Words by a Traveler

Author: Jayda

  • NOLA Poem

    Skin New Orleans blood runs under my skinI feel the music pulsing through my skinMy skin speaks volumes of my heritageJazz bars eager for my liquor-soaked skinBy the skin of my teeth I meander across the streetWhere they sell their skinBut my skin is taken for free, those glances up and downMy skin flushes, I…

  • Finding Home in New Orleans

    I don’t know if I believe in love at first sight. I certainly haven’t experienced it myself. But the feeling I had as I walked the streets of New Orleans…I can imagine that maybe it feels a bit like that. April 6 – April 12 Meeting my family and learning about Katrina I knew my…

  • A poem for Niagara Falls

    NiagaraJuly 11, 2022 Baptism in holy waterIs not only within four blessed walls. Sometimes we are holiness.All teeth and laughs from the chest,Drenched beneath a waterfallAnd pushed off balance by the wind— Baptismal waterThat we rejoice in,Praises and hallelujahs that areLoud and unapologetic. And then that moment ofEnlightenment. When we realize that weAre the blessed.…

  • Weekend in Canada: A Girls’ Trip That Actually Left the Group Chat

    July 8 – July 11, 2022 (one-year anniversary post) We humans are so small, aren’t we? We think we’re large and dominating and great and powerful, when really we are only mere specks of dust in the entirety of our universe and its timeline of existence. That thought used to scare me, but now it’s…

  • Italy: A Place to Be Alive

    Italy: A Place to Be Alive

    baked brown under the italian sundust of pompeilimoncello and fresh mozzarellatears echoing in the sistine chapelsticky gelato and red winewalking through history and dreams The cruise: Celebrity Silhouette; Spain & Italian Mediterranean July 30 – August 13 How I became an art collector My first cruise was with an unlikely companion and one that continues…

  • Self-Discovery In Norway and the Nitty Gritty of Solo Traveling for the First Time

    Self-Discovery In Norway and the Nitty Gritty of Solo Traveling for the First Time

    First thoughts once the dust settled Day one of my first solo trip out of the U.S. and I was already regretting every impulsive feeling that had led me to that point, sitting on a mattress on the floor of a repurposed shed with no insulation and a door that didn’t shut properly in late…

  • To Be An Honest Traveler

    An Introduction to My Blog The influence of a teacher In 2017, my junior year of high school, I had the most incredible English teacher: Ms. MacDonald, fondly known as Ms. Mac or Mac Attack. She took no bullshit from anyone and taught us not to take bullshit from anyone either. Which meant she was…