The experiences of travel, over time, blend together into a hazy mosaic of sunrises and sunsets, curries and salads, aromas and stenches; but then two guys try to murder you in northern Laos, and that doesn’t really blend with anything.
I’d left Boun Tai, a small Lao village in the southern reaches of Phongsali province, around dawn. Submerged in mist I rode for a good 20 kilometres before the sun seared through; dappling among the canopy of leaves to my potholed road below.… continued…
“It’s like we’re high,” said my friend Eileen, and I laughed because she was right. We had headed out for a walk in my neighborhood but it was impossible for us to move forward, everything was wrapped in a sparkling clear layer of glassy ice and we needed to look all of it. Twice. Up close. We gawked at the little black berries on the hedge that lines the west side of my yard — they were like eyeballs on stalks.… continued…
Is it possible to love a city as if it was the first city you have loved, or that loved you?
Start with a definition of love.
Love is not the adoration, constantly delivered, that keeps your pupils dilated, or the skin flush. Love is more like the horrible sense of self -awareness that your place in life is not going to be easy at first, or that it may sometimes be rather difficult, in fact.… continued…
I didn’t see the falls when I came in, it was too dark and the sky was too low. There was a heavy mist in the air and there was no ambient light. I slid the little bathroom window shut, thinking that the white noise was some kind of air conditioner or generator, and it muffled the sound slightly. The little coqui frogs cheeped, the static noise of the falls droned in the background, and when the frogs went to bed, so did I.… continued…
The gate clangs open and the steer springs out into the ring. He’s brown or black with white on his butt. The cowboys are right behind the steer, the rope slices through the air with a whoosh, the horses throw dust up in the ring. The steer races to the opposite side of the ring, but he’s too slow, the rope catches him around the horns or the neck and he starts to howl in frustration.… continued…
