What the Old World Knows

Feb 19

Written By Catherine la O' with Liminal Space

You may not know this about me, but I’ve been studying wine for almost as long as I’ve studied yoga.

I have a special love for French wine.

Unlike California wines, French wines tend to show restraint. They don’t overpower a meal; they partner with it. There’s a subtle elegance that invites you to slow down, pay attention, and let the experience unfold.

That’s part of why I was so excited to travel to France for the first time. I planned the trip around food and wine—appointments with sommeliers, restaurants, and small eateries all mapped out.

On my first day, I got sick.

Some kind of stomach flu, or native bacteria my body couldn’t handle. I spent the next two days in bed with a fever, and the rest of the trip with a weak stomach, barely able to eat.

It was not the trip I planned.

Once the initial disappointment wore off, something else opened up. I spent my days wandering neighborhoods, delighting in beautiful window displays of food I couldn’t eat, and falling in love with the city itself.

Paris in winter is dramatic.

The sky kept shifting—heavy clouds, sudden light, that moody brightness that makes everything feel more alive—set against old Gothic buildings. Stone and detail. Narrow streets. The feeling of countless lives moving through the same corners and doorways across centuries. I kept thinking about time: how long a city can hold its shape, and how much history can be layered into something as ordinary as a street corner.

Walking those streets made me think about how young the United States is by comparison; how early we still are in our own story. It made me think about Henry, my partner’s ten-year-old son, who’s learning about history for the first time, and falling in love with it.

He sometimes quizzes us on dates we don’t remember, questioning our intelligence — which is both hilarious and mildly offensive. I tell him that after 52 years, other information has taken the place of those dates in my brain.

He just rolls his eyes at what he sees as our ignorance.

The longer I sat with that contrast, the more I felt it: as a country, we can be a little like Henry—confident, certain, and still learning. Sometimes we’re quick to assume we know best, slow to listen to those with more experience. We don’t have centuries of lived history behind us, and it shows.

Strangely, that gave me a bit of solace. Some compassion for our growing pains, and a hope that we can mature into something wiser and more humane.

Amsterdam was my last stop, and it added a layer to that reflection. Knowing what that city has lived through—occupation, destruction, heartbreak—and then seeing how vibrant and joyful it is now. It reminded me that life can recover. That a place (and perhaps a people) can move toward something good.

I didn’t get the immersive wine/food experience I planned, but I came home with a deeper sense of time, resilience, and possibility.

Sometimes the bold experience we plan isn’t what pairs best with our life.

Sometimes what’s called for is more humble.

In wine.
In travel.
In growing up.