It’s the same walk but every day it’s different. Yesterday the mountains were shrouded in mist and I walked in steady drizzle; today the sun is shining and the bright yellow of the beech leaves contrasts sharply with the blue of the autumn sky. It’s still damp underfoot, however, and I slip and slide as … Continued
“It happened again, Lu. Sally backed out of the trip just as we were to send a check.” “What? Again?” “I don’t know if I’ll ever get to Rome. I so wanted to be surrounded by the history of our grandparents.” “That’s a shame.” “Gotta go. Talk to you next … Continued
A Decade of Departures I left home as soon as I was able. It had never been a happy place and the often violent streets of Belfast offered little respite. I therefore spent much of my childhood in my room, longing for elsewhere, learning to spell the names of countries as I leafed through my … Continued
Some of the time there’s a shade of light that can’t be defined or replicated, certainly not in the Instagram picture I’m about to upload unfiltered. Often it’s the luminescence of the water that makes me stop and look, as the waves etch their white foam between the blue – or is it green… or … Continued
One Thousand and One Travels In July 1994, “tarmac” wasn’t a word I knew. I called it “the magic carpet main station,” as every plane had to start there if it wanted to go for an air ride. I was eleven years old, on my own, and vastly excited as I walked down the … Continued
There are many ways in which people choose to live their lives- every one of them unique. I didn’t, however, just make the choice to have a distinctive life, but also made a choice to aim to have a remarkable day, every single day. For all of my adult life, I have been an adventure … Continued
by Joey Bui At the entrance to Vinh Nghiem Temple in Saigon, you can buy wreaths of jasmine. My grandmother buys me a wreath every time we go together. We have been twice, once when I was six, and then when I was sixteen. The petals are twisted into thick bulbs, and the stalks … Continued
Student dorm room, Coventry- The United Kingdom. The water drips, it ticks, pauses, dribbles and ticks again. The tap is now completely shut, there is no banging against the porcelain sink. Stillness arrives, fact is it never left to begin with- it was just drowned by the little noises that spring without control; the cars … Continued
Legends root deep here. It’s why, while the wind keens her Gaelic lament outside, I find myself accepting tales I might otherwise not. “And a splash of water from this ‘Well of Age”, or Tobar na h’oige ,” Allison stumbles over the Scotch language, “will wash away the years on one’s face, healing ailments and … Continued
The teenage girl dreamer sits by her windowsill and waits for the day when a snow-white owl will come slicing through the sky, cawing only minutely because of the parchment in its mouth, and she’ll grab the little paper with such tangible excitement that she’ll forget to pay the owl for its delivery. Only when … Continued