Haiti wasn’t always in my path, at least I didn’t know it was there. Not long ago, hearing people left and right tell me to follow my heart always led to long, confusing days trying to figure out who I was, what I like, and what in the world I was going to do with … Continue reading What the Heck is Passion Anyways?
Journal
America, An Open Letter
America, the land of opportunity. I used to think people just said that back when the USA was first being established, way back when the American dream was to buy a house in the suburbs with a white fence and have a dog and barbecue weekly. When the statue of liberty was being built and … Continue reading America, An Open Letter
How We Love
I’ve often told people that writing helps me to understand things. If it’s fiction, I usually invent characters that have my problems and somehow the character solves the problem and then I have a revelation about my life. I know it’s strange, but ask any writer and they will tell you that a character writes … Continue reading How We Love
Heal the Crowd
With the wake of the Saturday sun comes the wildest cultural experience I think one can absorb in the Central Plateau. Each day, hundreds of people flock from town to town in pursuit of the daily market. It’s on a rotation, each town having its market on a different day of the week, and Saturday … Continue reading Heal the Crowd
The Weight of Sin
Yesterday John and I said the last of our goodbyes and hit the air for Pignon, Haiti. Apart from the difficulties of saying goodbye, the most challenging part of those conversations was trying to explain the fragile conditions in Haiti, and the situations we would be in. The politics, poverty, and corruption all act against … Continue reading The Weight of Sin
To Beat Routine
There have been multiple occasions I've noticed when I'm watching a movie or reading a book, I do this thing where I inadvertently wait for the actor, producer, or writer to mess up. I have a desire for them to mistake, and when they do, I think the whole movie is ruined. I'm not sure if … Continue reading To Beat Routine
Sporadic Love
It’s raining here, now just a sprinkle. Every now and then I feel a drop land softly on the tip of my nose, but earlier the rain seemed to be coming from the side, flooding everything in it’s path. Later the clouds will disappear and the rain will vanish, that is an undeniable fact, but … Continue reading Sporadic Love
Write the Story
When I was in second grade, I decided I wanted to be a writer. We were learning about onomatopoeias, and I was killing it. I remember writing this paper about spending a weekend at my grandparent's lake house in Minnesota. My family showed that they could camp, swim, and fish, all things I had never … Continue reading Write the Story
Nothing Important
I am in a season of transition and it bears a weight. Leaving a school where I had been building up a reputation for my entire life, I am now thrown headlong into raging waters. Call it confidence, call it ignorance, but I was eager for this season. I thought I had it all mapped … Continue reading Nothing Important
The First Draft
Every writer knows that the first draft sucks to write. It is full of messy, incoherent babble that constantly makes you want to quit. But it's not just writers that have to muster up the strength to keep writing; friendships are like this too, and relationships, Jobs and just about anything else in life. It's … Continue reading The First Draft
hank puckett 