Category: Uncategorized
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Zen Camp, Poland
Along a winding dirt road in the Polish countryside rests a model Japanese village. Its wooden bridges connect manicured pathways, while its pools reflect images of clouds as they dance across the sky. A stream trickles below the bridges and feeds into the mouth of a man-made pond. Tadpoles wiggle their tails like rudders near…
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Vilnius, Lithuania
When I thought about Lithuania, only a few images sprang to mind. I imagined rolling hills of greenery and rural settings. I imagined glimpses of forests where trees leaned against the edges of potato fields. I saw old women walking along the roadside, hunched at the back, tired from shouldering sacks of onions. When thinking…
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Riga, Latvia
There’s an odd dichotomy that exists for many travelers and it often manifests as a type of illusion. The more one travels, the smaller the world becomes. Patterns emerge in human behavior, making distant cultures feel less like foreign enigmas. Landscapes group themselves with other landscapes; bucolic pastures have the same rural lull from England…
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Tallinn, Estonia
Tallinn, you magnificent bastard! Your streets transport me back to my early days in Europe, when, as a 20-year-old, the alleyways of Brugge and Bordeaux gobbled me up. Your facades and turrets cast medieval shadows similar to those in Prague and Dubrovnik. And your stone cellars, with their crumbling archways, lead into your bowels like…
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Helsinki, Finland
Raindrops plunge into the Baltic Sea, fusing together like infants returning to their mother’s womb. They’re fast and audible as they plop against the surface and dissipate. Tonight, their brothers and sisters will cool with the evening and morph into snowflakes. They’ll drift through the air and coat the rooftops and city sidewalks in a…
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Back to Europe
It’s been 12 years since my last visit to Continental Europe. To a Catholic, that sounds like the beginnings of a confession. For a traveler, though, it means a wider range of flavors have stolen my appetite. Visits to Iceland, Greenland, and England aside, my travel sights have been aimed toward sections of the world…
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Letter to a Younger Self
You missed all the signs because they never appeared the way you wanted them to. You jostled from one side to the other, looking for anyone to tell you what to do. You searched for someone speaking a language you understood. Not the tongue of your elders—their words cracked the skin on your lips. And…
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A Momentary Return to Boredom
Picture Albert Camus sitting with his elbows dug into a marble cafe table and his nose buried in a cell phone. His notebook is empty, with its clean pages staring toward the sky. His pen remains untouched. Think of Pablo Picasso resting on a weathered stool at the foot of a cluttered easel. A large…
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The Dark Spots of Memory
It was a warm Saturday afternoon when my partner walked through our front door with a box in hand. I sat in a chair by the window while post-exercise endorphins danced pirouettes around my head. The B-side of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours played on the turntable. My gaze slid from everywhere to nowhere, lost in the…
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The Battle to Truly Listen
For much of my life, I’ve been a poor listener. I wasn’t actively ignoring the thoughts of others, but rarely did my ideas take a back seat to their words. If I did allow someone else to lead the conversation, it was only to momentarily gather my thoughts before attempting to drive home a point.…