Category Archives: travel

We went out for a walk at night. The bedouin tent village, with all the camels asleep in the paddock, faded behind us, the lights dimming past the dunes we crossed. Looking back it was a glint on the horizon … Continue reading →

I don’t know what prayer is;
I do know how to pay attention

14 Apr 2012

“[Jerusalem] exists in the past, as the capital of a lost civilization. It exists in the future as the portal to the next world. It exists everywhere but in the present. It’s where the past and the future overwhelm the … Continue reading →

Innocents Abroad

4 Apr 2012

It took more than a day to get from California to Israel, which only heightened the feeling of being far away. I was disoriented, as all travelers are, and we immediately boarded a bus that took us from Tel Aviv … Continue reading →

American dispatches

3 Jan 2012

30 October 2011, 11pm, between Philadelphia and D.C. There is an intimacy to the last row of a tiny puddle jumper in the dark of night, the arm rest up, a loveseat. Me and the boy with the big knees, … Continue reading →

liminal seasons

27 Oct 2011

I never knew if my birthday fell in summer or in fall. Every year it was different, sometimes tinged with the hot glare of summer, despite being stuck in school (which was always exciting, anyway); sometimes the leaves had already … Continue reading →

where the river meets the sea

14 Jul 2011

The water was cold. It was thick, like slush ice. Only it kind of lived. One part of you knowed it was just water, the same thing that had been running under this same bridge for a long time, yet … Continue reading →

Cities of the Dead

25 Jun 2011

On the cab ride from the airport, the driver, Ali, was perplexed by my questions about the cemeteries we passed and my eagerness to visit them. I mentioned the famously ornate style of New Orleans cemeteries and their above ground tombs, … Continue reading →

I wish I was in New Orleans

14 Jun 2011

Arriving at night leaves the traveler with a skewed perspective. Mid-City seemed dark and mysterious, dangerous even, the enormous granite elk in Greenwood cemetery portentous. In the light of day, of course, things had changed. All pigs look black at … Continue reading →

Soviet relics

28 May 2011

Driving down Karl Marx Allee in the former East Berlin seems to be a better indicator of life under Soviet rule than taking snapshots of men in uniform at Checkpoint Charlie. The bland yet bombastic, monotonous buildings, which are now … Continue reading →

corrida de toros

9 Mar 2011

San Miguel de Allende, México, December 2006

Marfa My Dear

11 Feb 2011

We drove the quiet, wide-open two-lane, counting the other cars on one hand, passing family ranches with their names bent into iron and adorned with longhorns and wreaths. The highway cut through nowhere, the place chosen for a Prada store … Continue reading →