Tag: Writing

Everything I Don’t Remember: Myanmar, Mohinga, and Memory Boxes

Life is a balance of holding on and letting go. –Rumi

I shake out the handful of journals that are stuffed into a sack in the top of my backpack. They tumble onto the bed at the Airbnb where I’m staying in Bali. I shuffle through the journals and notebooks, trying to remember which covers go with what countries.

It is April. I’ve been on the road for almost a year.

I flip through them and find entries from Kathmandu and Pokhara, Nepal. The journal closes with a single entry from my time in Yangon, Myanmar, the country I visited after Nepal, but it is only a couple pages.

I grab the journal I think comes next, sure it will hold more entries documenting my experiences there. But when I feel its fabric cover under my fingers, I remember—I bought this one in Vietnam, the country I went to after Myanmar, one sunny morning as I wandered the zigzagging streets near Hanoi’s Old Quarter.

I shake my head and look at the leather- and fabric-bound covers strewn across the bedspread. This can’t be right, I think.

I drag out other notebooks—ones where I write drafts and jot down ideas. They’re not organized like my journals, which are chronological even if they are stream-of-consciousness. There must be a scrap, I think. There must be something more.

I flip through the pages, searching. Continue reading “Everything I Don’t Remember: Myanmar, Mohinga, and Memory Boxes” →

A Grief Remembered

“After the first death, there is no other.” –Dylan Thomas

It was Pokhara that broke me.

I was overwhelmed by Kathmandu and struggled to process my experiences in Bhaktapur. So, after I applied for a meditation course in Lumbini and they told me they were full, I hopped on a bus last November and headed to Pokhara, a small city on a big lake nestled in the foothills of the Himalayas.

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I found a little place tucked onto a hillside and near Phewa Lake. I finally had a kitchen. There was a hammock. The view was phenomenal. I was going to be there for two weeks, alone except for a couple evenings sharing drinks with my Airbnb host and a visit from a friend I met in Kathmandu.

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It was just what I needed, I thought, after all the hustle and bustle of India and a frenetic week in Kathmandu. In the first few days, I congratulated myself on finding the best and most beautiful place to write. Because that’s what I was there to do.

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It was about the fourth day that I faltered.

“What am I doing here?” I asked myself. “I’m writing blog posts, but why can’t I write fiction? I’m journaling each morning, but why do I still feel so heavy?”

I don’t know what it was, but it was then that I dug up a shard of memory: Paul. Continue reading “A Grief Remembered” →

Five Asian Escapes for Writers, Artists, and Quiet Types

As a writer and introvert, one of my greatest quests over this year of travel is to find quiet places to get away to where I can write, read, and be—without breaking the bank. Here are five places I found during my time in Asia that gave me the space I needed to write, seek silence, and find inspiration.

Jirye Art Village (Andong, South Korea)

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I stayed at Jirye Art Village outside of Andong, South Korea, for over a week last summer, and it was just the quiet getaway I needed after weeks in the bustling metropolis of Seoul.

The Jirye Art Village is comprised of a series of historical buildings that were rescued from demolition by Korean poet Kim Won-gil. The buildings, built circa 1660, belonged to his family, and in 1990, when they were threatened by a dam being built nearby, Kim managed to get permission to move 10 buildings 200 meters up the mountains to their current position.

The poet envisioned turning the buildings into an artist’s colony, but in recent years, the property has become more of a place for visitors, including retreatants, artists, and travelers. Continue reading “Five Asian Escapes for Writers, Artists, and Quiet Types” →

The Traveling Bookshelf: Five Books to Make You Feel

It’s been a hard month-plus for a lot of us since Trump was inaugurated, and as my friend Joanna jokes, whenever I run into trouble, I turn to books. In my last reading list, which I posted shortly after the U.S. election, I suggested five books to read on race. This time, I’m focusing on feelings.

One of the best things stories offer us is a chance to walk around in someone else’s skin. As President Obama so rightly noted when describing the importance of reading in his life and presidency, books allow us “the ability to slow down and get perspective” and “the ability to get in someone else’s shoes”—and if we need nothing else at this time, it’s certainly more empathy. (The full transcript of Obama’s interview with the New York Times about books and reading is beautiful and available here.)

So here are some of the things I’ve read recently that have given me feels and made me feel more human. I hope you might be moved by them, too.

Let the Great World Spin, Colum McCann

5941033I’m gonna be honest—this is my second time reading this book, and I read it before the election results were announced. I’d filled out my absentee ballot. I’d scanned and sent it from the lovely Airbnb home I was staying at in Pokhara, Nepal. Trump wasn’t even on my radar.

But Nepal was a weird time for me. I was overwhelmed by Kathmandu, unsure about how to face the legacy of colonialism in the Indian subcontinent that I’d just traveled through, confused about how to deal with my economic privilege in the midst of a lot of poverty, and had been on the road for almost six months.

I’d retreated to Pokhara for a couple weeks, to a lovely rustic property up the hill from Phewa Lake, to write and regroup. As much as I needed the quiet time, I was simultaneously struck by a feeling of aloneness (with the good and bad that goes with it) and self-defeating doubt.

