Joy Harris’s “Whose Vacation is this Anyway?” explores generational and cultural differences in travel expectations when she takes her two teenage nieces to Paris in 1995. While she seeks to connect them with Black literary history—referencing Baldwin, Hughes, and Baker—the girls prefer familiar comforts. The piece reveals how diverse Black travellers experience Paris differently, challenging assumptions about shared cultural appreciation.

In January 2023, I had the honour of being invited to participate in the inaugural Freedom Writers Retreat for Black Women Writers at Black-owned boutique hotel Great Oak Manor in Chesapeake Bay, Maryland. It was co-hosted by authors Natalie Baszile and Lauren Francis-Sharma, along with innkeeper Kellye Walker. I was particularly excited to meet travel writer Emily Raboteau (see our interview and her book excerpt from Lessons for Survival: Mothering Against “the Apocalypse” in Panorama #11: Ecology), and to reunite with celebrated author and playwright Shay Youngblood, whom I knew from my Boston days decades before.

Most of the spiders living in the house that I share with my husband and our terrier are the small-bodied, long-legged variety. They station themselves quietly in the corners, favouring the spots where two walls and the ceiling meet. Currently, there are so many spiders living in our house that all the prime corners, as described above, are occupied, and some spiders are obliged to live in the simpler corners where just one wall meets the ceiling or where two walls meet. Others live in the spaces behind any one of the several doors in our house that are perennially propped open. Still others inhabit the windows, where they litter the sills with tiny corpses.

From a distance, the houses encrusting the hills of the Kotsubo neighbourhood remind me of barnacles. They crowd together, layer upon layer, hiding the surface of the land. Nonetheless, thanks to good historical preservation of the region, ancient paths called kiridoshi still remain at ground level. Narrow trails designed for feet and hooves, kiridoshi formerly served as escape routes for samurai warriors and important political figures. These paths still meander in and out of the modern neighbourhoods of the Kamakura area where my elderly parents still live.

i. What’s Left Cracked bricks, fixtures, fencing, Hooks & some wire, torn corners of insulation stapled to Warped wood. Ash. Porcelain tiles spilt like playing cards.

a slow haze rolls over any answers to prayers the stars sent — their light too long ago to reach still, the cathedral’s candle votives on iron shelves glow at the slip into sleep altar roses brighten, pause the petals’ fall to ash

1. Amid roaring trucks, giraffe-neck cranes, all-day hammering, bicycle lanes, curbside cafés where waiters pour wine and teenagers hunch over takeout, a hoarse screech.

While gold and dollars pile up in banks and smoke from gunpowder spirals in the air, I stand, outfitted, in the village church before I pass from There to Here.

They say there were no shadows at the height of that afternoon. Constricted to a single point, we were isolated, no secondary bodies.

at the end of it there is this thing—words; we share them like sticks of smoke, our lips black with abandon for writs and tales yarned outside these shores, too wet with the ocean’s salt for anything

For lunch ant eggs with worms. 900 pesos, though ... Only the rich can afford such courage.

I never noticed a sound in my childhood room in Philadelphia, not the horn-blaring, teenage screaming, razzle-dazzle nighttime streets of Philadelphia. I slept deeply in my fourth-floor apartment, at the rim of the Locust Street canyon in my city, cocooned in the swell of motion, swarm of humanity, mellifluous cacophony of Philadelphia.

Every river seems to have a place like this; somewhere small boats go to die. The rotting fibreglass carcasses of forgotten pleasure craft and Sunday afternoon fishing boats drawn up onto the mud, windows broken, slowly filling with pools of stagnant water. Between them, narrow jetties cross the salt-marsh to firmer ground. At the landward end of each boardwalk stands a shed with wall panels that have long since rotted away exposing their dank interiors. This is the Stour estuary in East Kent.

The Tate Modern, the National Portrait Gallery, the Natural History Museum, the fabulous Victoria and Albert... all of them fabulous, and within walking distance. But I felt like South Ken. It was tidy, stylish and calm, relaxed and lively at the same time. I would go there – start with the NHM and its cornucopia of dinosaur fossils, animal

Outside the window an endless ocean of tall green cornstalks stretched for miles alongside the highway. The perfectly aligned rows at 70 miles per hour always reminded me of the quickly turning pages of a flipbook; the motion shows incredible speed yet remains anchored in time and place. Unable to escape its roots; tethered to where it was planted. The corn reminded me of the ceaseless waves of stalks surrounding the place where I grew up.

