For the last week or so, my brother has been in Bangalore for work. He’s been emailing his trials and tribulations and posting oddities from the tech ghetto. I’ve enjoyed them tremendously. In the middle of my brother’s dispatches, I also received an email from my internet friend, West Seattle neighbor, and writer extraordinaire, Marika. …
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, …
Tranquility ~ the state of being free from commotion or disturbance; the absence of agitation The mere anticipation of being in my favorite hotel room overlooking Haystack Rock (which grows out of the Pacific in Cannon Beach, Oregon) triggers an impending sense of tranquility somewhere deep inside of me. Once there, the peacefulness in my …
On a recent flight to New York City, my seat mate asked me what I did for a living. Still high from the release of my first book, I was all too happy to tell him I was a bona fide, true blue, working American writer. Two days post-release, I’m not afraid to say I …
When the plane starts to head for the ground, I crane my neck to see what’s ahead. Seated in the co-pilot’s seat of a six-seater bush plane, all I can see is the same thing I’ve been looking at for the entire 45 minute flight, a vast pincushion of endless green forest canopy. We skim …
An emerald sedan sped past with a black man standing in the passenger seat—the yellow feathers of his headdress streaming out the sun roof. “Follow that Indian!” Glen swung a quick U-turn on Rampart Street, the northwest division between the French Quarter and the Tremé—the nation’s oldest African American neighborhood. The car now headed east …