Breakfast/Kahvaltı
I’m the only customer in the breakfast room at the hotel, and the chef comes from the kitchen to nod at my arrival. I cut straight for the coffee and … Continue reading
To Pest From Buda L.O.V.E.
Monday I’ll begin a few weeks of putting myself at the mercy of strangers in Turkey as I try to learn their remarkable language. This will most certainly lead to … Continue reading
I Know This Much Is True
The artist is learning a special language in which to reveal truth. If you write, write from the heart, yet carefully, objectively. Never pose. Write little things which you think … Continue reading
Overhead
Still not moving–thirty minutes after the departure time. Passengers check the clocks on their cell phones, sigh, slap their legs, make utterances in their native tongues. When the bus to … Continue reading
I Like a Good Papercut and Fear No Cannonball. (A Poll)
Seeking info. So feel free to elaborate in Comments…
Yes, I Believe We’ve Already Met
I get a kick out of meeting someone who is a cliché embodied. It produces a pleasant feeling of a world completed, of everything arranging itself without any of my … Continue reading
I Pick Things Up And Put Them Down
At baggage claim in Istanbul, the men are standing with hands on their hips. They wait shoulder to shoulder, some standing sideways to get one arm slightly closer to the … Continue reading
Happiness. Snacks.
One of the secrets of the happy life is continuous small treats, and if some of these can be inexpensive and quickly procured so much the better. -Iris Murdoch. The … Continue reading
Morning Routine: Vienna
A woman on her balcony turns her back to the street and raises her arms in a wide V overhead. She stretches at her reflection in the balcony windows. She … Continue reading
Can I Get This To-Go?
So sorry! I collected one really amazing moment of life in Austria this morning. You’ll have to wait until Wednesday, though. (There will be jumping jacks involved.) In the meantime, … Continue reading
Hats Off
He tumbles, his small souvenir fez cap flying. The boy and his younger sister had been running down the cobblestones by the Archaeology Museum in Istanbul, dashing on ahead of … Continue reading
On Your Way
You know, my dear child, that one cannot find peace in word or in pleasure, in the world or in a convent, but only in one’s soul. –(From the Mother … Continue reading
Baby’s First Swim
The mother slowly hands her infant to his father, who waits in the shallow end of the hotel swimming pool. The baby wears a diaper and a cloth head wrap … Continue reading
The ShoeDown
I believe we call this, The Competition. Repair or replace? From a shoe cart in Istanbul to a cowboy boot cobbler in Colorado Springs, it’s been quite a year already. … Continue reading
Novi Sad Part II: Chuck Norris Drowns the Ocean
My hosts take me to the hill by the Clock Tower. We pause. They confer and the beautiful girl sighs at them, and asks me if I would mind drinking … Continue reading
PTI. The Chicken Truck
Novi Sad, Part II on Monday. First, this chicken truck in Grünwald, Germany and a line from the brilliant Flannery O’Connor. This is on my mind today. * Blick’s Feed … Continue reading
Novi Sad, Part I
Most of the girls in town have long, straight-cut bangs that make a horizon over their eyebrows. Most of the girls hold cigarettes in their unsmiling mouths. They pout like … Continue reading
The Beloved
It’s an ordinary stoplight. Everyone waiting for permission to move on. And the blonde dog shivers, always nervous to ride in the car, even after an adventurous walk through the … Continue reading
How Was Your Day?
I have discovered that most people have no one to talk to, no one, that is, who really wants to listen. When it does at last dawn on a man … Continue reading
The Nice Thing About Strangers 