On Sunday, the farmers’ market in Pacific Palisades — between Santa Monica and Malibu — becomes our equivalent of the small town square. A main street in town is closed to traffic. The farmers set up tents and tables.

My wife and I walk through the crowds, saying hello to friends as we check out the local produce and fruit. You can’t see the Pacific Ocean from the market, but you can feel its cooling breezes. The market is a much needed respite from the noise and hurry-up of Los Angeles.

Most people we know have the same Sunday routine: meet at the market, shop, and have coffee or breakfast at one of the half-dozen restaurants. Besides the wide variety of locally grown organic vegetables, citrus, and fruit, the market sells eggs, chickens, freshly caught fish, handmade chocolates, tamales, kettle corn and lots of flowers.

Most of you would find it odd,

Lining up inside a pod.

But in fact it wouldn’t be,

If you were a baby pea.

Hush little mushies,

Lay your caps and heads

Gently on your cozy mushroom beds.

The loam’s soft and spongy,

The light’s right for fungi,

So hush little mushies, hush.
 

From the Dallas Observer 

Winner of Best Feature in the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies 

Elias dangles the dead iguana by the tail. His friends close in around him, watching hungrily. With a knife he slices through scaly green skin and peels it back to reveal bloody meat, dark red and glistening in the sun. Working quickly, he carves the lizard into sections—head, front and back legs, upper and lower torso—and drops the parts in a pan. Then he places it over the fire they've made near the train tracks. Sweat trickles down his forehead, stinging his eyes. The men are quiet while they wait for the lizard to cook. Sometimes they sing and tell stories, but for now they're too hot and hungry. They sit and watch the fire.

For three days they've been camped here, in the jungle of southern Mexico, about 40 miles from the Guatemalan border in a town called Tenosique. Hundreds of people sprawl in the dirt along the tracks. Many are young men, shirtless in the sticky heat, wearing tattered Nikes and grimy backpacks. But there are women and children too, teenage girls with painted-on jeans and mothers balancing kids on their hips. They lounge on pieces of cardboard and plastic, squat on porches, smoke in the awnings of makeshift storefronts. They wait.

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Twenty years ago this summer I fell in love with Alaska. After graduating from college and moving permanently to Atlanta with friends, I thought I had died and gone to heaven by escaping my small town life. My parents quickly threw a wrench into all the excitement by informing me we were going on a family vacation to Alaska - a week on a cruise ship. I balked, begged and pleaded not to go. I am the least 'outdoorsy' person in the world. I don't like to be cold and I don't like to be hot. My definition of camping is a night at a Holiday Inn Express. 

We boarded the ship in Vancouver and spent the first night at sea. When I woke up the next morning and peered through the tiny porthole, I was amazed and astonished. It was the most magnificent scenery I had ever seen. The snow covered mountains soared above the clouds and the ocean looked so vast it almost seemed powerful. Since there are only about 4 hours of darkness each night, I woke up when the sun came up with as much excitement as a child does on Christmas morning.

I have been back to Alaska about 10 times since that summer, another cruise, a trip to Juneau to visit my old friend Reecia and the rest for work, long layovers in Anchorage with my “stewardess job."