​I arrive in Cyprus on a Friday, picked up by my friend, Nicoletta, and am whisked away to the sea (my request) and then to a souvlaki place, where grilled pork is served in pita pockets with whipped tahini, jícama sprinkled with lemon juice, and pickled celery and chili peppers to tuck into the pockets. We finish with a Cypriot coffee (what in the U.S. we could call a Turkish or Arabic coffee, minus the cardamom), and slowly make our way to the city of Nicosia, where I’ll be staying around the corner from Nicoletta in a small one bedroom apartment in the neighborhood of Engomi.​.[1]


[1] Views on this blog are mine, alone, and do not necessarily represent those of my place of employment or those of friends and colleagues in Cyprus or elsewhere.

​On Saturday, I am invited to family lunch at Nicoletta’s house: barbecued lamb, chicken, amazing fresh salads with mint, almond, fresh figs and apricots, cheese and spinach pies, and exquisite Cypriot red wine, dry and smooth and earthy. I am served one version of Cypriot “halva,” a desert made from polenta and almonds, which sometimes is flavored with rosewater. Sunday, we travel to the easternmost point of the island and can almost see Lebanon on the other side; it’s the closest I’ve ever been to that part of the world, and I am excited. We explore the green “macchia” on short hikes, set against dramatic white cliffs, blue, blue sky, sea caves, and a turquoise ocean. Nicoletta graciously gives me mini lessons in reading Greek, which I find challenging and super rewarding. We return that afternoon so I can play my solo show at the venue in old Nicosia (called Lefkosia in Greek), Sarah’s Jazz Club, which is owned by a Savvas and his business partner, jazz singer, Sarah; after the show, Savvas serves me an amazing pork dish with Muskat wine he has cooked in a large metal pot, slow roasted with red peppers and paprika, from the island of Samos off of Greece, and opens additional bottles of Cypriot and Italian wines for all of us to enjoy. I also get to speak to Gül (Rose), a Turkish-speaking Cypriot and waitress who lives on the other side of the buffer zone and goes through the checkpoints to get to work, everyday. The crowd is small, and consists of British expats, Greek Cypriots, colleagues and musician friends of Nicoletta’s, and a group of young high school age girls, who sit in the back, silently sip their drinks, and listen to every song with incredible attentiveness (one of them comes up afterwards and tells me she is also a songwriter). My songs play on the house sound system on Spotify before and after the show, and it’s the first time I’ve listened back to many of the songs since the albums came out; sitting in a bar in Lefkosia, it’s both surreal and weirdly moving to hear these sounds, half way around the world, reminding me of different vignettes and major life events that made their way into songs and then were recorded in Denmark and in New Mexico, many moons later. It feels like a sort of full circle.

​For breakfast, on day two I start ordering cappuccinos and “olive pies”—long, thin rolls of savory dough filled with fresh baked olives, mint and coriander—and by day three, I am feeling like I’ve “always” lived in Engomi, in Lefkosia, and going to “my” coffee shop. On day four, I am super proud when, with Nicoletta’s help, I am finally able to order my cappuccino in Greek (éna mikró cappucino parakaló) and the lady at the counter understands me (for the follow up questions, I continually just answer “naí” ‘yes,’ and hope that I’ve interpreted the question, correctly).