I aborted one, then another. Legs splayed to a darkened sky, the city is hollow, cavernous, a mother buried with dead-born child. I popped a pill, then another.

the dream: – there is a café: — Its façade: a verdant ivy waterfall calling souls to seek solace from the urban hustle welcomes humans — Within: the aroma of coffee beans interlaces with the melody of jazz drifting from speakers

You are the oldest señora in our building. I first noticed you during the earthquake that took place three months after I arrived in Mexico City, the time the alarm went blaring minutes after midnight. Hurtling down the stairs, señora Tania urgently murmuring corre, corre at my heels, we were rounding the railing on the first floor when I spotted you emerging from your door as if in slow motion, dazed.

You’re here, and it’s a party but you feel like you’re stepping into a cathedral, and the crowded bar glows like an altar. L.A. worships everything. L.A. definitely worships itself. L.A. especially worships big spaces and big dreams and big ideas. This is the allure of the silver screen.

At the point when part of me knew our relationship would be over soon, we were living in a country governed by its military. We lived on the top floor of a hotel. Our room had been built on the roof and was surrounded by roof on three sides, becalmed in tiles.

1. Decide to study abroad in Scotland for four months. When your family takes to the airport, you’re shaking. Almost turn back. Almost give up. Instead, take a plane from JFK to London Heathrow. Fear travelling alone, be unable to fall asleep. When your plane lands at Heathrow, move through customs without falling apart. Sit in a chair and breathe when you realize they won’t tell you your gate until the plane arrives.

For many years I’ve lived on a bluff with a wilderness in my backyard. However, I don’t live in some remote area but in Anchorage, Alaska’s largest city. For some Alaskans, the city with its busy streets and modern infrastructure is a stark contrast to the vast, untouched wilderness that characterises most of Alaska. They reject it with the claim that “Anchorage is not the real Alaska, although you can see it from there.”

Most of the spiders living in the house that I share with my husband and our terrier are the small-bodied, long-legged variety. They station themselves quietly in the corners, favouring the spots where two walls and the ceiling meet. Currently, there are so many spiders living in our house that all the prime corners, as described above, are occupied, and some spiders are obliged to live in the simpler corners where just one wall meets the ceiling or where two walls meet. Others live in the spaces behind any one of the several doors in our house that are perennially propped open. Still others inhabit the windows, where they litter the sills with tiny corpses.

From a distance, the houses encrusting the hills of the Kotsubo neighbourhood remind me of barnacles. They crowd together, layer upon layer, hiding the surface of the land. Nonetheless, thanks to good historical preservation of the region, ancient paths called kiridoshi still remain at ground level. Narrow trails designed for feet and hooves, kiridoshi formerly served as escape routes for samurai warriors and important political figures. These paths still meander in and out of the modern neighbourhoods of the Kamakura area where my elderly parents still live.

i. What’s Left Cracked bricks, fixtures, fencing, Hooks & some wire, torn corners of insulation stapled to Warped wood. Ash. Porcelain tiles spilt like playing cards.

a slow haze rolls over any answers to prayers the stars sent — their light too long ago to reach still, the cathedral’s candle votives on iron shelves glow at the slip into sleep altar roses brighten, pause the petals’ fall to ash

1. Amid roaring trucks, giraffe-neck cranes, all-day hammering, bicycle lanes, curbside cafés where waiters pour wine and teenagers hunch over takeout, a hoarse screech.

While gold and dollars pile up in banks and smoke from gunpowder spirals in the air, I stand, outfitted, in the village church before I pass from There to Here.

They say there were no shadows at the height of that afternoon. Constricted to a single point, we were isolated, no secondary bodies.

at the end of it there is this thing—words; we share them like sticks of smoke, our lips black with abandon for writs and tales yarned outside these shores, too wet with the ocean’s salt for anything

For lunch ant eggs with worms. 900 pesos, though ... Only the rich can afford such courage.

I never noticed a sound in my childhood room in Philadelphia, not the horn-blaring, teenage screaming, razzle-dazzle nighttime streets of Philadelphia. I slept deeply in my fourth-floor apartment, at the rim of the Locust Street canyon in my city, cocooned in the swell of motion, swarm of humanity, mellifluous cacophony of Philadelphia.

Every river seems to have a place like this; somewhere small boats go to die. The rotting fibreglass carcasses of forgotten pleasure craft and Sunday afternoon fishing boats drawn up onto the mud, windows broken, slowly filling with pools of stagnant water. Between them, narrow jetties cross the salt-marsh to firmer ground. At the landward end of each boardwalk stands a shed with wall panels that have long since rotted away exposing their dank interiors. This is the Stour estuary in East Kent.

