Trips By Sam

            It crosses my consciousness more frequently than Chad and his transgressions which, if you’ve picked my brain in the past 8 months, can grasp the gravity of this feat.   I revolve my day around it, attending yoga classes based on when my stomach will empty its exquisiteness.    Savoring aloo paratha is a (near daily) ritual that’s become as sacred as morning meditation.   In my dash to the restaurant, I worry that it will be closed, the couple called away for a mid-week wedding and unable to cook for my addicted personality and dependent gut biome.   I scurry past the Nepalese women churning out mo:mos  (dumplings) in time to techno under black lit, psychedelic tapestries, Chi Chi the Chinese pug touting his BOY London sweater, the cute Tibetan security guard posted outside the ATM.   As I pass my final landmark, the reggae CD shop, I slow my roll, quelling the palpable kee...

            She is a rainbow incarnate.   Red, that can only be deemed cherry, piled in a messy bun, fastened with a matching chopstick, camouflaged as a rogue strand.   A hairdo that concealed her hash stash when a shopkeeper accused her of stealing a bracelet, resulting in a night in Nepali jail.               Turquoise eyeliner, her only spot of makeup.  It matched the swastika behind her ear so precisely that I’d thought she’d drawn it herself.  “My tattoo piss them off in Denmark.  They say, ‘Aha! You are fascist!’ and I say, ‘No, I Buddhist.’” (The swastika in Buddhism symbolizes Buddha's footprints). Her laugh is velvet gravel.  Rich with mirth, but toeing the precipice of crumbling into a coughing fit.  One paint splattered hand holds omnipresent spliff dregs, the other a stainless steel mug brimming with beer, a l...

          I got lost Day 1. My inner dialogue echoed the previously read warnings, “Never trek alone.”   Nevertheless I trudged along the mountainside, exposed in the high altitude, high noon sun.  Dirt, the offspring of sweat and rising dust plastered my parched throat, embedded in the crevices of my furrowed face.  The nearest known water source gushed white froth and noise, 1000 steep meters below.  An occasional pine provided cooling relief amongst blistered cacti and desiccated grass.  In my pre-trek fret about the Himalayan cold, I’d purchased rigid, polyester pants spacious enough to fit a wool base layer, never once considering the heat factor of December in Nepal. Randi           “That could be us,” Randi hissed from my fanny pack as I craned upward at the looming ridgeline, my intended route with alleged breathtaking views.  “But you didn’t hire a guide.”    ...