​On my last day on the island (this is sadly a brief trip. we “cross over” into the buffer zone and into what I’ll euphemistically call “the north” (I am not using the name as that recognizes it as a politically valid entity), in this case the north part of the city of Nicosia. This is the moment where, for me, the divisions to which Nicoletta and other people I’ve spoken to throughout the trip have been alluding to start to click into place. Looking back into the south over the barrels and barbed wire,  about 50 feet away from where we’ve just crossed on foot in old Nicosia, it’s hard to describe how dramatically things change: from the man in a fez selling tidbits of “Turkish delight,” to stands selling shawarma and felafel, to the old men playing checkers on the street corner, to the call to prayer emanating from the minarets, to the many jewelry stores filled with flashy jewelry and kiosks selling knockoff designer handbags that are forbidden in the EU, it’s clear we’ve entered a completely different economic, social and cultural space. In addition, the currency has changed: while Euros are still accepted in some places, the official currency is now the Turkish lira, so things are exceedingly inexpensive, almost shockingly so. We go to a handicraft store, behind the market, in which a number of Turkish Cypriot women sit doing embroidery and making jewelry at the B. Biran Handicraft Centre; I purchase some extremely delicate knotted lace jewelry made from brightly colored thread for friends and mentees, and Nicoletta begins to talk to an older woman, with a leathery face and a kerchief on her white hair, who responds to Nicoletta in Cypriot Greek and had lived, before the division in 1974, in a ”mixed” village with Cypriots of both Greek and Turkish descent: they had learned each others’ languages, by necessity. It’s clearly been a while since the woman spoke in Greek—presumably, not with any regularity since 1974, when the island was divided between Turkish and Greek Cypriots through the creation of the “green line” or a demilitarized UN buffer zone and when speaking Greek in the north began to be stigmatized—and she then turns conversation turns to the (religiously conservative, rural) mainland Turks who have been relocated from Anatolia to the north, perhaps in order to further Islamize what was historically a secular Muslim population. While we don’t have official demographic information for the north, at all, some speculate this ratio is as high as 3:1, mainland Turks to Turkish Cypriots (Select Committee on Foreign Affairs). Two younger women, in their forties or fifties, tell us that they are sending their children to go to school “in the south,” which means their children are crossing the checkpoint and attending English speaking private schools every day. 

​Everywhere we walk, there are crumbled bastions, houses abandoned or falling apart, large municipal buildings and churches disintegrating at the seams, and an overall sense of economic disinvestment and infrastructural decay. It reminds me, in some ways, of time spent on the Navajo Nation and public spaces that, for a whole host of reasons, are no longer being cared for. It is as if those who live their now—Turkish Cypriots, mainland Turks, and migrants from Europe’s margins—no longer feel (or have never felt) a sense of investment in this place; it is not their home, and they are no longer its caretakers.
 
We stroll through a residential alley, where women, dressed in mismatched brightly colored prints, heads veiled, hang laundry lines across abandoned residences or walk their children across the street. While no one is hostile, our presences aren’t really acknowledged with eye contact, either. It looks or feels like what I’d imagine a war zone to look like, or what Nicoletta refers to in a different context as an “open wound.”

​So many questions remain, and I am a stranger and an outsider to this context,this history, place. I know enough to know how much I do not know. I know that having the possibility to offer a three-day songwriting workshop, in the buffer zone, at an amazing NGO fostering bicommunal (i.e. Greek and Turkish Cypriot) conversations, will perhaps be a starting point, when I hope to return in June 2023, will perhaps be a deeper plunge into this world, through storytelling, song, and intercultural exchange.
 

Lately, I’ve been thinking about how to gather with intention. Inspired by a fabulous book I’m in the middle of reading called “The Art of Gathering,” last night I attended my first “burning bowl” ceremony with my partner, John, to ring in the new year. New to this format, we wrote the burdens we have carried in this last year that we wish to release, the wrongs done to us and the wrongs done to others we’re ready to let go of, and dropped them in a bowl with an open flame at the front of the church to release them, feel a bit lighter, and make space for something new. Next, we were asked to write a letter to ourselves, from a higher power, stating what we hope to make room for, the intentions we are setting, and what we need to do to get there. Then, we signed and sealed them, wrote our mailing addresses on the envelopes, and left them with the ushers (the church mails the letters to all participants in November 2022).
 
I grew up in a community *rich* with ritual, secular and sacred, and, since transitioning into my adult life, have never really been able to recreate that for myself or those around me with the same level of intensity and intention. In my childhood, this included amazing solstice celebrations—communal song, candlelight and theatrical events in the winter, and huge bonfires, dancing, strawberry shortcake and crystal clear night skies in summer—advent celebrations, candelight, the smell of bayberries and cedar, and song—folk song, songs in other languages, rounds, carols—in every nook and cranny of my home, school and communal life. 
 
