travel

Eastern State Penitentiary by Rebecca Tillett

"Looking down these dreary passages, the dull repose and quiet that prevails, is awful. Occasionally, there is a drowsy sound from some lone weaver’s shuttle, or shoemaker’s last, but it is stifled by the thick walls and heavy dungeon-door, and only serves to make the general stillness more profound. Over the head and face of every prisoner who comes into this melancholy house, a black hood is drawn; and in this dark shroud, an emblem of the curtain dropped between him and the living world."

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Love in the Moon's Shadow by Rebecca Tillett

The trip was of course, wonderful, until the last 30 minutes of the drive home when Serenica's engine began stalling on us whenever we'd drop beneath a certain speed (hoping it's a minor fix!). Fortunately, after stalling out on several occasions and getting it restarted again, she died right inside our RV storage lot gate and wouldn't turn over.

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Idaho (and a little Wyoming) by Rebecca Tillett

“When we get out of the glass bottle of our ego and when we escape like the squirrels in the cage of our personality and get into the forest again, we shall shiver with cold and fright. But things will happen to us so that we don’t know ourselves. Cool, unlying life will rush in.” —D. H. Lawrence

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In Harmony with the Hurt by Rebecca Tillett

l think about you on these roads to nothingness, I think about my pain or regret or guilt that have become dead-end branches off my heart forever reminding the blood running through me that I could have been better, that I fucked up, that some things are never undone and never forgiven and never forgotten. Have you forgiven me? Have you eulogized the branches of your own heart? Or are you still struggling to live in harmony with the hurt?

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Serenica Landship by Rebecca Tillett

I'm not yet sure where life will take us in this beautiful beast (dubbed the Serenica Landship for anyone curious), but I'm okay with that. The road is enough. The road is beautiful. The road is host to so many fantastic possibilities. There's something thrilling and freeing about embracing the unknown, about being tied to nothing but each other, about movement and escaping a static and stationary presence. I suppose there's something poetic in acknowledging the forward motion of life in such a literal way.

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AdobeMAX by Rebecca Tillett

The walk was not scenic but it was beautiful. And it was sad. It was through some extremely poor/low-income areas and I lost count of the many mattresses and makeshift sidewalk homes I'd pass on my way each day, the piles of garbage, the struggling mothers all hurrying their kids to school down the block. And the contrast of such surroundings with the people I'd encounter only minutes later sitting in beautiful conference halls, working on their MacBooks, answering emails on their tablets and having conversations on their smartphones was jarring at the very least.

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Water Flows by Rebecca Tillett

“Water does not resist. Water flows. When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress. Water is not a solid wall, it will not stop you. But water always goes where it wants to go, and nothing in the end can stand against it. Water is patient. Dripping water wears away a stone. Remember that, my child. Remember you are half water. If you can't go through an obstacle, go around it. Water does.” ―Margaret Atwood

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Redwood National Park by Rebecca Tillett

There is nothing I can say about the trees to describe them to you if you've never seen them or found yourself in their presence. I hope you trust in my sincerity when I announce my satisfaction at that realization. It's true. I'm so utterly contented knowing there are places in this world that lie outside the boundaries of articulated description, places you simply have to see and feel and experience to know.

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A Tree Says by Rebecca Tillett

"Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.

A tree says: A kernel is hidden in me, a spark, a thought, I am life from eternal life. The attempt and the risk that the eternal mother took with me is unique, unique the form and veins of my skin, unique the smallest play of leaves in my branches and the smallest scar on my bark. I was made to form and reveal the eternal in my smallest special detail."

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For Now, Relentlessly Onward by Rebecca Tillett

I'm on a journey to find my purpose. I haven't yet figured out if it's something I carelessly lost along the way somewhere a few miles back, a few years back, a few spins back or if it's something I've never truly had a firm grasp on - purpose has always felt like a moth or a butterfly fluttering by me occasionally. If I'm lucky, every now and then I'll cage it between my hands, marveling at it's elusive beauty but it always escapes, fluttering away to be caged by others inevitably.

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