the microtraveller
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All that glitters
It’s that time of year, the solstice, the shortest day of the year, the darkest, a time to show our love of light in hopes that it will return. Call it Christmas. The market’s shelves are stocked high with stuff, the products of light, sugar, and joy. And we all consume, the American way, each…
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Daydreaming
Returning to my commute, that height of the mundane that everyone faces, or used to. Moving the body from home to work, the mind tends to wander with habitual behavior, the comfort and freedom of a known pattern. The struggle of life is often to remain present in those situations, to remember and see that…
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Adapting
As I read news of the understanding of earth’s temperature swings throughout its history, you wonder the liklihood of humans surviving the swings to come. I read this story and ‘felt good’, to see human driven climate change as a ‘natural’ shift means, for example, lots of extinctions happen throughout history all the time, some…
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The symphony of things and place
When I dive into a sink full of dishes, all the vessels and residues combined and layered and settled, there’s a sound as I wash each dish. The slow spray of the faucet landing and splashing on each dish, choosing them one by one to wash and place on the side of the sink, slowly…
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Patchwork and pentimento
The most amazing stories must be those untold, the endless number of experiences from endless angles colliding in the moment and appearing as something new all the time. Everything is patchwork, pentimento, kaleidoscope or collideoscope. “And when that train comes in, you don’t know where it’s been, you’ve got to try and see a little…
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Storytelling
“Our stories are who we are.” Bill Richardson, Haida artist I thought I would write about eclipses, as one passed through the area a few days ago. Then I thought I would write about storytelling, as universal events are natural drivers of stories, enveloping the known and inspiring the unknown, invoking meaning and trajectories to…
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Moving through music
Terroir is a word used to describe the taste in a wine that gives the sense of the land and climate and place that it came from. It’s the notion that the land and conditions of that time period are translated directly into the grapes and the wine itself. Beer, bread, cheese, most food will…
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Fuel for the trip
I came back home last night with a cold burrito from New York City. I calculated maybe 4-5 hours after purchase, no sour cream, I’d be safe to enjoy a rarity, on the East Coast, but definitely in Philadelphia. The perfect West Coast burrito. Chewy tortilla, steamed with cheese and simple ingredients blended, kneaded and…
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Walking in circles
It’s February 10th, one year since starting writing, a circle around the sun, and this is a post about circles. You almost can’t help but go in circles, home, away, and all around. Though life is more like spiraling than circling, all sorts of circles give some sense of knowing, of completing and of connecting,…
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Walking
With the first snow in a couple years, I put the bike away and walk. Nothing more perfectly illustrates the beauty of the human machine and it’s connection to where it is than legs and walking. We humans can naturally walk around 20 miles a day and it’s with 20 square miles that Thoreau wrote…
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My commute
It’s the Winter Solstice, a big reminder that every day is not like the other. It’s said that familiarity breeds contempt. Four days a week I commute to the grocery store where I work, one block away from City Hall at the very heart of the city of Philadelphia. There’s a lot going on in…
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Power and pleasure, quenching the thirst for life
What is the itch and thrill of travel? Do you have to travel far to feel it? Is it “escapism”, a pleasing sensation at being in a new and unknown place, with context and personal history limited, a blank slate, a potential start over? Is it the lure of discovery and surprise? Enlightenment and other…