A little further down the cobblestones Is a place where the tourists fear to roam. Here you will find the city’s older bones Where the people who live here will call home. You will not here the foreign languages Come out of the unassuming front, But the community that it bridges Is one that is found on a homeward hunt. Here, they will find the wine flowing freely As they unwind from a rough day of work. The company, they enjoy greedily, While waiting outside, the visitors lurk. This restaurant has been claimed by the hood, Keeping its old spirit just as it should.
The town is hidden by the dark of night As I traverse the empty city streets. I get a glimpse underneath the road lights Of how missing puzzle pieces complete All of the picture which I cannot see. There are stories being told in the haze, And I’m just paying the admission fee For my story is told during the days. I am nothing but an interloper, Trying to look deeper in the shadows For an invitation that will never Come. But still my curiosity grows. How do I become a part of that tribe When they will not allow me to imbibe?
Traveling down a long and winding road, Closely tucked away around a cliff face, The life we have lived is forced to be slowed In this hidden accommodating place. A long time ago a wanderer found This unexpected shady oasis Where water was bubbling from the ground, Forming a swimming hole of relaxing bliss. Here, I can wash away the desert sand, Leaving my problems on the mountain top. My life, I will once again take command Because I have taken the time to stop. Here, the earth can swallow me in its hug, Ignoring responsibility’s tug.
As I traverse along the Sea of Death, Watching the salt water consume the land, I roll down the window to take a breath, And ride the wind with the play of my hand.
The ticking clock does not dictate my day, And there’s no rush to where I’m not going. I know the sea wishes for me to stay, But the wheels on the road keep on flowing.
I do hear your tempting voice luring me To spend the afternoon floating on you, But there are places I still want to see, And I will come back after I am through.
You are a part of all our destiny, Until then I will live a life that’s free.
The rocky path will not always be true, But it will still lead you to the same place. Out of the mountains, a wadi once grew, And hid a paradise in the cliff face. There is a stream that turned the valley green, With time, eroding away the hard stone, Leaving behind swimming holes so serene That humankind could not leave them alone. They will travel from every corner To find some fun in this famous canyon. What ails them, they think they will find a cure After a week long holiday is done. Don’t tell them that the wadi will forget Every person it helped get wet.
It is about the sand under your feet As the in coming waves wash it away. It is about the ultimate retreat You wish to find on a vacation stay. It is about time I spent with my love Without having to worry about work. It is about no new rules from above Coming from an administrative jerk. It is about time off that I deserve Because the amount of your workload. It is about the resting of the nerve Due to the fact of the stress that is sowed. It is about a moment within reach Where we can spend the day walking the beach.
You all look like ants, crawling down below When I am able to stand from the height. I can see how far that this city grew As it takes, from nature, another bite. Over the desert, the road stretches forth To the places where the Bedouins camped; You may look to the south, east, west, and north To witness how that culture has been stamped. It can now be found within the museums, Or the picture books given to children. Humankind is subjected to its whims To ignore the places where it has been. I stand atop its crowning achievement, A tower, to God’s grace, will not be bent.
As our feet slowly sink into the sand, And it squirms into the the cracks of our shoes, The wind tries to blow us from where we stand, And the sun pays off its last daily dues. I can feel the grit filling up my teeth, And my eyes sting from the wind’s and sun’s burn. I can find a resolve from underneath As why I’m on the dune ready to learn. For it is only here when I’m alone, I can contemplate things of great import That this great expanse of grain was once stone; Nature wished it to be another sort. Where will the wind send me when I am done? Will I still feel the warmth of the sun?
We all know that it must come to an end Even though we try to fight against it, But this is not a rule that you can bend, And we must allow the moment to quit. It will open us to us something new Though that might be something that is scary, But these opportunities are so few That we should not allow them to tarry. Instead we should look towards their embrace As if fate even gave us an option; It might be better what it does replace, Only if we could seek out its intention. We may think it something we nurture, But nobody can predict our future.
Greece had always been one of the places I always wanted to visit, but it is in such a strange location in Europe that makes getting to it a little difficult by Eurorail. It became a no-brainer though when I moved to Jordan. It is a short flight to the islands, and with Spring Break being open to the world again this year, we took advantage of that fact to explore two of the islands, Santorini and Naxos. It was fun to see one of the more touristy islands, Santorini, compared to one of the quieter islands, Naxos, and get to experience them right before the Summer season started in full. It is easily a place that we will eventually come back to.
Iceland was another place that I had never been to that I always wanted to explore, and this last summer was the perfect time to do so. Covid restrictions were being loosened and we could spend the whole time outside where any exposure to it would be minimum. The funny thing about this trip is that I caught Covid right before we landed, so we were the ones that people needed to stay away from. The hike that we took on this day was absolutely beautiful, and I would have probably enjoyed it more if I wasn’t sick on this day. It was still a stunning place to visit in a country full of stunning places to see.
