My brother Lee and I started a journey of reconnecting a couple of years ago. More recently, we’ve become intentional about seeing each other often and spending more time together. This trip was another opportunity to connect, to spend some time together, experience a new place, and, of course, watch some LSU football.
We weren’t sure exactly how the trip would play out, but we had a plan.
Lee had a speaking engagement with a bank in New Orleans, and he invited me to meet him there so we could go to the LSU vs. Clemson game on Saturday night.
It Started With a Walk
While our journey of reconnecting had started a couple of years earlier, I can trace an important part of that reconnection back to a simple walk in Minnesota in July 2024.
Before that, our relationship was cordial, but somewhat distant.
Lee and I are only one year and one week apart in age, so we’ve obviously shared a lifetime of history. We would see each other at family functions, spend holidays together, celebrate birthdays and show up for the important family moments.
We were brothers. We knew each other. We cared about each other.
But we lived separate lives.
We were familiar, but distant.
Then something simple started to change that.
Walking.
Neither of us had planned it as some grand strategy for reconnecting. We had both independently developed a habit of walking, without really knowing the other had started doing the same thing.
Then, in July 2024, I made a last-minute decision to travel to Minnesota for a celebration of Lee’s wife Carmen’s book, Ashti’s Journey to Jazz, which had been turned into a musical.
While I was there, Lee asked if I’d be up for a walk.
I definitely was.
He had found a cool park and wanted to share the experience.
So we walked.
And something about walking together was different.
We weren’t sitting across a table waiting for the next course. We weren’t at a family gathering surrounded by other people. We weren’t trying to make anything happen.
We were just walking.
We talked. We laughed. We shared ideas. We experienced the park. And eventually, we did it again. And then again.
The walks became the place where our relationship started to change.
That’s something I’ve come to appreciate about walking. When you walk, you slow down.
You notice things.
You have time to think.
You have time to talk.
And sometimes, without even realizing it, you have time to reconnect.
Walking became more than exercise for us. It became a way of experiencing life together.
And that is really at the heart of what I mean by the Here and Now Traveler.
You don’t always need to rush from one destination to another.
Sometimes the best way to experience a place is to walk through it.
And sometimes the best way to experience a relationship is to walk beside someone.
I’ve come to think of our relationship this way:
We had always been brothers because we were born into the same family. But somewhere along the way, we started becoming friends because we were choosing to spend time together.
One of the beautiful things about our friendship is that we know almost everything about each other. Our learned experiences are almost identical from birth. We share so many of the same reference points that we can have healthy dialogue and go deep quickly.
We don’t see eye to eye on some deep existential issues, but we both keep an open mind. That makes the conversations better. It sharpens both of us.
We have enough shared history to understand each other and enough differences to keep each other thinking.
And maybe that’s what happens when you slow down enough to walk with someone.
You don’t just see the world differently.
You see each other differently.
Leave Room for the Unexpected
Our LSU weekend reminded me of something I’ve been thinking about a lot through the Here and Now Traveler: travel slowly, live presently, and focus on the journey rather than the destination.
Even getting there reinforced the point. A flight delay left me sitting, buckled into the plane, while the plane wasn’t ready to go. Instead of fighting the moment, I found myself thinking: Travel slowly. Live presently. Stay focused on the journey, not the destination.
I’d recently heard Tony Robbins talk about uncertainty as one of the six human needs. It made me think about how much of travel, and life, is actually about leaving room for what we can’t predict.
Certainty gives us comfort. Uncertainty gives us stories.
New Orleans
We stayed in a nice two-bedroom Airbnb in the Central Business District, which gave us a great place to unwind after the long travel day and a night out.
We walked along the Mississippi River. That felt fitting because walking had become such an important part of our relationship. We weren’t trying to get anywhere quickly. We were experiencing the river, the city and each other one step at a time.
After dinner, we walked down Bourbon Street. There was plenty of the unexpected there.
We stopped for beignets.
Our last stop was the Carousel Lounge. That one wasn’t random. Lee took me there because he wanted me to experience how cool and unique it was.
The next morning, we went for a walk. We had no idea that this walk would become one of the most meaningful moments of the trip.
We wanted to get some exercise and, as we often do now, have some time to talk.
When we arrived, we noticed there was a 5K taking place along the river. Everyone seemed to be wearing the same T-shirt, and we noticed it said Caleb Wilson Foundation.
https://thecalebwilsonfoundation.org/five-k
We didn’t know anything about the foundation or much about Caleb Wilson, but we decided to stay on our path.
As we walked, Lee became curious. He wanted to know what the walk was about. So, naturally, he decided to ask someone.
That guy turned out to be Caleb Wilson’s dad.
He explained Caleb’s story and the purpose behind the walk. What started as two brothers intentionally getting some exercise and spending time together unexpectedly turned into an opportunity to learn about a family, a cause, and a community coming together to honor Caleb’s life.
We weren’t looking for that moment.
But we were present enough for it to find us.
And that’s really the point.
You can’t manufacture every meaningful moment. Sometimes you simply have to be open enough to notice when one appears.
Baton Rouge
The next day we headed toward Baton Rouge for the game. Along the way, we stopped at outlet shops to buy LSU gear and found exactly what we needed at a great price.
Then came the parking adventure.
A few miles from the stadium we hit bumper-to-bumper traffic. We tried a couple of lots and were turned away because they were prepaid.
Eventually, we found a spot in front of an apartment building. An older gentleman who owned the building was allowing people to park there for a reasonable price, so we took it.
As we walked toward the stadium, we almost forgot to drop a pin on the map so we’d remember how to get back to the car.
We arrived just in time for the VIP tailgate, but getting there meant navigating through thousands of people to find our location.
It was worth the hassle.
The VIP experience was exactly that. Our host made us feel at home, and the food was pure Louisiana, including alligator and boudin balls.
We left the tailgate early so we could see the teams warm up.
And then the weather had something else in mind.
Rain and lightning rolled in, delaying the game by two hours and ten minutes. We went back and forth trying to stay out of the rain and find somewhere dry.
Finally, the game started at 8:40 p.m.
At halftime, when we decided to go home, LSU was leading Clemson 31–3.
The Journey
Looking back, the LSU game was the destination we’d planned months before.
But the game wasn’t really the story.
The story was everything that happened while we were getting there.
The conversations. The walks. The unexpected moments. The people we met. The places Lee wanted me to experience. Even the delays and frustrations that became part of the story.
The destination gave us a reason to go. The journey gave us something to remember.
I’ve started to believe that walking is one of the simplest ways to practice being present.
When you walk, you move slowly enough to notice the people, places and conversations that you might otherwise pass by.
Maybe that’s why walking has become such an important part of my relationship with Lee.
We started walking to get exercise. Somewhere along the way, we started walking into a friendship.
And maybe that’s what the Here and Now Traveler is really about.
Not simply traveling to places.
Not checking destinations off a list.
But slowing down enough to actually experience where you are and who you’re with.
Because sometimes the destination isn’t the most important part of the journey.
Sometimes the walk is the journey.
Travel slowly. Live presently.
Walk a little more.
You might be surprised by what and who you discover along the way.
Leave a comment