The Tate Modern, the National Portrait Gallery, the Natural History Museum, the fabulous Victoria and Albert... all of them fabulous, and within walking distance. But I felt like South Ken. It was tidy, stylish and calm, relaxed and lively at the same time. I would go there – start with the NHM and its cornucopia of dinosaur fossils, animal

Outside the window an endless ocean of tall green cornstalks stretched for miles alongside the highway. The perfectly aligned rows at 70 miles per hour always reminded me of the quickly turning pages of a flipbook; the motion shows incredible speed yet remains anchored in time and place. Unable to escape its roots; tethered to where it was planted. The corn reminded me of the ceaseless waves of stalks surrounding the place where I grew up.

I aborted one, then another. Legs splayed to a darkened sky, the city is hollow, cavernous, a mother buried with dead-born child. I popped a pill, then another.

the dream: – there is a café: — Its façade: a verdant ivy waterfall calling souls to seek solace from the urban hustle welcomes humans — Within: the aroma of coffee beans interlaces with the melody of jazz drifting from speakers

You are the oldest señora in our building. I first noticed you during the earthquake that took place three months after I arrived in Mexico City, the time the alarm went blaring minutes after midnight. Hurtling down the stairs, señora Tania urgently murmuring corre, corre at my heels, we were rounding the railing on the first floor when I spotted you emerging from your door as if in slow motion, dazed.

You’re here, and it’s a party but you feel like you’re stepping into a cathedral, and the crowded bar glows like an altar. L.A. worships everything. L.A. definitely worships itself. L.A. especially worships big spaces and big dreams and big ideas. This is the allure of the silver screen.

At the point when part of me knew our relationship would be over soon, we were living in a country governed by its military. We lived on the top floor of a hotel. Our room had been built on the roof and was surrounded by roof on three sides, becalmed in tiles.

1. Decide to study abroad in Scotland for four months. When your family takes to the airport, you’re shaking. Almost turn back. Almost give up. Instead, take a plane from JFK to London Heathrow. Fear travelling alone, be unable to fall asleep. When your plane lands at Heathrow, move through customs without falling apart. Sit in a chair and breathe when you realize they won’t tell you your gate until the plane arrives.

For many years I’ve lived on a bluff with a wilderness in my backyard. However, I don’t live in some remote area but in Anchorage, Alaska’s largest city. For some Alaskans, the city with its busy streets and modern infrastructure is a stark contrast to the vast, untouched wilderness that characterises most of Alaska. They reject it with the claim that “Anchorage is not the real Alaska, although you can see it from there.”

Most of the spiders living in the house that I share with my husband and our terrier are the small-bodied, long-legged variety. They station themselves quietly in the corners, favouring the spots where two walls and the ceiling meet. Currently, there are so many spiders living in our house that all the prime corners, as described above, are occupied, and some spiders are obliged to live in the simpler corners where just one wall meets the ceiling or where two walls meet. Others live in the spaces behind any one of the several doors in our house that are perennially propped open. Still others inhabit the windows, where they litter the sills with tiny corpses.

From a distance, the houses encrusting the hills of the Kotsubo neighbourhood remind me of barnacles. They crowd together, layer upon layer, hiding the surface of the land. Nonetheless, thanks to good historical preservation of the region, ancient paths called kiridoshi still remain at ground level. Narrow trails designed for feet and hooves, kiridoshi formerly served as escape routes for samurai warriors and important political figures. These paths still meander in and out of the modern neighbourhoods of the Kamakura area where my elderly parents still live.

i. What’s Left Cracked bricks, fixtures, fencing, Hooks & some wire, torn corners of insulation stapled to Warped wood. Ash. Porcelain tiles spilt like playing cards.

a slow haze rolls over any answers to prayers the stars sent — their light too long ago to reach still, the cathedral’s candle votives on iron shelves glow at the slip into sleep altar roses brighten, pause the petals’ fall to ash

1. Amid roaring trucks, giraffe-neck cranes, all-day hammering, bicycle lanes, curbside cafés where waiters pour wine and teenagers hunch over takeout, a hoarse screech.

While gold and dollars pile up in banks and smoke from gunpowder spirals in the air, I stand, outfitted, in the village church before I pass from There to Here.

They say there were no shadows at the height of that afternoon. Constricted to a single point, we were isolated, no secondary bodies.

at the end of it there is this thing—words; we share them like sticks of smoke, our lips black with abandon for writs and tales yarned outside these shores, too wet with the ocean’s salt for anything