Icy Conditions
In the middle of Pennsylvania, after driving through sleet and ice for five hours, it is a relief to smile at the two older men sitting for coffee at the … Continue reading
My Journey Home
TSA airport security in O’Hare is making me cry. I receive glares, short-tempered orders, eye rolls, and blank stares. After twenty hours of travel, I have tears in my eyes … Continue reading
A Heartening Tip for Homebodies
Travel? One need only exist to travel. I go from day to day, as from station to station, in the train of my body or my destiny, leaning out over … Continue reading
Soup and Sisters
I’m willing to bet they are sisters, or perhaps very close cousins, but the group of three women are all sitting with identical postures while waiting for the airplane. The … Continue reading
You’re a Stray and That’s Okay
The woman proudly marches with a designer purse and sunglasses, but she also totes a plastic bag of cat food. She stops along the sidewalk to give a handful of … Continue reading
Meet Me in St. Louis
It did not take him long to act. Often nowadays people do not know what to do and so live out their lives as if they were waiting for some … Continue reading
Wandering and Mispronunciation
A friend asked me, “What did you do in Krakow?” I smiled to myself because my chief activity was wandering. I walked for hours in random directions. I sat in … Continue reading
The Symphony: Part I
In the lobby, I spot him first. His gray hair is nearly tended. He wears a green tweed sport coat and a tie with small printed horses. I notice his … Continue reading
Tram 6: Another Abbreviated Love Story
They see each other while she is a passenger and he waits at the stop. As the tram slows and the doors opens, they both lift their chins just a … Continue reading
Your Life as a Masterpiece
Not all are called to be artists in the specific sense of the term. Yet, as Genesis has it, all men and women are entrusted with the task of crafting … Continue reading
Must Love (Beware of) Dogs
It’s a damp Sunday morning. There’s a vague rain and a gray haze. Between the center of the city and the airport, patches of trees are a deep green like … Continue reading
Slapstick Grandma
She gives her grandchildren a bright, rainbow umbrella. She opens it for those cherubs–a boy and a girl in galoshes–and lets the girl hold it over them both. She follows … Continue reading
A Home on the Horizon
It is just that, as it now suddenly occurs to me, this is the first time in my life that I have been really alone at night. My childhood home, … Continue reading
Shoeless Wonder
In the park, I sit with a friend on a blanket. We have taken off our shoes, made ourselves comfortable, catching up on what we’ve done while we were apart. … Continue reading
You Know How To Whistle, Don’t You?
He can whistle like a dog’s squeaking chew toy. A few of the people sitting in the park look up and expect to see a dog. Yet, it is the … Continue reading
Respect Your Elders
Pantera is the name of a metal band from Texas, and it’s scrawled across his t-shirt. He gruffly approaches the Information Desk. His girlfriend stands at his side with elaborate … Continue reading
In-Flight Optimism
He’s just over 21, I know this because the flight attendant checked his ID, but he still looks like a young boy with his unkempt hair and his red tennis … Continue reading
Show Me State Signs
Traveling, scrawling, but I thought you might like these signs from a road trip through Missouri. Wednesday, we will observe some mid-flight flirting. I watched the whole encounter with a … Continue reading
Driving Questions
It’s hard to hear their actual conversation. There’s the kind, booming voice of the bus driver, the questioning tone of the young, blonde boy. The boy wears a Transformers t-shirt … Continue reading
Shake It Up
If we attempt to fix a logic for the travel souvenir, I believe the following generalization might hold: the souvenir reduces the grand, the magnificent, and the beautiful to the … Continue reading
The Nice Thing About Strangers 