to figure out how things happened, and quietly doing nothing. If I were given a gift of five minutes to see the past or five minutes to see the future, I would choose going into the distant past to see our earliest people: how did they do things? How did they sound and look? How did they figure stuff out?
For years (ever since college, and that was a heckuva long time ago) people have described me as “enthusiastic.” I’m not quite sure what that means but I’ll take it. Enjoy the words, the pictures, the places, and the ideas. Please comment where there are places for that on this website!
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