One day last week I took the notion to ride to Bellingham, Washington. I’d never been there, and hey, it is a place I had never been. What better reason? Well actually the other reason was that I wanted to test my passport, to see if Homeland Security would give me the evil eye. And …
Category: Life of Carmen
A letter to 10-year-old me
Dear little girl with the wild red hair and mad eyes. Buck up kiddo. Here is the life you will lead when you are 50. You will live in a sunny apartment in the coolest neighbourhood in the most beautiful city on earth. Your best buddy will live on the other side of your closet …
Found my precious thing
I lost my precious thing on the Bicycle Buddha adventure last June. My little black notebook. My archive of jots, quotes, ideas, notes, emails, maps and doodles, the random traces of my mind at work. Somewhere between breaking camp at Fort Rodd Hill and setting up my tent on the beach at the Tawous reserve, …
Paean to the pomegranate
The pomegranate is the sexiest fruit in the world. Every seed bursting, sweet tart and blood red. Splitting one heavy red fruit was a seasonal ritual I shared with my dad. He taught me the trick to eat the pomegranate: you take a fat wedge and break it in two, exposing the gleaming surface of …
Remembering Tammy Fudge
I remember Tammy Fudge. That really was her name. As if that wasn’t enough, Tammy was gangly and awkward and kind of funny looking. She had no friends. If you sat beside her you wouldn’t have any friends either. You knew that in that dangerous and delicately balanced pre-adolescent universe, to befriend Tammy Fudge would …