Notions
May 22, 2014 / Rain Travel
Plesiosaurs swam in my tears. Jesus, or his mother, or Buddha, or Mohammed, turned their faces up to some of this same rain. So did Genghis Khan, or his henchies, and a shaman the painter of visions in Lascaux. Probably they took shelter from it. Parts of bergy bits floating in the Southern Ocean… Read More
April 29, 2014 / Not My Tribe
Travel is supposed to be broadening. In my very early days as a traveler, naïve thing that I was, I learned how insular I was. I remember three times when I desperately missed my tribe. There I was, in 1963, in the Soviet Union, my very first trip out of my own country. My Mother,… Read More
April 18, 2014 / Keeping Up To Date
It seems hardly a day passes without some horrific news of disaster. Here in the Boston area we have just marked the one year that has passed since the Marathon bombings. Recently an entire 777 aircraft vanished with all souls onboard, apparently into thin air. Yesterday a ferry sank, carrying… Read More
April 08, 2014 / Happy Birthday, Hilary’s Places!
A whole year has passed since my website went live on March 29, 2013. Oh, it was such a long time in the conception and gestation and birth. For years I had kept journals and made images when on travel. The first really big journal I wrote by hand, in East Africa, in 1980. Those were hot places… Read More
March 18, 2014 / Open-Heart Surgery: Traveling Through the Valley of the Shadow
So just take everything off, and the gown opens in the back. You can put your clothes in this plastic bag. Here, honey, I want you to keep my wedding rings till I come home. No, just take the bag of clothes home with you. You can bring it back when I get discharged. Oh, that’s a really… Read More
January 31, 2014 / Little Stories of Seed Travel
Say you’re a plant. You’ve germinated, grown, made your flowers, got them pollinated—and now your pollinated ovaries have ripened into seeds. Your final task this year is to send the seeds off somehow so they can start their own lives (kind of like being a parent). You want to… Read More
January 29, 2014 / Little Stories of Animal Travel
The other day, walking to the subway and well-bundled up against the piercing cold, I stopped to watch a small dog and his person, both of whom were also well-bundled up. He was on a long, retractable leash and his person was letting him explore every crevice of a stone wall. At the time I was… Read More
January 17, 2014 / Travail
Curious about the derivation of the word “travel”, I looked it up in my American Heritage Dictionary, the one with the big appendix of roots. It comes from the Middle English word travailen, which meant to toil, just as travail does today: strenuous mental or physical exertion,… Read More
January 04, 2014 / Snow Bound
We should hurry up, don’t you think? The snow’s already started, and it’s supposed to get worse in a couple of hours, and go on all night and on into tomorrow afternoon. They’re saying it’s going to get into the single digits and there will be high winds too, so the… Read More
December 27, 2013 / Breath-Holding at Year’s End
The Shortest Day A Poem Written for Revels in 1977 by Susan Cooper So the Shortest Day came, and the year died And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world Came people singing, dancing, To drive the dark away. They lighted candles in the winter trees; They hung their homes with… Read More