Time Being: Essays, Narratives, and Vignettes

What does it mean to travel? Is it just a temporary swap of time zones, continents, climates, foods, ecosystems, or cultures? Or can travel be a method of escape, of disappearance, of self punishment, of understanding, of transcendence?

In Time Being, a collection of essays, narratives, and vignettes, Chad R. Miller examines these questions as he: Grapples with midlife crisis during a dying hurricane in the Labrador Straits Reckons with wealth and freedom while stranded on a Caribbean island off the coast of Nicaragua Searches for the heart of Saturday night in Dubrovnik’s Old Town Wrestles with isolation, purity, consciousness and memory during a solo backpacking trip across part of the largest lava flow on earth Struggles to internalize old and new customs in the motorbike-choked streets of Mandalay Travels 8,000 miles back to his hometown of Des Moines to face the impending death of his mother Chases elusive dreams and semantics 13,000 feet up in the highlands of Ethiopia Is hounded by water warriors and over-amplified sound in the suffocating heat of Luang Prabang Sleepwalks through an existential nightmare in the midst of a birding trip in Friesland Queries the relationship between representation and reality in Hiroshima and Ohio In Time Being, Chad R. Miller, with a signature mix of humor and reverence, details his personal interactions with these and other places across five continents and a span of decades — near and far, here and gone.