There are many things to do on the island of Santorini, Greece, but one that is skipped by many of the people that go there is the Akrotiri Ruins on the tip of the island. This is Greek’s answer to Pompeii. This city was destroyed by the volcano that turned the island into a ring instead of the massive mass of land that it used to be. So far, archeologists have just started unearthing the ruins that were left behind, but it is cool to see what Greek life used to be like, and imagine being a part of it.
This was one of my poems that people enjoyed a lot this year. Usually they do not make it into the top ten posts for the year, but I guess people connected with the story of Mary. I had been watching It’s a Wonderful Life for the first time in a long time over the Christmas holiday, and I noticed one part of the story that did not hold up as well as I remembered it to be. The awful life that Mary had because George Bailey had never been born is almost absurd if compared to today’s standards. Don’t get me wrong, it is still a great movie, but I’m having a hard time getting over this little part of the story.
This is the second poem of the year that ended up on the list of top ten poems for the year. I love the snow, and I have not been able to see it much ever since I moved abroad. It was a nice treat to see it early in the year, and it made for a nice inspiration for a poem. Evidently, many of you thought the same as well because it was the most popular poem of 2022.
This last year was spent learning a lot about the Greeks, and Romans, but one of my favorite trips was to a place that many people forget about when thinking of these two ancient civilizations, Cyprus. It is a short flight from Jordan, and it is filled with ruins all over the place. One of the best places to check out is the House of Dionysus. It has mosaic floors from ancient times that are still being uncovered. They do a great job of telling old Greek stories, and are worth the time to check out.
Growing up, my family had a tradition of getting together on New Year’s Eve and playing game until we could ring in the New Year. As I grew older, my siblings kept up the tradition, and not being able to attend has always been one of the bigger regrets I have had about moving abroad. Luckily, this year was started revisiting that tradition at my brother’s house. It was fun to ring in the New Year this way, and it is amazing that this post was one of the more popular ones as the year continued.
Considering that things have started to return to normal after the couple of years of dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic, it is hard to remember that it was still going on at the beginning of the year. This made travel exceptionally difficult. Not only did you need to be vaccinated in order to travel, and some countries had not gotten up to speed with that yet, you also needed to prove that you were Covid free. I had to stand in two line in the cold of Portland, Oregon at the beginning of the year to make sure that I could travel back to my job, and this post was an exploration of what that was like.
When summer rolled around, restrictions relaxed, and I was able to enjoy my first real travel experience after a couple of years of not being able to do so. Of course, we went big by renting a camper van and driving around Iceland for three weeks. It is a beautiful country, but we were there during the coldest June they have had in thirty years. Because of this, we got to know our camper vans really well. This post has been viewed by a lot of people who are going to travel there as they wonder which camper van company will be right for them. I hope the post guides them in the right direction and they can enjoy the country the way it is meant to be enjoyed.
My first trip of the year took me to Cyprus, only an hour flight from Amman, and a world of difference from each other. Cyprus is wine country, and one of only three places in the world where you can get the rare blue wine. This was the most popular post of the year, and I can understand why. The wine is a novelty, and it sparked a lot of people’s interest. It is fun to try, but for the most part, it is just like white wine, except the process of making it turns it blue.
This was a post from a year early that is still getting a lot of traffic. Apparently people love the combination of elk and the forests of Oregon. It was a treat for me to see them instead of the typical deer that roam the ranch, and apparently a lot of other people agreed.
This was actually a post that went live at the end of 2021. I was visiting family in Colorado, and my brother and his family took me down for the opening on Meow Wolf. I had never heard of this place, and it sounded interesting. It was cool to see the craziness that it had to offer, and it took until this year before people started visiting the post.
During the pandemic, I found my way back to hobby that I enjoyed a lot when I was younger, board games. This was a game that I got for Christmas, and I was able to play it at the end of 2021. This is the review of the game, and it has apparently helped a lot of people decide if the game is right for them or not because it was regularly visited during this year.
This was one of my biggest posts of 2021, and it continued to be a favorite of people’s again this year. It tells people how to visit this cool part of the Dead Sea that is a little ways away from all of the resorts that are further up the road. It is a great day trip and I expect people to visit it often again in 2023.
It always surprises me what people connect with and what they do not. This was supposed to be a throw away post based on a bumper sticker I saw while driving through Bend, Oregon. It has endured over the years, and is always one of my top posts. It is one of the few ones that I have posted that does not even have a picture to accompany it with, but people continue to come back to it again and again even though it has fallen off in popularity this last year.
This is by far my most popular board game review. It pits two of the top board games against each other and helps people decide which one is right for them. Even though I have been able to play Wingspan more over the last year, I still think that Everdell is the better game, and I have even started to see it for sale at Target, making it an even bigger game than when this was first posted.
This is far and away this most visited post that I have. It talks about a little hike that you can take if you find yourself in Railay, Thailand. It must be the one that people go to on a regular basis to help them find the way to the bat cave because it gets visits on a daily basis. I am glad that I have been able to help people find there way there, and I hope, if you are reading this blog, that you some day make it there as well as all the other places that I write about. The world is a great place, and you should go explore all of its nooks and crannies while you still can, especially now that travel is a thing again.
John Collings 