Kampot: Part Two

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Despite having misled Kamala and Samon's Village about my motorbike riding skills, everything went just fine. On Day #1 we drove up to Bokor National Park, home to the old French Bokor Hill Station. The trip was incredibly beautiful and it was my first look at some real greenery in Cambodia. Rainy ... Read More

When Koh Ta Kiev Koh Ta Kicked Me Out

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I'm going to follow up the bummer post about genocide with a nice story about sleeping in a tent! On a beach! The first part of this will be about the island, the end will be about how the island got rid of me. After a few days in Phnom Penh I hopped on a little van headed south to Sihanoukville. I ... Read More

Phnom Penh: Part One

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NOTE: This post is lengthy and will be boring if you prefer my stories about eating bugs. If you’re not interested, skip to the photos. BUT! I will say that the history of Cambodia and some of the things I learned during my first visit to Phnom Penh are so much of the reason that I’ve loved it! ... Read More

In the Mountains: Part Two

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In addition to eating the meat of "animal killed in forest," the best part of Mondulkiri has been spending two days with the Elephant Valley Project. The Elephant Valley Project (EVP) is an ecotourism project run by the Elephant Livelihood Initiative Environment (ELIE) which is dedicated to ... Read More

In the Mountains: Part One

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For the past four days I've been in the mountains of Cambodia. Sen Monorom is the capital of Mondulkiri Province and home to all sorts of outdoor activities in the jungle. Mondulkiri is also home to the Bunong Hill Tribe who who are a minority in Cambodia, but actually make up the majority in this ... Read More

How to Spend a Night in Battambang

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I am SO behind here and I apologize to those of you that have been sitting at the screen WAITING for my next post. In the time you haven't heard from me I have been having BBQs with ex-pats, riding motorbikes over snakes, exploring rusty crashed Chinese ships and snuggling puppies with ... Read More

