I imagined the festival – scenic whirl on the great wheel,holding hands and swiveling to watch the white corona reflect in Baltic waters beneath the Hörnbrücke. I believedoutside our window keelboats would compass us to city center, where we would dance through...
A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte / Painting by Georges Seurat Your eyes are languid. Look at the trees and see the hazy dappling of the leaves. Look at the river and see the unmixed points of periwinkle, lapis lazuli, Aegean blue. Who are these...
Photo: Sailko, CC BY 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons In the tropical butterfly house in the gardens of Villa Garzoni there is a piranha. I stand staring for a few moments at the fish with the deadpan face, shimmering reddish yellow scales and huge eyes. I don’t think I’ve...
Photos by Ethan Jacobs The bookbag is a ruse, makes me look competent like I know where I’m going or what I’m doing. I don’t think anyone suspects I’m moving around with contraband: a stolen bundle of bed sheets that used to be white. By dawn, they were blotchy—red,...
Photos by Claudia Lundahl We land in Alghero and the air feels like a warm bath, tepid and gentle, soothing my senses – a corporeal lullaby that triggers an immediate shift in my mindscape. I’ve been here before, several years ago, and my body seems to remember. I...
I arrived in Antakya with my partner during Türkiye’s kurban bayramı, a week in the thick of summer that everyone takes off to celebrate Eid al-Adha. The city was sleepy and quiet, with heat rising up from the cobblestone streets. After a twelve-hour night bus from...