Like most Peace Corps blogs, this one has sort of fallen into disrepair. That was something I always thought was sad before I lived abroad; I would spent hours pouring over these other people’s lives in another country, and then one day it would trail off, an unfinished story. I found my blog linked in … More Collecting Dust
Winter is for hauntings. It is the season of candle light and barely days and long, cold nights. A dark sky spits snow and trees dance in the wind like spirits, clattering on the roof in their violent ballet. We all draw close and firelight flickers. I burn a balsam candle with the thought that … More Haunted Season
A year ago, we poured a bottle of cheap champagne off a balcony in Berlin. On a shoestring budget, the bottle was completely undrinkable, somehow all too sour and too sweet and too bubbly. We each poured a third over, and listed our goals and wishes for 2020. I don’t remember what I said. I … More A New Year Story: from pandemic winter
I used to want to live in Alaska. I’ve had this wild romantic dream of living in the cold, a dark winter with candles burning to keep the light alive. Spiky conifers, somewhere by a northern sea, with howling wind and breaching whales and ice. This more or less scratches the same itch, minus the … More November, from Pandemic Winter
Seda met me in the muddy road of a village near Armenia’s capital, Yerevan. She spoke and I blinked back at her, 23 and wide-eyed. Seda laughed and whipped out Google Translate and her high school level English, flipped her hair and promised me she personally would take care of me. “Yes ksovorem kez hayastani masin,” she … More Thicker Gravities: Another Armenia Story
hello stranger 