City of Light
Our world has its holy cities. Mecca and Medina, the seven Sapta Puri, the Vatican, the four of Kabbalah—we know these are holy, we’ve read the texts and made the pilgrimages and we know why. But I believe there are more holy cities than our religions proclaim—cities that capture the imagination, that reflect all the desires of the […]
No One Here Gets Out Alive
Fun fact: people stop killing each other when they’re dead. The thought strikes me as I wander through Paris’ Cimitière du Père-Lachaise, where the graves of Christians, Jews, and Muslims rest in peace adjacent in winding stone rows. In death, we are finally good neighbors. I’m starting to realize that for a skeptic, I think […]
Twelve Strange Months
The hour before sunset on Saturday, I stood outside the Synagogue de Dijon. The lights were on in an auxiliary building, but the temple itself was dark, its stone walls silent. No one entered, no one left. Either the entrance is hidden, or there are no Jews left in Burgundy—neither would surprise me. I’d wanted […]
Snow Falls Hard
“You haven’t been blogging lately,” my friend observes. We’re in a coffee shop near the Google building; I’ve given up on American espresso and am instead drinking something with a foam heart. “No time; I’m writing too much.” It’s partly true. The anecdotes of my past year—the journey, the harvest, the points between—have begun oozing their […]
Wonderlust King
Six months ago, I quit my job, broke my lease, and boarded a plane to Israel with no plan and nothing but a backpack. Since then, I’ve hiked from the Mediterranean to the Sea of Galilee, slept under the Negev stars, and watched drones explode in the sky over Makhtesh Ramon. I’ve cast a rod in the Bosphorus, ridden […]
Fortifications
When I last wrote here, the world was lighter. It was the start of my life in France and the culmination of an incomparable vintage. Today, blood cakes on stadium floors, bombs fall on Al-Raqqah, and the guilty are hunted with all the hunger of revenge. We do not live in a safe world. We […]
Man in the Hops
My hands are blistered, my back aches, and there’s enough dirt beneath my nails to plant a bonsai garden. There is, I’m told, something rewarding about this farm life, but I don’t know what it is yet. While the tomatoes we eat here are better than any found in a store, and my room and board […]
Running the Rhône
When the morning’s farmwork is done, I set off past the gardens toward the Rhône River. I strike a moderate pace—the trail along the river is steep, and at points treacherous. It’s not here that the Rhône is famous, but it’s the same Rhône, and that adds a thrill to each glimpse of the river […]
Sacrilege in the Morning
There’s a sense of relief, on leaving the Middle East, that passes through to my exhaustion-addled mind. Switzerland is by no means a godless western country—most of its population is Catholic, or here in Geneva, the Protestant descendants of fugitive French ideologues. Nonetheless, religion means less here. It’s not the basis for bloodshed, it’s not […]
Beached in Bodrum
On the Bodrum peninsula, the village of Türkbükü encircles a calm bay off the choppier waters of the Aegean. While the ruins of a Byzantine castle grace the skyline of Bodrum proper, Türkbükü’s main (perhaps only) attraction is its water—clean and clear, a welcome respite from the August heat. The hills around Türkbükü form a natural […]
