Good Health. You’re Welcome.
Life can be hard for non-smokers who don’t have the tasks and belongings of smokers to keep their hands busy. Instead must find ways to deal with our hands, to … Continue reading
Wednesday Strategy Session
Some people have a great dream and don’t accomplish it. Still others have no dreams and likewise don’t accomplish them. –Fernando Pessoa. The Book of Disquiet (immortalized in Lisbon graffiti)
Dreaming Unfinished Stories (Vienna Edition)
There were so many stories to write about that Miss Willerton never could think of one. That was always the hardest part of writing a story, she always said. She … Continue reading
Visas and Patience
He took the window seat and buckled himself in. His adult daughter shuffled belongings around the overhead compartment and gave commentary on her discomfort. He nodded at her words, not … Continue reading
Skip the Map
If you find yourself asking: How did I get here? Isador once said, that probably means you are living a life worth living. –Aleksandar Hemon. The Lazarus Project (yes, AGAIN. … Continue reading
Neighborly
The eleven year old girl on the bus moves over to sit in front of her mother. This way she is now in the row across the aisle from me, … Continue reading
Double Date
The couple ducks into the restaurant–the doorways give them plenty of clearance, but they bow anyway. The host shows them to a table and the woman takes the chair facing … Continue reading
On The Move
Whenever he was en route from one place to another, he was able to look at his life with a little more objectivity than usual. -Paul Bowles. The Sheltering Sky … Continue reading
The Meek Tourist
My landlord got his boat engine going and ran it, revved it, for a nice long time. This sound, and my rumbling stomach, pushed back against my travel anxiety and … Continue reading
To Pass the Time
Among the many reasons I like Croatian bus drivers is that they will carry on conversations with you knowing full well you don’t speak the language. A test of your … Continue reading
Uncanny
A full-blooded American, she was…She was routinely kind to other people, assumed they had good intentions; she smiled at strangers; it mattered to her what they thought and felt. She … Continue reading
A Sentimental Sunset in Montenegro
In his saner moments he would have been ashamed to respond so strongly to the familiar, banal and utterly meaningless colours of the sky. But as the sun went down … Continue reading
Take Care
The bus trip from Vienna to Trogir, Croatia takes twelve hours and rolls overnight. As the monster idles–half the passengers taking final drags on cigarettes and patting at their relatives–a … Continue reading
Respect
I get to sit by him! The little old Japanese man I spotted back in the glacial airport check-in lines–he’s in my row and he will be spied upon. He … Continue reading
For the (Mean) Professor who told me to be Realistic
On a brilliant November day, my students talked me into teaching outside. So we were at an outdoor amphitheater on the Danube when I broke into the story of the … Continue reading
Remember Me
The covered cabin of the small boat to Split is full by the time I arrive. So I stand with six others on the back platform, holding onto the railing. … Continue reading
Have a Nice Trip
I stumbled over a dip in the sidewalk, tumbled over my own black boots in the peripheral glance of a … Continue reading
Mensch!
On the long day before a set of flights home to Colorado, I helped with a Halloween party in a private Austrian school. My favorite child, Phillip, with a perpetual … Continue reading
This Too
He had the feeling that everything he saw was a broken-off piece of some giant thing that he had forgotten had happened to him. -Flannery O’Connor. Wise Blood. (Photo from … Continue reading
Next Stop
As usual, stops were not announced on the train. People familiar with the route rushed the hallways as we pulled into a station–or the last scraps of one. The train … Continue reading
The Nice Thing About Strangers 