I know January 1st is arbitrary. I know it. I know nothing changes when the ball drops on the 31st and the clock ticks forward into a new day, into a new year. But then I hear myself talking to a friend and saying, “Yes, I spent four months of this year in New York,” and have to correct myself:...
I hold no illusions that the world will change when the clock strikes midnight tonight. We will still be living in a country that is mismanaging a pandemic, built on a capitalistic system that disproportionally punishes people of color, led by an out-of-touch man who won’t do enough to change the status quo (even if he’s from a different party...
Diego and I left Mexico City yesterday. Not for good—we’ll be back for New Year’s Eve—but we left our bright-red one-bedroom apartment directly across the street from Bosques de Chapultepec with its extremely beautiful window views and its extremely bothersome street noise and its earthquake-proof foundation. And I won’t miss much of it. I almost wrote “I won’t miss any...
We left Tijuana in one of the dozens of small white vans that line up at the corner of Avenidas Frontera y Madero and set off every few minutes like shots, whipping down the street and bumping over potholes until someone yells “parada, por favor!” and the bus jerks to the side of the road to let them out. I...
I was never someone who cared deeply about my clothes. Yes, I fell victim to the Hollister-is-the-only-thing-worth-wearing fad of middle school (my mom once let me buy an ocean-blue long-sleeve t-shirt from the sale rack of the Hollister’s next to the eye doctor in the mall as a reward for choosing the less-expensive wire frames; it was my first Hollister...
I wanted to love New Zealand. I bought my flights here in a passionate tizzy, psyched to see my sister and to explore the land that sparked a thousand movies. I wanted to bounce around various pieces of gorgeous scenery, communing with nature and losing myself in the reflections of lakes under mountains and long stretches of blue-green sea. I...
No part of me—not my brain or my passport or the now-shabby black Nikes I've worn for over 150 of the last 180 days—can quite believe that time has come for a second quarterly goals check-in. (And if we're being entirely accurate and accountable, which is kind of the point of this whole thing, that it's actually two weeks past...
Accountability time! Somehow, I’ve already been traveling for three months and five days (I’m slightly off from the exact quarterly check-in cadence, but I couldn’t find the energy to do this post while struggling to breathe or digest food in Cusco). How time flies when you’re worshipping mountains and trying new fruits and finally mastering your usted commands. I’m writing...