View From Here

Living Slowly in Peru

PHOTOS AND ESSAY BY PHOEBE JESKE

I’m in Peru for a month with my parents and brother. My brother and I graduated from college this May, and my mom calls this trip the “hands-on part” of our university education. We want to go further than Machu Picchu and educate ourselves via cultural immersion.
These photos arose out of the desire to bite into a place, to savor its flavor. Although I cannot fully release my American identity, I’ve attempted to capture Peru’s streets through every day, ordinary eyes.

An Ode to Lima, Peru

BY BRIAN LANGLEY

Lima is an unstoppable, unrelenting surge of human ingenuity, desire, and chaos checked only by the one thing stronger than she—nature, specifically the Pacific Ocean.

Flowing up and out from the ancient Wari people, and the Chancay, and the Lima civilization and flowing down from the heart of Incas, these ancestors found and made communal life in the desert thanks to the rivers Chillón, Rimac, and Lurín, and the bountiful Peruvian seas fed by the Humboldt current coming north from Antarctica.

Land as the Canvas of Memory

BY HEATHER M. SURLS

Sitting in my parents’ yard on the foothills of the Tehachapi Mountains in California, I’m distracted. I haul my journal, a book, and a cup of tea to the splintering porch swing, intending to read or pray. But once I settle down and let my eyes pass over the 5 acres around me, I’m flooded by memories.
Before me stands the house my family built during an El-Niño year. I was approaching middle school and angry about leaving our suburban life two hours away in Ventura County. Alongside my parents, I tied intersections of rebar in the house’s foundation, picked up nails and swept sawdust during framing. My sisters and I recorded construction progress in composition books—homeschooling at its best.

Monks Walk for Peace: A Photo Essay

PHOTOGRAPHY BY SUSIE POST-RUST
STORY BY SUSIE POST-RUST AND SHELLY NGO

As a group of Buddhist monks journeyed on foot from Texas to Washington, D.C., crowds lined the roads and highways to view their Walk for Peace. North Carolina alone, saw thousands of spectators gather, drawn by the monks’ messages of love and compassion.

A Century After Opening, Knoxville’s “Movie Palace” Still Delights

ESSAY BY BECKY HANCOCK
IMAGES BY BRUCE MCCAMISH & DON DELFORD

I’m the director of the Tennessee Theatre, a non-profit theatre in Knoxville. Since 1928, this theatre has featured countless performers on its stage and screen, creating lifelong memories for the millions who have passed through her golden doors. It’s a theatre that has gone through more lives than a lucky cat.
Formerly known as a “movie palace,” the Theatre was designed to imitate the opulence and magnificence of an old-world palace in Paris or Prague or perhaps Marrakesh. In the early 20th century, Hollywood-based movie studios built thousands of theaters throughout the United States. In movie palaces, their largest and most extravagant type of venue, the studios intended for people to feel like royalty, to be whisked away from everyday cares.

Our Expat Plan: Kicking Off Our Adventures in Guatemala & Martinique

WORDS & IMAGES BY JESSICA FOUST

Last summer, due to political events in the States, I started asking my husband, Gareth, if we could “disappear for a while.” When we were first married in Fall 2021, we had committed to try to live in such a way that we could travel and experience life in other parts of the world.
Simultaneously, one of my bigger “ends-in-a-zero” birthdays was approaching, and I really wanted to mark it with accomplishing a life goal or two. We were already on mid-career work sabbaticals (I’m a file clerk and librarian, and Gareth’s worked as an electric station operator), so this seemed the perfect time to do some living abroad.

In the Land of the Rising Sun

PHOTOGRAPHY BY DANE MALZAHN

While many of the world’s major cities have neighborhoods with certain vibes—think New York’s Upper East Side or London’s Soho district—neighborhoods in Japan’s capital city feel like distinctive towns existing under the collective name, Tokyo.

There’s the sophisticated Ginza district filled with the flagship stores for some of the world’s top luxury brands. The Kappabashi Dougu-gai is nicknamed “Kitchen Town” for its vast selection of cooking utensils and cookware. And there’s the Ryogoku district, the epicenter of Japan’s national sport, sumo wrestling.

Monterey Dreamin’: Friendship on the California Coast During the Vietnam War

Ocean bays that face westward inspire a strong fascination. My European ancestors left such anchorages to travel to the New World, and as a youth I found my way across the U.S. from Gary, Indiana, to Monterey, California. This city and its bay remain the dream of my green years.

From January to April 1966, I lived in Monterey at taxpayer expense while I roamed the coastline, visited the coffee shops, and enjoyed the city’s ambiance. At that time I earned my living as a U.S. Army Special Forces soldier—enrolled in a three-month Spanish course in the Defense Language Institute (DLI) at the Spanish-built Presidio of Monterey. I was destined for the 8th Special Forces Group in the Canal Zone of Panama.

Finding My Center in Jerusalem: A Post-October 7 Photo Essay

PHOTO ESSAY BY ELSA WOLMAN KATANA

Other cities in the world speak to me—Amsterdam, Beijing, London, and San Francisco—but Jerusalem is my favorite. In love and solidarity, and seeking some serious emotional, mental, and spiritual R&R, I made two different trips in the last year from my current home in Baltimore. As a Jew and an Israeli, only in Israel could I find refuge from the general refusal of the world to acknowledge the atrocities of October 7, 2023. In Jerusalem, my world spins on center.

What Happened When I Tried to Like Arizona

STORY BY HEATHER M. SURLS

PHOTOS BY MARY VENDEGNA & KAMI RICE

Rain spattered the windshield as Austin turned into the Water Wheel Trail parking lot. Driving the two-lane highway here from Payson, we had seen charcoal clouds emitting a fine scrim of rain, but we’d decided to hike even if it were sprinkling when we arrived. In the passenger’s seat, I folded down my striped socks, pulled on my sneakers. We would not be stopped. Not when our boys were overnight with their grandparents for the first time. Not on our first getaway in two years.