Like hordes before us, we entered Rome through its northern gate. We had rented a terrace apartment in an old marble-filled building in the Flaminio neighbourhood, just outside the ancient city walls. Each day, we kept pace with Romans bustling to work and flowed through the Porta del Popolo, built in the late 1400s as a grand entrance to the city. Centuries before we arrived, barbarian tribes (so named by the Romans) stormed in here and sacked the city. Martin Luther also travelled this way. He came in the early 1500s to live in a monastery, from which he observed the church and the pope close up, just nine years before he and his ideas rocked the world. Later, there was Queen Christina of Sweden, who in 1654 converted to Catholicism, abdicated her throne and rolled into her adopted city through Porta del Popolo dressed as an Amazon and riding in a chariot.

This summer, my friend Lucienne and I escaped smog-blanketed Vancouver for a few days in Vancouver Island’s seaside town of Sooke. Our journey began early on a Friday morning in July as we set off for Tsawwassen ferry terminal in our forest green hybrid Honda Clarity. A beautiful and blustery hour-and-a-half BC Ferries trip to Swartz Bay, and an hour drive along island highways brought us to the quaint town of Sooke (pop. 13,000). Here we stocked up on provisions, plotting the meals we would prepare in the fully equipped kitchen that awaited us in our luxury suite at SookePoint Ocean Cottage Resort.

How do I make sense of my life? Is this all? What can I do about the maelstrom of feelings, ideas, habits, blind spots, and deep connection, which rules my body and mind? What will give me peace? I’m doing ok, but I’m not happy in my own skin.

Eric Akis Apple turnovers bring back childhood memories.