For me, when “life” gets busy, these rituals tend to go out the door or window, so to speak. This has been even more true during COVID, days months and years blurring together into a seemingly never-ending expanse of sameness. Creating  from scratch seems to take such conviction, energy, and courage, and a belief that the ritual will not only be meaningful to me, but to others around me with very different life histories and life experiences. That takes a certain kind of internal confidence that some days and seasons I have, and other times I don’t. 
 
And so I am wondering, dear friends, colleagues and family members: 
 
What are the communal rituals (broadly defined) that you engage in that help you celebrate and be present for the important moments in your month, your year, or your life? What are your rituals, and how do you gather with intention? 
 

​And the conductor who sang us a five-minute, operatic song about the beauty of the state of New Mexico (his composition?), over the loudspeaker (my neighbor to the left told me he did a different song when they were traveling through Colorado), and who takes tips downstairs for his singing skills. And the African American man, en route to Los Angeles, who is teaching dominos to the young Anglo man sitting across from him at the table and wants to see a UFO in Roswell, as two older European men adjacent to them opine and offer opinions on the game as it transpires in real-time. 

​The Observation Car, it seems, is where people come to feel connected to others, to see the country from the “observatory”—the glass covered car that allows us an exquisite view of the countryside as we pass—and to learn from one another about their differences. But most of all, I am struck by how infrequently I see this in other aspects of American life. This sense of curiosity for other people, and the subsequent desire to converse and ask questions, takes time. This is something that many of us, ensconced in our work lives and routines, rarely find. It is as if it takes the luxury of a transcontinental train ride, to find it again. It makes me wonder: is Amtrak one of the last vestiges of American civic life still happening “in the wild,” so to speak? And if so, how might we rebuild this sense of civicmindedness, elsewhere?

​After more than two years away, on Friday, I was finally able to return to one of my favorite spots on Navajo Nation, the Window Rock Flea Market. Parking my truck in the dusty parking lot, I beelined to the food stands with my dog, Nira, I decided on the Grilled Food Café, where I ordered my favorite Diné (Navajo) dish of all time, “steam corn mutton stew,” also known as neeshjízhii. At the risk of unduly singling out any one vendor—all the vendors I have eaten at, there, and across Navajo Nation, also make delicious neeshjízhii, squash stew, and breakfast burritos with thick, homemade tortillas—I wanted to do a shoutout to this food stand in particular because they have just opened back up after the pandemic and because the proprietors are so explicit and intentional about the local value and craft of the food they make and sell.
 
Neeshjízhii is a Diné specialty food, and it is incredibly labor intensive to make. The corn, also called neeshjízhii, is smoky and complex, and has a slight hint of caramel after you bite into it (it’s similar to “chicos” in a New Mexican context). Making it takes several days, including harvesting the ears, steaming them on the cob in an earthen pit on cedar wood coals, shucking and drying the ears, and then removing the kernels from the cobs (southwest farmfresh.org). The corn is served in a simple broth with large chunks of mutton (dibé bitsį’ or sheep meat) on the bone, with salt as the only additional seasoning. It’s a deceptively simple meal, but don’t be fooled: paired with the grease and crunch of the frybread that comes on the side, it’s one of the most satisfying meals I’ve ever eaten (my friend refers to this stew as “Diné chapstick,” because it makes your lips greasy and shiny). 
 
The sign in the window of the Grilled Food Café reads:
 
“When you buy from a small mom & pop business, you are not helping a CEO buy a third vacation home. You are helping a little girl get dance lessons, a little boy get his team jersey, a mom put food on the table, a dad pay a mortgage, or a student pay for college. Our customers are our shareholders, and they are the ones we strive to make happy. Thank you for supporting small businesses!”

After I finished my meal, I wandered around to the other vendors, leaving with a couple small gifts for friends and some new (to me) Diné gospel CDs from a vendor who loves Diné gospel and country western bands. I chatted with George, a dapper 81 year old who bikes into “town” each day to check his mail and who worked for many years harvesting sugar beets on a farm in Idaho, before moving back home. I gassed up at Navajo Petroleum, bought a Navajo Times (the weekly paper for the Navajo Nation, out on Thursdays) with the front page featuring a performer from the most recent Navajo Pride parade, and headed back to Albuquerque, hands smelling faintly of mutton, accompanied by the songs of gospel singer Larry Kaibetoney on the stereo.
 
