‘This madness is for life’
There are no perfect lives — only perfect moments.”
Thus said STAR travel columnist Christine Dayrit when she recently launched her book “60 Dream Holidays Around the World” to an SRO crowd at Chef Jessie’s in Makati City.
The 60 stories featured in her 464-page, four-kilo book are reprinted from her articles in The STAR. She has written more than a thousand travel articles since 2000. She has traveled to all continents but Antarctica.
“But life gives us second chances. And this coming February, I will finally go (to Antarctica) — and complete the circle of all seven continents. A promise 25 years in the making,” Christine said.
At the book launch, family and friends read excerpts from her book. Grade schoolers Annika Buensalido and Pablo Constantino, children of her nieces Nikki Buensalido and Christel Constantino, gleefully stole the thunder when they read excerpts from their African travel with their Tita Christine.
“I owe my path to many,” she said. “To STAR president and CEO Miguel Belmonte and his wife and my childhood best friend Milette, who opened the doors that allowed my voice to find its place in the Philippine Star. To my editor, Millet Mananquil, who grounded my passion with discipline and purpose. And to my family and friends — your faith has been my quiet anchor,” Christine said.
She added: “This is what a quarter century of wandering has taught me: that our lives are made not of perfection but of moments — some fragile, some fierce, all fleeting. Travel does not make life perfect, but it gives us more moments worth holding on to. The sunsets that silence us. The landscapes that humble us. The laughter that breaks across a long journey like light.
Christine said she lives to travel, to chase the light. This “madness is for life.”
“For when the roads end, when the planes stop flying, when the maps finally close, it is not the destinations we remember — it is the people, the joy, the tenderness, the courage, the small miracles that meet us along the way,” she concluded.
Looking at the table of contents alone of Christine’s book — from Roxas City in the Visayan Islands to the Iguazu Falls in Argentina — one feels like one has already travelled the world. The book should be savored, like a cup of brew or a glass of Chardonnay — after which one has not only vicariously travelled the world — but has also experienced it.
Bon voyage, Christine! *
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