Travel

Sweet, cold air. Steam rose hot and white from our mugs every morning. Space heaters softened the chill. We greeted neighbors, shared persimmons from our tree and pawpaws from theirs. Bought fries on the empty boardwalk but had to pay with cash. Passed rows of headless meters and ducked into stores to stay warm. Read books cover to cover under scratchy woven blankets. Sat with silence and ghosts of summer....

Lord do I miss these spots. La Colombe Rittenhouse Dilworth Park The Continental Midtown Graffiti Bar Bud & Marilyn’s Mission Taqueria

I text her a photo: pictures of her life hang from clothespins on my kitchen wall. “It cracks me up that you took pics of all of the messy places,” she texts. “Those are all of the beautiful places,” I text back. And it’s true. Every corner of her home held beauty. All things burst green with the late northern spring in the Oran Valley. We stayed at her place...

Thirty minutes before closing. The grounds are dotted with little houses, each one filled with whispering old objects. Electric fans move the air inside the main building and I wander through three levels. A man browses through silverware on the ground floor. I see him again on the second floor, looking at a small wooden puzzle box. And then we’re on the third floor where the air is thin. We...

I sat on that very same flat hometown rock when I was her age, on the side of a rushing cold water creek filled with crayfish and bubbles.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/DNZGlcfXM14

I stand on the deck of the boat, brow furrowed against whipping hair, wind lashing my back. I watch my heart trampoline hard on the wake, tethered to me with the thinnest rope. He swings wide, an inked stylus recording a round swell of current, then jerks left and right, scratching thick and black the sharp spikes of my fear. A final jolt, and he slips under the dark water....

Portland in July was a temperate, low humidity heaven on earth. Bungalows, restaurants, cape cods, bars, and flower shops are mixed together and spread out across the straight line of Southeast Division Street. I sat at a tiny outdoor table at The Woodsman Tavern, sipped a coa de jima and thought if I lived in that little house across the street, this would be my regular haunt.