Every year, in the middle of January, my wife and I escape the cold and go on an adventure.
After a lifetime of hyper-responsive adulting — raising five children, Sherpa children, and half the neighborhood — we now claim this sacred season for laughing, playing, singing, wandering, and remembering how wildly beautiful it is to simply be alive. We lovingly call this phase of life being teenagers with a checkbook.
Several years ago, we became dear friends with the Fenders. They are just reckless enough — in the very best way — to joyfully jump headfirst into our adventures, and we adore them for it.
This month, we are in Southeast Asia, and our first stop was Hanoi, Vietnam.
And let me tell you… Hanoi is chaotically delightful and exhilaratingly organized all at once.
I arranged what may be the most thrilling city tour of my life: riding on the backs of vintage Minsk motorcycles — classic Soviet-era bikes from the 1960s — weaving, zooming, darting through a river of scooters, cars, bicycles, vendors, and humanity. It was complete, delightful, sphincter-retracting, blood-curdling exhilaration.
But here is the miracle part.
After a little while, you begin to notice something extraordinary. Beneath the apparent chaos lives a hidden elegance — an invisible choreography. Even when traffic seems to be charging straight at you, somehow everyone flows, everyone survives, and somehow… it works.
Then came the highlight of the evening.
We stopped at Hanoi Train Street — the narrow railway alley in the Old Quarter where trains thunder past within inches of cafés, walls, and very human knees lining the tracks.
Ngõ 224 Lê Duẩn, Khâm Thiên, Đống Đa, Hà Nội, Vietnam
Our guide smiled and said, “Make sure your knees are all the way to the side.”
And so we sat … hearts pounding … knees obediently tucked in as a massive freight train 🚞 roared passed us two or three inches away.
Terrifying.
Exhilarating.
And utterly, gloriously unforgettable.
Standing there — laughing, breathless, vibrating with joy — a thought landed gently in my heart:
Maybe in life, we need more moments like this.
More exhilaration.
More laughter in the face of fear.
More willingness to feel the full spectrum of being human.
Too often, we pack our feelings in ice.
We normalize them.
We marginalize them.
We stop tasting the grandeur of this mortal experience.
So here is my invitation to you — offered with a full heart and a mischievous grin:
As Ms. Frizzle from The Magic School Bus would say…
Take chances. Make mistakes. Get messy.
And without being foolish, go live a big, glorious, non-apologetic life.
And just for the record — if you ever get the chance to go to Hanoi, Vietnam — it is not a bad place to begin.
Sending you my blessings for finding joy and delight in your life,
Rich Christiansen
