Curiosity, Travel and Change
Me in the hot springs There is something disconcerting about that helplessness you feel when you learn you will spend the next two days without access to email or social media. You don’t want to believe you are one of those people so hopelessly addicted to your phone that its loss causes anxiety. But you …
We arrived at Caleta Tortel and parked at the edge of this tiny town near the end of the Carretera Austral, having driven another 12 miles on a dirt side road till we reached the porous coastline of Patagonia. We strapped on backpacks with our stuff for two days, and started walking. Walking to our …
Continue reading "Chile Part 2: Caleta Tortel, the end of the road."
Chile is almost as long as the US is wide, but it snakes along the Pacific Ocean for 2700 miles, hemmed in by its portion of the 5,500-mile Andes range. Most of its 17 million people live in the center, within a couple of hours of Santiago and at its extreme ends are sparsely populated …
Swept Away Inn, Port Alberni, Vancouver Island, BC In the late afternoon, the sea-chilled air rushes up the Alberni Inlet from the Pacific Ocean, and when it meets the warm inland air in Port Alberni, fierce gusts of thermal wind blow across Harbour Quay. Moored to the pier is a 70 year old tugboat, now …
Continue reading "Two Nights on A Tugboat: Port Alberni, BC"
What could be more picturesque than those lavender fields and bastides—the medieval fortified villages hugging hilltops— of Provence? Cezanne and Van Gogh marveled at the luminous light and the ever-changing purples, vermillion, and ochres. Provence is the stuff of travelers' dreams, of memoirs of rejuvenation and inspiration. But on a recent trip through the south …
Dancing on Rue St. Denis When you visit places in the summer that have long, dark and cold winters, you experience the unbounded joy of people absorbing light and sunshine into their cells, as if they could store it for the winter like canned tomatoes. Montreal is one of those places, a city that vibrates …
Continue reading "Montreal: Summer in the City and a Lost Jewish Neighborhood"
On May 14, the day of Bans off Our Bodies rallies around the country, my friend Judi and I decided to ditch our plans for a morning hike and headed north up Route 28 to Long Lake New York, where a rally had been planned. We had given some thought to heading to Albany, where …
Judy Brown’s red Subaru Outback has a simple vanity plate. It says “Garnets”. At the end of her road is her sign: “J+J Brown, Garnet Studio”. Garnet jewelry has been a thread through her rich life. Her garnet jewelry is ubiquitous in the Adirondacks, in every gift shop from Glens Falls to the Champlain Valley. …
Continue reading "Garnets on the Soles of My Shoes: Adirondack Rubies"
My friend Judi recently broke her shoulder bone. An expert skier, she fell on a very steep slope at Deer Valley. When I saw her finally, back home, white plastic brace wrapped around her shoulder like a shield, I asked her if the Ski Patrol had to carry her out on a sled, she whipped …
A tiny work at the entrance to Lisa Collado’s exhibit greets visitors with: reaching out to others through collage. As I peered, mesmerized, at Lisa Collado’s work on display at Tannery Pond Community Center —this series of frenetic, almost dizzying, brilliantly colored collages—I could feel Lisa Collado reaching out to me, sometimes whispering, sometimes screaming …
Continue reading "Reaching out to Others Through Collage: Excavations and Layers of Lisa Collado"
Old and On the Way 