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Travel
Possessions
Walking around the block after sunset in pj’s and bathrobe, hoarding corks in a million-dollar house, trading wedding crystal for a minitoilet
June 2005
The View From Here
Later, I didn’t listen to the radio as much. There was less music and more announcements. Again they began to use the insect words to refer to us. My father used to say, “When they no longer speak of you as people, it means they can kill you.”
June 2005
Dancing On Jim Morrison’s Grave
Before leaving, I had vowed I would not go looking for Jim Morrison’s grave. The idea of making such a pilgrimage at my age struck me as vaguely ridiculous. Yet there I was, on my last morning in Paris, wandering mapless in the sprawling necropolis, looking for the tombstone of a singer I had barely thought of in almost thirty years.
September 2004
An Inquiry Into Living While Walking The Roads Of America, Mexico, And Beyond
There was a great longing and loneliness inside me. And as I delved into this loneliness, I asked, “Is there an ultimate freedom?” I would eventually walk some thirty-five hundred miles of back roads in the United States and Mexico. Having left behind everything I knew, I had nowhere to go, nothing to do but die into this question. I’d never really wished to be an explorer, yet this inquiry moved me to let go of all that was not entirely new and alive. So my walking journey began.
June 2004
When The Hills Flow With Wine
Vera piled the thin, silvery black fish on my plate. Their beady little fish eyes kept staring at me. As a distraction, and for revenge, and because I was hungry, I focused on the technique of eating them: first pinch the head between my finger and thumb; then take two precise bites — one on each side — and a few nibbles to steal all the meat from each.
September 2003
Estrellita
As I closed my front door and began to walk up the street, someone called to me. I turned and saw a young girl approach out of the darkness. She appeared neat and studentlike, slightly stooped by the weight of a backpack, a brand-new notebook under her arm. Her long, shiny hair was pulled back into a ponytail. She spoke to me in rapid Spanish, in a pipsqueak voice.
November 2001
Bamboozled
Dispatches From The Nader Campaign
Nobody wants Al Gore to be president. Democrats will vote for Al Gore for only one reason: they hate George Bush. They hate Bush so much they would vote for anyone else — even someone with a record of voting pro-life; even someone who’s in favor of more military spending and against universal healthcare; even someone who supports capital punishment and other forms of institutionalized racism. By accepting all of this, the Democrats have sold their ideals down the river. Their candidates are obvious crooks. At least the Republicans mean it when they say something stupid. The Democrats just say stupid things because they think that’s what the voters want to hear.
February 2001My Life As A Mermaid
I get another letter from my sister Kay, who is in Honduras riding mules and skidding around the muddy mountain roads in a pickup truck. The roads have curves sharp enough to tempt death, she writes, sharp enough for you to see yourself leaving.
January 2001
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