Travel is a mentality. 19 hours in an overnight bus begins as they tend to in Central America,my 11:30pm bus out of Guatemala City is cancelled and my departure time is moved to 4am. There are unforeseen delays, inexplicable and at no point, not even at a change of bus in El Salvador, am I given a physical…
I think the best years of your life are any years where you are singing that song of yourself to a choir of friends all singing their own in harmony with yours. Are The Best Years of Your Life are Over? We were just about to touch down in Guatemala and it was time to…
The following is an excerpt from the manuscript I have been working on/existentialist crisis-ing on for the past two years. It is a non-fiction book details experiences from living in Guatemala 2008-2012, with the working title of “A Gringo’s Guatemala” that is in its second drafting. *** Gossiping is a problem in most work places and at the…
Just as some find fortune in driblets of bird ordure scoring a free throw on their face, people say rain on your wedding day is good luck. Regarding the relative advantage that the arrest of the best man bestows upon the wedding party, the folklore is mum.Shortly after he was adopted from Kenya, my brother Calvin…
All around town evidence of the bandit’s coruscating reign of sparkle could be seen on glinting faces that puckered in a scowl whenever you asked them why they were wearing glitter. During a bear attack, one has at least some idea of how he will react (make friends with the bear via Doritos, play dead,…
The songs are intrepid—about travel, strangers rendezvousing, searching for meaning in night skies, love, loss and pondering the complicated web of existence we possess individually, yet share communally.You get glimpses of your future when you are young—fledging behind things you are drawn to. When I was newly minted teenager, I dug through a box of…
“I tell you this will all my heart,” she tells them. “Sometimes our problems choke us and make us feel alone, but I’m here to help you if you ever need it because I love all of you.” “I’m not going to tell you the story of something that happened to my sister,” Doña Marí…
A quick search of my laptop shows that I possess seven unfinished drafts of articles about Monterrico, Guatemala. In one abandoned draft from 2008, I lead with, “Nothing by the sea ever lasts. Cars rust in record time. Sand is always in everything. You never get it fully out of your hair. Things rust away.…
Fellow travel bloggers and NYC musicians have all been helping us get to our $10,000 goal to put 55 students in school with The Integral Heart Foundation. That’s 55 individuals stories, each worth hearing and retelling–stories that begin with struggle, but stories that Mick and Debora and everyone at The Integral Heart Foundation are in…
Sometimes positive outcomes of negative occurrences cannot be ignored. Like when tragedy at SeaWorld leads to a drop in attendance. In my last post, I wrote about how Spirit Airlines was the worst when they broke international law just so they could break my guitar. Spirit Airlines is to the airline industry what SeaWorld is…