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  • It’s been a week and I’m still not sure what to say. My mom was like nobody else I’ve ever met. She had an effortless aloofness that I always wish I had. But she had an excitable passion for anything her friends and family loved. I once decided I loved biscotti from one particular south Florida bakery and she bought them out of their stock to send to me in Syracuse. Knowing I love sushi, she sent me a set of ten chopsticks. When I wore flippies to work all summer she sent me a collection of five more in multiple colors. She sat through Gator football games and Marlin baseball games because my dad loved them. And because she never did anything just a little bit. She loved southern things like peach cobbler and grits. She wore 70s Ferragamos, Ginger Flower lipstick and ballet flats. She always smelled exactly like herself no matter where she was. She advocated for good naps, getting unexpected gifts for people and making sure other people felt seen. She was one of the first women in a male dominated profession and I distinctly remember when she called me out of the blue in 2015 to tell me why it was so important that we elect a woman as president. I’ll probably cry at least once in public every day for the rest of my life, but here we are. I kinda thought I’d write something a lot more poignant, but I guess that’s the truest thing I can say. Words can’t possibly express enough thanks to everyone who has called and texted repeatedly even when I couldn’t bear to respond. And to those who have written, sent food, gotten on planes, stopped by and hugged us. Thanks also to the people I know who have shared so openly about loss - in person and in writing. I think that will be a compass.
  • It’s fitting that last thing I texted my cousin was “looking forward to it!” Every time I knew I would see him I was looking forward to it. That’s the kind of guy he was. I knew he’d make fun of me for something I’d long forgotten about and then he’d remind me that the Miami Hurricanes are better than ‘Cuse. When that was out of the way we’d talk about all the other stuff that makes a life a life. . When he was on, he was the kind of person that made things fun before the official fun had even begun. He loved his family. He once rented an entire house in the Florida Keys and invited the whole family to come enjoy it. He didn’t wait for an okay or an agreement - he just booked it. He baked pies for people around the holidays and brought them over as a surprise. He volunteered his time. He served in the US Navy. If I missed my annual birthday call I knew my voicemail would be full with a multi-minute message that covered topics like politics, my advanced age and how we’d celebrate if we were together. He almost always referred to me as “cuz” in those messages, with an accent that always sounded so southern to me. . I probably never told him, but I’d always imagined us becoming closer as we got older. I imagined us in our 60s, maybe all being together for Thanksgiving talking about our grandfather. In a few days we’ll celebrate him and I continually catch myself mistakenly imagining him there - celebrating too. . In our last text conversation he asked if I had time to talk about an idea. Of course I did. And, of course, I was looking forward to it. So Mike, here’s another “I’m looking forward to it!” Because if we get to love you and celebrate you, I’ll look forward to it no matter what. Despite the fact that I miss you.
  • Just for this week, two days, two hours, one minute - let’s forgive ourselves. Just for a second.
  • I recently read something saying, basically, that nobody’s coming for us. As in, it’s up to us. To fix ourselves, to save ourselves, to make all of this stuff work. To do it. I wasn’t sure if I agreed because I’m pretty sure we all have an obligation to help people feel less by themselves. Even the meanies. . But yesterday I was going through photos and found this one. It’s from one of the strangest days of my life on one of the strangest trips of my life in 2016 and I think of it often. We were in the Golan Heights overlooking Syria hearing about the conflict there when the wind blew and we heard the loudest sounds of rapid gunfire. We kept listening to the speaker. Until the wind blew again and we heard a huge explosion. My memory is a little hazy, but I think some of us screamed and we were directed to the other side of the cliff to talk about what was happening. All I could think about was how easy it was for us to just walk away - only because we’d each won some kind of random birth lottery that meant we were here and not there. . This photo is from that moment on the other side of the cliff. . It makes me think that someone really IS coming for us. That we’re not totally by ourselves in all this. . Thanks to @yesjessmagic and @jessjacobsx for the reminder.
  • Eight-year-old me used to call 800-numbers for travel brochures because all I wanted to do was leave my little town and see things. There are a lot of little plans I had for myself and some of them haven’t happened yet. I abandoned the idea of pencil skirts, I never met Jordan Knight and I don’t own a huge house with a catwalk over the pool like in “Don’t Tell Mom The Babysitters’s Dead.” But I’ve been places. And I have found some of the best people in those place. This morning I ran through Hanoi and it occurred to me that maybe all I ever wanted to do was weave through motorbikes on smoggy streets and then pull money out of my bra to buy an apple on the street. And I’m doing it. I’ll probably do some other things with my life too, but today I’m gonna remember that this is something. Some days, this life is really something. . Eight-year-old me would be laughing hysterically at just how ridiculous all of this is. And at just how right she was.
  • But do I look familiar - when we were just larkspur and leaves. 👋🏼 @gregoryalanisakov . I drank half of a cup of coffee and now I can’t stop thinking about train accidents, Lyme disease, climate change, electrical fires caused by faulty wires, irreparable damage to the elasticity of my skin due to repeated sun exposure, indictments, kidneys, whether or not I’ll ever find my lost debit card* and how expensive snow tires might be. Over and over again on a neverending loop forever. . * I won’t. Because it’s definitely on the ground next to a gas pump at a service station on the Mass Pike right where I left it two weeks ago at 3am. It’s probably safe to get a replacement now.
  • I missed New York. It came up out of nowhere, in unexpected ways and always for different reasons. It was erratic and new every time. . A friend sent me a blurry photo of the full moon between unmistakably New York City buildings. It was her birthday and she’d spent the very end of it on a “boat that doesn’t go anywhere” talking to an Irish bartender who got stuck on his way to Australia. I smelled that night from 500 miles away and I missed it because I’d lived a version of it before. “Don’t let this make you miss New York!” she followed up with. She knows me and my ability to be nostalgic over lives that were never even mine. . An hour later another friend texted me about a man who’d seen her on the street and yelled “Hey lady! Come and shave my body parts!” He followed up with “look at me!” when she didn’t respond. When I asked why he did it she said, “because I’m a human woman living in New York.” . Being a human woman living in New York was the greatest and it was also pretty gross. It was full moons and subway floods and $1 tacos. And it was also strange people asking for things I didn’t want to give. In all parts of my life. . But listen: Don’t shave anyone’s body parts unless you really, really, really, really want to. Which is to say, you don’t have to give up anything you’d rather keep.
  • Last year I bought a planner and a bunch of cool pens and today I threw the freaking thing away. It was sitting there unused all this time except when I had something planned that I suspected would definitely, probably, mostly happen. For example, Thanksgiving and dentist appointments that had already occurred. I finally decided that using my Ocean State Job Lots (👋🏼 New Englanders) $2 lined notebook (which is probably overpriced) still makes me an alright human. It’s been the best part of my day aside from the video of the skeleton puppet dancing to Chubby Checker that @hdstarin sent me. Throw your planners away. Keep the pens. Use cheap notebooks. Eat chocolate chips. Don’t let anyone tell you not to “sass” them. Literally the only advice I feel qualified to give in this season of my life.

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