by Bela Johnson | Jun 4, 2013 | family, personal, relationships, travel, Uncategorized
The tall, well-nourished Japanese man smiles as, with a tight smile, he manually indicates that it’s okay for me to sit near him in the Parlour Car. A somber looking ten year-old sits across from him, raven hair spilling into dark eyes riveted upward. It’s clear he’s...
by Bela Johnson | May 30, 2013 | musings, personal, travel, Uncategorized
Tight grey curls and a wide-open face introduce the gentleman across from me in the Parlour Car. He has recently awoken, joining a scant five of us who are snapping photos of fog-laced forests and fields. Clad in a yellow and white bicycling jersey, this is a self...
by Bela Johnson | May 28, 2013 | family, happiness, personal, relationships, Uncategorized
I’m afraid of going home. Clad in layers of Sherpa wear purchased at an outdoor store to keep me warm and waterproof in Portland, I feel out of place boarding a plane bound for the Hawaiian Islands. While I’m homeward bound, excited visitors gather in flip-flops,...
by Bela Johnson | May 23, 2013 | lifestyle, musings, personal, Uncategorized
Swaying with the rhythm of the rails, today’s trains glide rather than clack along the tracks. In 1925, Southern Pacific was contracted to build a railroad spanning from Roseville, California to Springfield Junction, Oregon near the town of Eugene. This feat of...
by Bela Johnson | May 21, 2013 | family, love, musings, personal, relationships, Uncategorized
My mother kept things. She didn’t quite know what to do with people: seven children; two husbands; countless grand- and great-grandchildren. She also rescued or fostered several dogs and a few cats in her almost eighty-nine years. She might have made it to...
by Bela Johnson | May 15, 2013 | inspiration, lifestyle, philosophy, poetry, Uncategorized
Whence cometh the longing? That yearning for home, for Other? Where is home if not within? We travel eternities through life, death, time and space … Perhaps each realm confers its own forgetfulness; maybe this is the bargain we make so we don’t jump ship....
