A Time to Seek: Meaning, Purpose, and Spirituality at Midlife

Pohlman (Halfway to Each Other) shares in this elegant memoir the spiritual insights she gleaned while traveling through Italy. The author went to Italy with her daughter, who was to spend her semester abroad there. After getting her daughter set up in an apartment, Pohlman headed out on her own to “explore new territory.” Pohlman contemplates how God’s presence gave her the courage to embark on solo trips to religious sites such as the Basilica di Santa Croce in Florence and Pazzi Chapel in Vatican City. A trip to Genoa-Nervi, where Pohlman briefly lived with her husband years before to rekindle the passion of their marriage, provides the most moving material: “What I have missed most was the state of grace that surrounded our couple-hood here, when we admitted our fragility to each other and surrendered to God’s lead.” Ultimately, these places of worship brought Pohlman a sense of comfort within the “indefinable weight of midlife”: “My fears and my truths commingled in awkwardly worded prayer and in pregnant silences that revealed more than my words could communicate.” Any spiritual seeker will find pleasure in Pohlman’s quiet peregrinations and constant choice to “squeeze the life out of each moment with which we are blessed.” (Self-published)