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Live Now, Live Today
On the morning of October 30th, 1995, 13-year-old Mark Vetsey of Arrowhead Lakes, Pennsylvania, reached for a shotgun stashed below his father’s bed. It was late autumn, and most of the red and yellow leaves from the nearby beech and oak trees blanketed the forest floor. The wind was crisp with decay, and as the…
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A Writer’s Fear
A year ago, calling myself a writer felt blasphemous to the craft. Simply uttering the words in front of others choked my throat like an allergic reaction. I’d dance around phrasing and play with semantics: “I love to write,” I’d say, or “I do some writing.” Every escape hatch was prepped and peppered with vague…
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Passing Through
Before each journey, we’re apt to envision ourselves as characters in foreign scenes, playing out fantasies about how our time abroad may pass. And prior to arriving in Ethiopia, my imagination had me crammed into local buses, scruffy and tired, as long, lush sections of open grasslands reflected back against my sunglasses. Nigerian afrobeats would…
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Reflections
It’s been two weeks to the day since I returned to U.S. soil, and already, I find myself reaching for memories that are starting to fade. Faces and names from Morocco and Algeria are slipping through my fingers like grains of sand. Three months ago, their voices filled my days as hospitable hosts and partners…
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Pakistan: The Karakoram Highway & Hunza
I’ve dreamed of this land for over half my life. The Karakoram Highway found root in my mind through a collection of mountaineering memoirs I’d read in my early 20s and flourished like bindweed in a forgotten garden. Climbers en route to K2 and Nanga Parbat pulled aside the curtain with their descriptions, promising an…
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Heading Home
I’m headed home. After 3 months of weaving my way across Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Ethiopia, and Pakistan, I’m returning to the U.S., carrying glimpses of a new reality I’d previously failed to comprehend. I’m thrilled to see my family, my partner, and my friends. But I’m tangled up in the knots of purpose and place,…
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Conversations with Walid
Note: This short piece sidesteps the chronology of my present journey and profiles a Moroccan man I met two and a half months ago at the start of the trip. We are all broken records to some degree. We hitch our carts to ideas we identify with and repeat them to each other, ad nauseum.…
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Stitched up in Ethiopia
Good travel is filled with unexpected moments. I welcome them, hope for them, and make choices that expedite their arrival. Not every moment needs to be a guessing game, but it sure as hell can’t be entirely predictable. “The unexpected” often creates discomfort and distress. Other times, it brings joy and self-discovery. When we walk…
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Our Pup
Kendal and I lost our beloved dog, Hershel, to an unexpected illness on Friday, September 8th. She brought him into my life four and a half years ago, and I have no words to express the gratitude I feel for our time together. He was 95 pounds of pure kindness, and his tenderness functioned like…
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A Glimpse of Tunisia
In November 2010, I found myself hunched over a table in Amman, Jordan, sitting across from three university professors. The location was a Pizza Hut—the last place I thought we’d be—and I did my best to feign a smile. They thought I’d be homesick after five months of traveling and that a nice taste of…
Stirring Point 