A bowl of neeshjízhii with frybread or tortilla (your choice) will set you back between $11.00-$12.00, or about ½ the price of a high end entrée at your favorite restaurant. But the richness of the flavor, the sensory experience and the stories that come with it are priceless. Wherever you are, please consider supporting unique, local and artisanal food trucks and foodways.
 
NB: If you make the trip, please know that masking and social distancing are still fully in effect, per Navajo Tribal Law, on the Navajo Nation. Most food stands, and other flea market vendors, prefer cash, only.
​

​So much has changed since March 3rd, 2020. On that day, I was set to embark on a solo songwriting tour in northern Italy, departing from the island of Sardinia in my grey Opel Corsa hatchback with my labrador, a guitar, and a bunch of sound gear. Together with my bookers, I hemmed and hawed, wondering if I should still head up to Lombardia, a province that later became a “red zone.” Less than one week later, on March 8th, the entire country went into a national lockdown due to the global pandemic, one that would last for months, and I’m grateful now that I decided not to go: me and my dog would surely have been stuck in the north, with no option to return to Sardinia, under a lockdown in unfamiliar territory with no anchor point.
 
But that thwarted tour left a space—a hunger, a craving—to travel, to share my music, and spend precious time with my dog, Nira, who is one of the great joys of my life. This is difficult to do safely in the midst of a global pandemic! And thus, “Me, My Dog and My Guitar, Take 2,” was born, the seed of an idea I hope to grow, nurture and cultivate over the next two months of winter lockdown in New Mexico, “wintering” as I have been alone inside the adobe walls of my Albuquerque casita. 
 

​The idea is this: travel, alone with my dog and my guitar, to a series of lesser-known National Parks and Monuments in southern Utah. I will hunker down for three weeks in a cabin, live in, near and among these parks, teach my classes remotely during the week as a professor at the University of New Mexico, and, on the weekends and evenings, spend as much time in the outdoors as possible, learning to read the light patterns, unique characteristics, smells, sounds and sights of that particular park. My partner, teaching overseas, has referred to this trip as my own desert solitaire. In many ways, I think he’s right. Right now, this solitary desert trip is the voyage I can do, and I’m not at all sure when I’ll have the luxury to do something like this, in the middle of a semester, again.
 
Normally, my inspiration for songs comes from people, cowrites, and daily interactions in the community I live in. These things, in my current universe, have all but disappeared for now: what happens if I turn my attention away from people and, in the spirit of socially-distanced artmaking, toward the exquisite beauty of the outdoors, instead? How might these parks speak to me, in the form of songs, stories, melodic fragments and poems, and how might I then share this place-inspired work with others? 

​As a former seasonal Park Ranger working in Parks on the Navajo Nation, I believe our National Parks are precious. I also know relatively little about the beautiful parks to the north and in Utah, specifically. So, this feels like an area in my own backyard, so to speak, that I’ve also undervalued. In addition, right now, our National Parks are under siege, financially, and many employees have been furloughed as a result of the pandemic. Bringing some visibility to these parks under duress, emphasizing and sharing that beauty with others, feels like it’s a small thing I can do in this moment where there is so, so much we cannot.
 
To be sure, there are also lots of fears. Will I be able to write, and the proverbial songwriter’s question: will I feel “inspired”? Will the self-isolation feel too intense? One way I will address this is through allowing myself to write unfinished songs, place-based fragments that are written in that place, and thus, are “done for now,” because they are a product of the place that inspired them. Thus, I am saying “yes” to what might not feel finished yet, to replenishing the artistic well for now, but also perhaps for later. It is a privilege to have the mental space to even consider such a journey, with so much in flux in so many American lives at this moment. This is a combined product of my own set of privilege, both inherited and bestowed after birth: my own economic and skin-color privilege, and the fact that I have a job with more geographic mobility than most. 

