Proof of existence!

Unpredictability raises the people of Sattahip into a widespread state of nonchalance. A tropical storm lifts only a murmur among the chattering crowds seated about seafood, overlooking a long-forgotten sinking ship.

Athens sees 300 sunny days per year, with Meltemi winds revealing a deeper tan of olive and Aleppo pine trees. Even then, bronzed locals dance a kalamatianos in a 12-step circle, forming their own sun. 

Madison Falls glowed with an iridescent blend of two transparencies: light and water. It stood on the edge of an old-growth forest characterized by 200-year-old trees, with the upper river originating in Mount Olympus.

Charly García’s “Filosofía Barata y Zapatos de Goma” captured my image of the city: impulsive, sporadic and spellbinding, like a muse of its own heartbreak.

Being at the hands of the wind makes you realize how much power it has over you. There is as much underneath me as there is above, and we follow birds to find thermals that will only increase the distance between the earth and our bodies.

I remember the trip starting something like this: The Smiths blasting through my headphone speakers, looking past the window panes in an Austin bus, fall of 2021.

A kaleidoscope of beads lights Juan Riaño’s table. He lays out his handcrafts one by one: the tricolor macaw birds, the threaded bracelets and chest laces, the traditional wooden masks.