Travel to the Perfect Country

I made it to the cover of TraveLife Magazine, July 20 special edition!  How many copies in circulation? One.  

It didn't go on magazine stands—it came straight to me via email from an artist friend, Ryan.

Why would anyone go through the trouble of making me a beautiful TraveLife cover on my birthday? I ask myself that question whenever I receive a gift painstakingly done.  And then I look at me and what I joyfully go through to give my friends and loved ones a gift I labored on. (When I handed my friend Rose a faux pearl necklace I designed and strung myself, her eyes misted. Oh, but that's another story.)   
Here I am talking about Ryan, a very young artist who is younger than my youngest son.  He and I  partnered to do a coffeetable book, and an eight-page supplement on several luxury apartments for a developer, also a friend, for TraveLife Magazine early this year.  

It was Ryan's first magazine job and my . . . hmmm, millionth?  He tackled the design and he needed me for the text. 

I tried to teach him all I know about the ad business, and he taught me so much more by dishing out ideas I would never have thought of on my own. 

Those were tedious assignments, but fun.  They took me back to my years in the ad agency—frenzy and furious, but fulfilling!  When the coffee table book was launched and the TraveLife Magazine came out of circulation, my job with the developer ended. 

I have not heard much from Ryan since—until he sent me the TraveLife Magazine cover on my birthday.  He emailed (as he often did when we were still working together):

Hi Ms. G,

I was asked to do the TraveLife cover for this coming season. If it's okay, I just want your comment on my design.

You want my comment, Ryan? 

Design? Perfect destination. Text? You didn't need me to write this beautiful prose: 

“Travel to a place called GRACE, the only country where everything is free.”