humanity
If nothing else, travel opens your eyes to the colorful quilt that is humankind.
The Harbor of My Journeying Soul
When I was young, my father used to work at the local beach making sure the campgrounds were in top conditions for the tourists. On one of those occasions, my father found a book on the sand, forgotten by its owner. The book was called Tigana, by Guy Gavriel Kay.
By Nora Lunna5 years ago in Wander
Koko & The End Of History
Once, the carriage would have been painted in triumphal red, but what remains of its past vivacity has faded into a diluted postmodern pseudo-red. It must have been around when the twenty-first century was still a futurist’s dream. Windows streaked with dust. Cracked panes. And at the front, an oily coloured heavy metal engine, rusted a little, the colour of autumn leaves. If Trotsky had been destitute, this might have been the type of ragged locomotive he rode to the frontlines of utopia. Its body is overwhelmed by graffiti, a mosaic of symbols that I cannot decipher. A funereal grey face dominates the back end, eye sockets empty and blind, and not so much a mouth to speak of, but two lips painted so as to remain forever closed. I wonder if this is the complete motif of communism that I’ve been searching for all this time.
By Donald Quixote5 years ago in Wander
Henry's Adventure Beyond the Grave
What was once a dead man’s journey has now become my own. There was an old house with exposed brick and blue shutters with a big sign of ‘Estate Sale’ in the front lawn. I felt a pull to stop and check it out. I walked through the house as if I was searching for a hidden treasure. I walked upstairs. Each stair creaked, I found a small room in the attic with boxes filled with books and old film photography equipment. I stumbled upon a black notebook. I dusted it off and turned each page and saw it was this man’s travel journey through Italy and Switzerland. A deep surge of knowing my dreams would come true came over me. I was struggling with anxiety and I yearned to see the world. The death of this man planted a seed into my soul to help me find the meaning of my life.
By Laura Vaisman5 years ago in Wander
Winter by the Sea
The powerful winter waves crash onto the shore, clouded in an ethereal mist of filtered low sunlight. I wrap my coat tighter around me, watching the seagulls flying overhead battling with the stormy gails. The waves wash in and out. In and out. I watch them and let go of thoughts. Breathe in, breathe out. The backstory is unimportant, but somehow, four years ago, a lost and struggling twenty one year old girl found herself moving from London to this tiny rural seaside town on the south coast of Devon. And now she’s here, still breathing, here to tell a story, a twenty four year old woman miles away from who she used to be.
By Emily Pulletz5 years ago in Wander
Cans for kids
Courtesy for the people struggling has been part of the ethical systems of all societies throughout the world since abstraction of the allocentric view was forged in the mind. Empathy moved out hominid selves to band together to fight the predators of the night and even to this day we remain through ethical institutions like legality, and religious institutions a coherent supra-organism called society. The written word itself symbolizes the unity of humanity in that through inert characters we find ourselves empathizing, imagining, identifying, and understanding with something not in the world but in the mind, the other's perspective.
By Seth Monahan5 years ago in Wander
One Hand Washes the Other
I moved down to Miami exactly two years ago, when I was at a particularly low point in my life. Little did I know I would be going even deeper into the trenches to finish up some intense energetic balancing in one of the southern most regions of the United States.
By Bossesroundhere5 years ago in Wander
Stranded In Mexico:
The rocking of the bus, as it pulled off the road and onto a gravel shoulder that doubled as the desert oasis' parking lot, shook me awake. The brakes hiss as we come to a full stop and the driver turns on the interior lights. I'm barely wiping off the drool that has dripped down the left shoulder of my Chicago White Sox jacket when the bus driver begins to speak over the P.A. to informs us that we will be making a quick pit stop to use the restroom or buy a snack from the rundown shack that was our present roadside oasis. I didn't know how strict a Mexican Greyhound bus drivers' definition of "quick" can be. It's pretty darn fast.
By Joe Manric5 years ago in Wander
The Man Behind The Legend
The year was 1975 as the rusty blue Ford pickup rolled through the winding roads of the Texas Hill Country. At the wheel was a handsome man with wild hair and a beard to match. His steel gray eyes pierced the darkness ahead. His young teenage bride and their beautiful three month old daughter sat next to him on the single black and tattered leather seat. Their daughter was swaddled tightly in her warm quilt her momma had made for her. The cherub baby lulled by the bends in the road, slowly rolled back and forth on the seat, placed safely in the middle of her momma and poppa. There was no heater. There were no seat belts. A single radio station played classic old country music. Willie, Waylon & The Boys. All of their possessions were piled high in the back of light blue Ford. The adventure of their life was transpiring, though not as either one of them would conceive of nor expected.
By Echo Johnson5 years ago in Wander