​This is the framework, and this is the journey. In my truck, with my dog and my guitar, I’ll be living this particular artistic question. Everything feels fragile, is fragile, and I want to honor that by being present in the best way I know how. I’ll be leaving on February 7th, and will remain in southern Utah, at the mouth of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, and then at the entrance to Capital Reef National Park, for the remainder of the month. I will keep a daily journal, will be masked at all times, and will tread lightly. 
 

​Whether you know this part of the southwestern United States like the back of your hand, or whether you’ve never been to the US, I invite you to come, virtually, on my songwriter’s tour, where I’ll write songs instead of performing them, fed by the awe-inspiring natural beauty of America’s national parks: I’d be honored to share the journey with you.
 
~I have already had some precious interlocutors on this journey who I’d like to acknowledge at the outset, among them: John Parish, Gregg Daigle, Meredith Wilder, Raquel Rivera and Mary Roaf. Can’t wait, y’all!
 

​Nira Jacobsen, chocolate-colored Labrador Retriever, arrived in Sardegna on a steamy, humid day last September, via Los Angeles and Frankfurt, to Rome, where were took a ferry to Sardegna and where she accompanied me on my year of fieldwork here on the island, singing and writing songs, learning the Sardinian language, and generally taking part in the comings and goings of life, here.
 
Since then, we have been inseparable, and, although not part of the initial plan to have her here with me for the year, doing fieldwork with her in my midst has been much like the narratives I’ve read of doing fieldwork with a child in tow. Each Sunday, we’ve explored different beaches where she can swim and play ‘fetch,’ her favorite game and one of the main sources of work and reward (essential for a Labrador) in her life (the larger the stick/stimulus, the better). We’ve traveled on the train together, each week, in our commute from the rural village where I’ve been living to the city of Cagliari, where I was doing research at an Italian university, Nira nestled at my feet on her Italian-made cotton bed, curled into a small ball. We’ve hiked all over our village, greeting sheep, horses and cattle along the way.
 

​Nira’s presence has also summoned all sorts of perspectives and approaches to social life, to the human-animal interface, and to gender that are precious to me as I continue to learn more about this island, from the space of both the rural and the urban. For example, one of the most common questions I am asked when I am out walking with her in the city of Cagliari when someone is contemplating greeting her, or letting their dog greet her, is: “Femminuccia (Is she a girl)?” This question becomes code for “is she gentle?” and “does she bite?,” with the assumption being that in Sardegna, most male dogs are not neutered, and are thus perceived as being intrinsically territorial, aggressive or wanting to procreate and that, by inversion, female dogs, whether spayed or no, are going to be less aggressive, better behaved and generally more “gentile” (kind, nice, well-behaved). Thus, behavior and comportment become gendered in ways very different than they are in the U.S., where dog behavior is linked more to ideas of a dog’s training and history of aggression and less with its gender per se.

​In the rural village where I am living in the Sardinian foothills of the “Montiferru,” responses to Nira’s presence have also been strongly gendered, but in a different way. Men in general have responded positively, often wanting to get closer to her, sometimes pet her, and ask about her “qualifications,” for example, if she is “pure” bred and what kind of work she is bred to do. This is particularly true for the men we’ve met who do agricultural and pastoral work, such as work in the vineyards or those who work as shepherds, a common profession in a place where there are more sheep than people. When they learn she is a bird dog trained for hunting with a very delicate mouth built for fowl retrieval, she is met with approval, some additional pats on her head, comments about her physique, and a certain kind of respect. By contrast, many of the women in the village initially have expressed fear when meeting her, particularly based on her size (she is around 55 pounds, or 25 kilos). In both cases, here in the village dogs are perceived as being outdoor animals, and, my fantastic landlord notwithstanding, there is general incredulity surrounding the idea that a dog can be “house trained” or live inside a building.
​

​Over the weekend I developed a high fever due to a gas leak in my house. Worried about getting better as quickly as possible for a Northern Italian tour I was about to undertake (now sadly postponed due to the Corona Virus outbreak but taking place in January 2021), I went with a friend to the “Guardia Medica” in Cagliari.
 
