This morning, Steven and I woke up late and tired because our two-year-old had been up twice in the night dreaming about scary dinosaurs and then there was an incident with a rat in our bedroom. Now, in my cold Mexican kitchen, I am “sproaching” eggs in sugar cane vinegar and picking rodent-gnawed fruit out of the basket on the counter while Steve shovels our son into ... [Continue Reading]
Yo Soy Perú
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The toucan lifts its lobster-claw bill into the sky over and over, releasing its whooping, loonish phrase like a persistent question. It wears a penguin’s tuxedo plumage, yet with flair—a yellow band at the base of the bill, bright blue just around the eye, a flash of red beneath the black tail feathers. It sits alone and throws its two-note song into the sky. For over ... [Continue Reading]
Disappearances Have to Disappear
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Bodies meant nothing to me. When they jammed into me on the metro or the bus, rather than tensing, pushing, or fighting for some tiny symbolic personal space I learned to let all my air out and flatten myself into the crowd, into the wall; to press myself out of my own body. I became good at it, nonchalant like the sweat running down your arm can mix with mine and your ... [Continue Reading]
Still Life in Ecuador
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Zaruma. Late morning. At his Abuelita’s house we ate cheese empanadas and overripe fruit, and we sat in chairs that lined either side of a hallway leading to the front balcony, the one that overlooked the central plaza. I’d discovered in the early dark one morning that a crew would meticulously groom the flowers planted down there between the palm trees, and they’d ... [Continue Reading]
The Rider’s Prayer
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How does a human being, or an animal, become God? Through the spontaneous will of self-sacrifice, or through suffering. -Dominique Fournier Originally, the goal was to ride the bull to death. How long this took, we don't know. Days, perhaps, of relentless bucking and lassoing, cheering and drinking, waiting and then rising to attention with clenched heart, until ... [Continue Reading]