Words & Land & Maybe Magic
Reflections on learning the language of my home as an adult. June 2021. The many varieties of "expatriate" childhood with all their...
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Hate Up Close (Photo Essay)
Written in the weeks before the 2020 presidential election of the United States. "All art is propaganda and ever must be, despite wailing...
Let's Talk About Christian Values
If you are a Christian in America — look long and hard at this image. Look long and hard at the leader you (82% of Evangelicals, 58% of...
Protesting In Trump Country (Photo Essay)
I waited a bit to share these photos for a few reasons: first, they’re a little disturbing, and depending on your background, potentially...
Reaching New Heights (Nomad Magazine)
At Lukenya, a golden-copper vista of jumbled granite cliffs that glitters over Mombasa Highway just north of Machakos, Samson Mwangi...
move
He moved across the forest They moved across the forest It moved across the forest moved across the forest elephantly. across the forest...
"Be Yourself; Help Other People"
“Nothing matters out here except being yourself and helping other people,” he said, in tears; the late afternoon sun cut a slanted light...
My Africa Box
The Africa box is grey, brown streaks of mud encrusting the lower half. Our night-guard Patrick sometimes washes them off before my dad...
On Bushwhacking
The things I learned bushwhacking in Patagonia: As is consistently the case in the backcountry, there is rarely a single right way to do...
Ol'Doinyo'Orok (The Black Mountain)
For anyone growing up under Kilimanjaro, the inimitable snow-capped peak rising from the Kenyan and Tanzanian plains, there is a second...
Kilimanjaro
The Great White Mountain. Kilima Njaro. Ol’doinyo’oibor. The Roof of Africa. No mountain captures the imagination quite like Africa’s...
Ground Control to Ranger Tom
Ranger Tom, in his camouflage and galoshes, is a native of Meru, the gorgeous green hills east of Mt. Kenya. He has worked for the Kenya...
The Man in the Mural
In the West Nashville neighborhood known as the Nations, an abandoned grain silo looms over an area slowly subsumed by a renovating...
A Note On Traffic
A quick note on traffic: I’m not sure how it’s possible, but there are both more vehicles and more pedestrians in Nairobi than anywhere...
Kirinyaga
I just spent 10 consecutive nights on Mt. Kenya, Kirinyaga, the heart and lifeblood of the country that’s inherited its name. Ascending...
That Tennessee Sandstone
[Originally published in Nashville Fit Magazine, Spring 2017] Somewhere deep in the Tennessee woods, budding green with spring life and...
Team Tengeneza
They wanted to call themselves Team Simba, but I protested; it was so touristy. So they consented to “Team Tengeneza,” which means to...
A Reality with Rounded Edges
Philosophy is a love affair. It is an assignation between an inhabitant and its habitat: a knower in a world of knowledge, a real thing...
that Beauty
that beauty shadows on the grass moon; hand; dance come alive, remember you, remembered reborn, we cannot sleep dreams have no answer but...
A Secret
The sun someday will be love again. The mountain someday will be sand. The land in the end will begin again, and flowers grow out of its...
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