This is a public service that’s offered to Italian citizens and tourists for health issues that aren’t life threatening, and thus don’t warrant an emergency room visit. We arrived around 8:00 pm, when the clinic opens for its night-time hours (it opens when normal doctor’s hours end), at a large three-story house, with a broken metal gate. We press the buzzer to be allowed in, but there’s no response. Five minutes later, we are issued in, the first patients of the evening for our blonde-haired, fifty-something doctor.
 

​I recognize quickly that doctor-patient protocol and privacy are quite different, here. We have most of our conversation in what looks like a small office—I don’t realize until later that it’s also the examining room—with the door wide open, as people shuffle in to get in line after us. When she finds out I’ve recently returned from the United Arab Emirates, she exits the room and returns with a face mask on, confiding in us that this is the first time she’s worn it to see a patient. I tell her I am honored—I’m not quite sure how else to respond to her confession—and she raises my T-Shirt and proceeds to palpate my back and chest with her stethoscope, asking me to pant quickly in and out, “come un cane” (like a dog), for around 60 seconds, as my friend looks on in amusement and I do my best not to start giggling. She has me open my mouth and lower my tongue. Assured it’s not Corona Virus, she asks for my “tessera sanitaria” (a sort of Italian social security card), proscribes me a cough suppressant called “Seki” on a torn piece of white paper (the printer is jammed), writes the word “tiket sanitario” (health ticket) and the day and month but no year. She is wearing a white coat, but there is no medical equipment in the room that I can see beyond the stethoscope: no sink, no rubber gloves, no computer, and the entire exam is done with me seated on the metal chair I sat on when I entered. 

​She then proceeds to the topic du jour, immigration, noting that the United States has just closed its doors to flights from China, South Korea, and now Italy. My friend, eager to balance the playing field on my behalf, notes that Italy has long closed its doors to many migrants themselves, including the many boats of North African migrants who have been refused a port of entry on Italian waters in recent months. The doctor then responds, “and look where our open border policies have gotten us now,” giving a knowing nod and a wary eye roll to indicate she’s talking about Corona Virus. My friend counters that, in fact, none of the known cases of Corona Virus have come from “l’Africa” and that, on the contrary, they are mostly from wealthier Italians who have the means to travel abroad and then carried inadvertently carried the virus home with them. The conversation continues, both firm in their positions, smiling brightly, and neither willing to cede.

​I am a bit dumbfounded, and my head is spinning. What has just happened, and is the person we saw actually a doctor? Since they didn’t take my temperature, can they really know I’m well? Is the torn piece of paper really a prescription, and is that seen as legitimate by a licensed pharmacist? Is it typical protocol to talk to a patient with an open door and then to discuss immigration policy and politics? On the flip side, is it possible that one can actually get seen and diagnosed, so quickly without an appointment and with such efficiency, despite the obvious lack of infrastructure and resources? And how could an entire appointment, not logged into any computer system I could see, only cost 16.00 €, and a prescription only 5.40 €, given to a foreign national using no insurance in this case?
 
What I loved about this experience was its imperfectness, its lack of tidiness, its messiness. What I also loved was that, despite that, and the old building, and the gate that didn’t work, and the exam rooms that look like an old library from the 1950s, someone was willing to see me, treat  me, and offer a bit of medical advice, and that they had no qualms about offering me other sorts of opinions on politics, as well. The latter, of course, is a very Italian thing—I am offered strongly opined unsolicited advice almost every day I live on Sardinian (also arguably Italian) soil—but in a funny way this is also oddly humanizing. I know where she stands, she knows where I  and my friend stand, she wasn’t worried about a medical malpractice suit if she expressed her opinions or offered me somewhat haphazard care; that’s the space she was in at at 8:10 yesterday evening, and that’s what she had to offer me, her first patient of the evening.
 
I have now, with the help of my friend, gone down the bureaucratic road of paying my 16.00 € (about a two hour process), and, in the meantime, will enjoy a good dose of vitamin C through one of my favorite local sources, Italian blood orange juice (amazing). Buona giornata, tutti, e buon proseguimento.