I hadn’t felt invested in my fiction writing in a long time. I doubted the usefulness of stories. I didn’t know where my voice had gone, or why.

So, I turned to Let the Great World Spin, a book that I’ve counted as one of my favorites since I first read it a few years ago. So often, I’ve viewed literary fiction as a place of sadness; so infrequently have I found literary fiction that puts some hope in the bottom of the box.

Let the Great World Spin is an aching, dizzying, resonating piece that does just that—while sorting through realms of grief, longing, loneliness, and connection. Told through multiple viewpoints, McCann takes the reader deep into the lives a series of narrators who are connected by a thin thread (thicker for some than others) via the moment in 1974 when a man strung a tightrope across the World Trade Center towers in New York and walked across it. Each voice layers on top of the other, giving each greater meaning, and pulling the reader across space and time, into living rooms and antique cars and subway tunnels and the tops of towers, inviting us in for coffee, inviting us to share in one another’s grief and, in the end, to land on love.

Let the Great World Spin reminds me of how intimately we are connected, how deeply grief and loss can affect us, and how love and empathy can draw us through the even darkest of times. Continue reading “The Traveling Bookshelf: Five Books to Make You Feel” →

Art and Soul in Dharamsala

Prayer flags trembling in the breeze. The firm, golden gaze of a seated Buddha. Artists’ hands at work, creating something holy. A single sign of imperfection, and hours—days—of labor would be cast aside.

These are the things I remember most from our visit to Dharamsala, India, the next holy site we visited on Intrepid Travel’s Mountains and Mystics tour.

When we arrived at the town that is home to the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government-in-exile, I expected to be overwhelmed by the place’s holiness. Certainly, numerous pilgrims come from around the world to meditate or engage in in alternative therapies or to try to get a glimpse of the holy man himself. Others simply come to the temple that adjoins his house, offering supplications to Buddha alongside maroon-glad monks with shaved heads.

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And while we went to the Dalai Lama’s compound and enjoyed our fair share of Tibetan eats in the town around it (see recommendations below), it was the Norbulingka Institute that really caught my eye. Continue reading “Art and Soul in Dharamsala” →

You Are (Queer) Here is Growing!

You Are (Queer) Here is growing, and we need your help!

This project began last summer as a documentary film following two queer, gender non-conforming/non-binary South Carolinians on a journey across the globe (currently in post-production–see teaser below). Since then, it’s grown into an active travel blog and social media presence with thousands of readers/followers.

Now, with your help, I’d like to expand You Are (Queer) Here to reach a wider audience, providing more content on LGBTQ travel and diverse cultures worldwide. Find out more about what’s in store for You Are (Queer) Here’s future below, and if you like what you’ve seen so far, donate today at www.gofundme.com/you-are-queer-here-winter-campaign. Continue reading “You Are (Queer) Here is Growing!” →

Thinking of Shiva

After the noise and crowds of Delhi, Shimla was a welcome rest. The mountain air. The quiet(er) streets. A chance to take a walk among trees. The stacked shops and stunning views. The old Viceregal Lodge, where the British colonial Viceroy once lived and which later became the summer home of Indian presidents.

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I drank it in (and also took in a mediocre Bollywood movie called Banjo that at least had good music). And after a couple days, we moved on to Mandi, also known as the mini-Varanasi for the number of temples it has, corner after corner.

This is what I remember: Shopkeepers standing in open storefronts. Oil sizzling in big, big pans by the sidewalk. Puffs of bread emerging. A tailor looking up as we passed, surrounded by colorful fabrics. An old Raj—a man who should’ve been king if India hadn’t become a fully unified country under one government (post-independence).

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We stayed in said Raj’s palace-turned-hotel (The Raj Mahal), and the history stared down at us from the walls—pictures of kings gathered in Delhi, a portrait of his father before him, paintings, black-and-white photos with color added (circa 1935).

And down the streets of Mandi, the temples on every corner. The river. Shiva’s temple watching over—Shiva the destroyer. “He’ll take anything,” our leader said. Shiva does not discriminate. “But we worship Shiva because we know things have to be destroyed for life to be possible. It’s part of the cycle. Destruction and creation.” Continue reading “Thinking of Shiva” →

In Search of the Perfect Cup: Seoul Coffee Culture

My Korean class officially finished last Thursday, and though I’m glad I learned some more of this language I loved, I’m also glad I’m going to get the chance this August to refocus on my writing and explore more of the Korean countryside. I’ve applied to volunteer at a farm through the WWOOF program (Worldwide Opportunities for Organic Farming) and will have to see if the host accepts me (and if not, for whatever reason, I’ll apply somewhere else). My homestay sister and I also have plans for a couple weekend trips to get away from city life here in Seoul. (Gangwon-do, a northeastern province that has plenty of things to do to cool yourself off during the hot summer months, is at the top of our list!)

In the meantime, I thought I’d take a moment to acknowledge one of the best things that’s happened in South Korea since I first came here ten years ago: the phenomenal rise of Korean coffee culture. Continue reading “In Search of the Perfect Cup: Seoul Coffee Culture” →