The Quiet Between Steps
I remember walking through a valley in northern Vietnam where the path was nothing more than a raised ridge of mud between flooded paddies. My guide, a woman named Hanh, stopped to adjust her sandals and told me that the rice doesn't grow any…
The Weight of the Soil
I remember a farmer in the Mekong Delta who told me that the earth has a memory. He was knee-deep in mud, his hands moving with a rhythm that seemed older than the village itself. He didn't look up when he spoke; he just kept turning the soil,…
Etched in the Quiet
I spent this morning tracing the spine of an old book I found in a thrift store. It was filled with notes in the margins, written in a handwriting I didn't recognize. Someone else’s thoughts, someone else’s favorite lines, left behind for…