A Drop of Ink

To the Stranger who stole my bike, I have many questions for you. Most of them begin with 'Why' and, actually, the more I think about it... they are not really for you. They are questions you probably don't have the answer to. Beyond “Why did you do it?” to “Why does anybody steal?” and “Why does it hurt so much on the other side?” “Why so much corruption?” And “When will it end?” You obviously know quality when you see it, but that bike had more value than you could have known by merely looking at it. You see, I'm rather new in this country. Although it is supposed to be my motherland, it stirs precious few sentimental memories in me. In truth, it's rather foreign, and I'm less than thrilled about moving here, land of plenty though it is. My heart craves the chaos, warmth, authenticity, simplicity of the places I left behind. That bike was my comfort, my first, wavering, but real, footstep into the foreign motherland, my two-wheeled companion thr...

They say the world is small. Yes, I’ve said it myself. And indeed there is truth to it. When I meet someone in Belgium who went to school with the parents of children I babysat in Jordan for years. Or when, in Zambia, I live with a girl who knows a guy I met while skiing in Lebanon. When so-and-so knows so-and-so and when I run into people in unexpected places. Small world , I say and laugh. But actually, I find the world excruciatingly large, because the hearts that I love and the pieces of my own that I leave with them are so far and expensive away. Some rock-solid facts: 1.        If you wanted to walk on a straight line, the equator for example, around the entire earth, you would have to a) be very fit and b) walk 40,075 kilometers. 2.        This means that the farthest away you could ever be from someone is 20,037.5 km. Unless, of course, you travel through the earth; then it would be 12,742, give or take your ...