Blog Archives
Explorer’s Journal: Meeting the Butcher of Bilbilan
Phrase from Field: People with thick coats, clopping horses, slick roads, crunchy trash, and creaky houses disappear and reappear in the mountain mist, forcing us to use other, deeper senses to understand where we are and who we meet. Read the rest of this entry
Honey, Forget the Condiment. Try the Experience.
There was enough time to wonder, what would have happened if I had never come. I would be sitting on my bed, my cat curled under my chin, the hum of her purr like a lawnmower for faeries. There was enough time to think about the wedding we had been driving from, why didn’t we stay to spend the night, why did we drive through the dark back to Kars? There was enough time to consider how stupid it was to be hunting honey in the middle of May, in search of the most high quality specimens to entertain the National Geographic Expedition Council for my fifteen minutes of fame (not a cliche, this was actually scheduled as a fifteen minute presentation). There was enough time to wish I hadn’t dragged in my friends and family into this epic hunt, a hunt that would change our lives.
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Thank You Dad for Teaching Me To Love Books – The Start of My Story
Considering I have now permanently moved to a town without a single dedicated bookstore, it’s ironic that the trigger for this entire honey adventure was one beautiful children’s book. The book came from a crumpled nameless bookstore on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. The bookstore had a guard dog with grey dreadlocks, and when it stood on its hind-legs it was twice my height. The basement of the bookstore had scarlet and gold scraps of leather scattered in piles of stars on the floor, and the walls shook from the 2, 4, and 6 trains shuddering on their tracks nearby. The book was a gift from my father, and the bookstore was his hideout. He was a famous book and print collector, and his midnight hobby was finding, buying, and rebinding valuable books. He was a self-appointed book-saving vigilante, and this was his secret layer. Read the rest of this entry
Go Quit Your Job and Live Your Dream! (Well, not exactly.)
Today, May 24, 2012 marks the one-year anniversary that I left my job to move to Northeastern Turkey. There is a rising trending culture in America that is very much oriented around: “Quit your job! Live your dream! Meet your full potential in your own special way! XOXO!” Read the rest of this entry
Want to know why we are here? Ask a village shepherd.
Living out here as Kars’ only resident American I face a long string of questions day in and day out that is more than enough to cause a personal existential crisis. Hourly, I am asked:
“Who are you?” “Why are you here?” “What is the purpose of your existence?” Read the rest of this entry
Balyolu: The Honey Road
Cat as a National Geographic Young Explorer
Claire Bangser Makes Things
One Sticky Hive
