Observations
Small details that reveal larger stories.
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Pinned
A Life Between Places
A reflection on a life shaped by movement between places, the privilege of being able to travel, and the practice of paying attention to the landscapes, histories, and everyday lives we encounter along the way.
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The Detail Is in the Language
A Dutch caption that wouldn't survive translation, and what proverbs in Swahili, Dutch, English, and Spanish say about how a language shapes what we notice.
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Learning to Be Dutch
Three years in the Netherlands: a country built by hand, the small shocks of daily life, and what it means to be asked to become like everyone else.
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Five Languages at One Table
A chance meeting on a street in Arnhem, an evening at an Irish pub, and a table where four people moved between five languages. On belonging, and a life lived on the move.
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What America Tastes Like
A Dutch-language coffee order and a McDonald's tray in Arnhem, and the foods of the Americas, from maize to chocolate, that the whole world now eats.
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The First Time I Was the Foreigner
A bunch of bananas on my fourth birthday in Japan, a moment on a California playground, and what we learn about who belongs.
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Who Gets to Move
What the word nomad means to a Maasai herder, a Lakota bison hunter, an explorer, and a digital nomad, and who gets to move across the land.
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You Can't Blame a Horse for Being a Horse
A summer teaching horsemanship in the Cascade Mountains, and a lesson from an old ranch boss about patience, perspective, and understanding before responding.
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The Whole Tree
A broken-down Subaru, a fruit stand by Mabira Forest, and a bunch of bananas that was more than I asked for. On what a banana plant really is, and how the same words can mean different things.
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One Lake, Every Side
From Kisumu to Entebbe, Jinja and Mwanza, Lake Victoria looks different from every shore. Four visits, four reasons, one lake that keeps going.
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The Light Does Not Hurry
A sunset at Rialto Beach in 2012, and the Olympic Peninsula I call home: its rain, its rock, the peoples who stayed, and the light that does not hurry.
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The Forest Remembers
Walking the Veluwe, north of Arnhem, and thinking about who else stood there: soldiers, hunters, and people at fires. On a landscape that isn't wilderness, and has been shaped by people for thousands of years.
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The Things We Make
A friend asked me to make him a bracelet. On leather, my dad's hands, and how material, place and knowledge get passed from one person to the next.
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The Plantations
In 2011 in Uganda, a young man assigned to serve me taught me to ask who owns the land. On plantations, small farms, and what development should mean.
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What the Soil Taught Me
I went to Uganda to help fix the soil. The soil, it turned out, wasn't the problem. Eleven months on a two-acre farm in Kamuli District, and what the farmers and the test plots said.
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Lines the Land Never Drew
Borders are made by people, not by the land. On compasses, who draws the lines, and why maps can help us find our way without defining us.
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The Hat Is for the Sun
A Christmas Stetson, three rodeos, and a western wear store north of Nairobi. On the hat I wear, the cowboy and explorer pictures behind it, and the culture I'm still learning to see whole.
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