Morning Walk: Listening to Donna Jean Godchaux, Thinking About the Dead
Winterland, San Francisco, October 24, 1969: I was on the first day of my period and headed for the restroom in the packed arena. I had made it as far as the end of my row, excusing myself over and over as I stepped carefully over other people’s feet, when a man I didn’t know…
From Prudhoe Bay to Chicago: Still Walking, Yes, Indeed
After virtually walking the Pennine Way, following Simon Armitage’s route from north to south—a rugged but manageable hike—I was ready for something longer, some magnificent digression that would last for years and encompass all the twists and turns of my imagination. I was ready for the walk of walks. Perhaps the Pan American Highway? A…
On the Day Of My Brother’s Birth
On the day of my brother’s birth, I woke up in my grandmother’s brass bed to the sounds of a whispered conversation in two different languages, both of which I understood, sort of. My grandmother, my vovó, had already gotten up, and I had the whole double bed to myself. When I say it was…
From Kirk Yetholm to Edale: On the Road Again
After my stop in Xi’an, I was eager to resume my walk. But was I ready for a difficult multi-year trek to the Russian Far East and the Bering Strait? Would I arrive in winter, and would the strait be frozen solidly enough so that I could walk across the ice, possibly wondering whether Sarah…
Kashgar to Xi’an: I Did It!
Yes, I did it! I walked most of the way across China, starting at Kashgar, a city near China’s western border. Although I walked the miles actually (really, truly), I accomplished the trip virtually (not really, not truly), tracking my progress on a spreadsheet and a map, putting one foot in front of the other…
Miss Smith, the Queen, and the Coronation Scrapbook
“Once in a lifetime,” Miss Smith told us. “Or maybe twice.” She was our fifth-grade teacher, and she wanted to make sure we paid attention to the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II of England, which would be happening in about a month. We knew that Princess Elizabeth was now the queen of England, but the…
My (Not Typical Tourist) Visit to the Capitol
It was a kinder, gentler time, or at least I thought it was. I was unemployed and unhappy, and I wanted—no, needed—to go somewhere. My friend Joyce, who was about to move to Washington to seek her fortune, offered me a ride. Although Washington was not on my list of places to go for a…
Albert Pinkham Ryder’s Chemical Sins, and Me
Because I am a poet, I respond to words before images, sentences before styles, paragraphs before pigments. I love to look at paintings, but for me words come first. It is not surprising, then, that my obsession with Albert Pinkham Ryder, a painter who was born, as I was, in New Bedford, Massachusetts, began…
The Bizarro Yankee Doodle Dandy
Yesterday was the Fourth of July. Independence Day is not my favorite holiday. In fact, it’s my least favorite holiday, not because I lack patriotic fervor and not because I hate fireworks (although I do hate fireworks if they’re directly over my head)—no, not for either of those reasons. I certainly don’t hate the music,…
Slow: Kashgar to Aksu
There are many ways to get from Kashgar, China’s westernmost city, to Aksu, about 300 miles to the east. If you left on train #7558, you would arrive in Aksu 9 hours and 28 minutes later. On this slowest and cheapest of the railroad options, a ticket costs only ¥53, or about US$8.…
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I Never Meant To Sail So Goddam Far 