Time Traveled
A new philosophical travel memoir
I am happy to announce that my new Travel Memoir TIME TRAVELED is being released today!
Ebook (0.99¢ — release price) and print ($9.99) available! Whoo-hoo!!!!
Buy it either at Amazon or at most major retailers.
About TIME TRAVELED:
GENRE: Non-fiction. Adult. Autobiographical Travel Literature, Memoir, Pragmatist Philosophy
BRIEF SYNOPSIS: TIME TRAVELED is a compendium of travel stories collected over 25 years. The overall arc takes a hard look at human interactions and our impact on the natural world. The author believes in the beauty of nature and its character-building influence. Tripping over the remnants of who we used to be, she follows the traces of ourselves left behind like breadcrumbs. Humans cannot escape the past, for it’s always right behind us. In the end, the author learns that nothing stays the same, for even paradise changes.
BRIEF BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH: Krista Marson breathes new life into the genre of memoir writing. She illuminates her subject with a refreshing new light that allows her observations to shine on the page. She has a poetic way with words and strings sentences together like sonnets. Her voice is conversational, imaginative, and natural. She loves to write, and it shows. No one has ever written like her before, for her style is highly original. Her joy of discovery and insatiable curiosity is infectious, making her a writer worth reading.
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Chapter One: NATURE: TIME TRAVELED opens with a story about how a book can inspire the entire course of one’s life. The journey begins with a pilgrimage to the home of her traveling companion’s hero, Aldo Leopold. There, the author learns about land ethics and the planet’s intrinsic value to all living things. The story morphs into the author’s exploration of her personal hero, John Muir, and how his poetry about the land influenced her perspectives on nature.
Chapter Two: THE AMERICAN WEST: CHAPTER TWO explores the American West, with an emphasis on ghost towns. The author describes what she affectionally calls “Western Purgatories,” which are essentially present-day way stations. She goes to abandoned cities not to make her own stories but to hear the stories that each town can tell her. Tales of boom and bust abound, along with sublime thoughts, as the author wanders around places that used to be inhabited. It is in ghost towns where the author chases melted memories that were never hers to begin with. While out and about, the author muses about the effects of mining and how human’s constant demand for minerals means that there will be no cure from us anytime soon.
Chapter Three: ITALY: CHAPTER THREE was inspired by the author’s desire to cross the top item off her bucket list — Pompeii. She arrives in Italy with preconceived notions, and it feels oddly normal for her to walk its processional way as if she had walked that road a hundred times before. This chapter stresses the importance of seeing the world and finding where history hides. It is in Pompeii where she desires to pull up some chairs and wait for yesterday to come again, considering she missed it the first time it came around.
Chapter Four: Spain: CHAPTER FOUR was spurred by the author’s desire to visit what she considered to be the world’s original melting pot, Spain. Her travels throughout Spain help her to understand how time fits together like a puzzle. Spain is also where she comes to realize that some people are born at the wrong time.
Chapter Five: Belgium: CHAPTER FIVE begins with the author grappling over what the words Flemish and Flanders mean. She eventually learns that Flanders was an influential region within Europe since it was the wealthiest and most urbanized. She finds it interesting to follow where all that money went and discovers a desire to visit many beautiful cities in Belgium.
Chapter Six: France: CHAPTER SIX starts off with things not going as planned due to unseasonably cold weather. Yet, the trip must go on, for she was destined to be stranded in the French countryside with the world’s least cheerful train attendant. After getting lost a thousand times in Lyon, she eventually grasps the thought processes of a Renaissance mind. In Dijon, she muses about thoughts of love and how she doesn’t have it. She contemplates joining the Cistercian order because something about their simplicity appeals to her. She finds peace on a trail in a forest. It is there where she realizes that every era seems to have its own naturalist that beckons their contemporaries to find themselves in the natural world. She realizes that travel is indeed life-transforming, so long as one is receptive to the lessons a given place imparts.
Chapter Seven: The Meeting: CHAPTER SEVEN finds the author pivoting her life to shape her future self. During the course of this chapter, the author finds a new boyfriend, job, and existence. She navigates complicated relationships throughout her convoluted journey as she describes what it is like to grow up with a mother who suffers from depression.
Chapter Eight: Yucatan: The author and her new boyfriend take their first real trip together in CHAPTER EIGHT. The trip to paradise goes swimmingly, so much so that they vow to return the following year, which they promptly do ten years later. They quickly learn that nothing stays the same, even paradise changes.
Chapter Nine: Louisiana: CHAPTER NINE opens with reflections on Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. The author muses about what it means to live in America and its “us vs. them” mentality. She tours the Lower Ninth Ward and interprets the landscape as America’s Louvre. While in New Orleans, she visits Napolean’s death mask and muses about how every generation needs a hero. The lure of Louisiana draws the author further afield, and she encounters nutrias, plantations, Native American ruins, and a Zydeco Queen. Throughout it all, she learns how humans can never escape their past, for it’s always following right behind them. If Katrina taught her anything, it’s that form follows function, and the best way to survive a disaster is to escape it.
Chapter Ten: Florida: CHAPTER TEN sees the author visit her childhood happy place somewhere knee-deep in Florida. Then versus now becomes a recurring theme as she revisits the past in the current times. The author is confronted with the meaning of change and questions whether it defines progress or not. The Florida of her youth died while she was still young, and she’s forever learning how to embrace change despite the desire to let things remain the same. The Water Wars haven’t started yet, but the threat looms menacingly over the horizon.
Time Traveled is available as e-book or paperback! Buy it either at Amazon or at most major retailers.
