Driving to the Island
I’ve driven down to the Island twice recently, once in October, and again in November. If you are asking which…
Lake Champlain
We all live with a profound sense of place, of where we are in the world, of where we reside….
Ten and Twelve Years Old
On New Year’s Day this year at around 9:30 in the morning, my husband and I were sitting in the…
Things That Disappear
The pale yellow “favorite blanket” that you had as a child. The hair dryer that covered your head like a…
Devon is Dry
The rains came after a week of heat. Finally. Thank God. Prior to their arrival it was baking and Devon,…
Letter from St. Croix
On the north shore of the Caribbean island of St. Croix, two miles before you reach Cane Bay, there lie…
My Cousin in Pittsburgh
On October 29th, two days after a gunman burst into a synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pa. and shot eleven people dead,…
Hot, Hot, Hot
You knew it before you got there, knew it if you’re one of those people who checks weather.com before you…
The Future is Now
If you’d asked me a few years ago, only a few, whether or not I ever read dystopian fiction, I…
Gina
Rainer Maria Rilke was an Austro-Hungarian writer who was born, wrote, and died a long time ago. He was most…
The End of the World
In the nearly twenty years I’ve been teaching in the US public schools, I’ve had quite a few kids walk…
What They Remember
It’s been the summer of meeting up with former students, students I haven’t seen in more than a decade, a…
Where We Come From
A family history is a collection of stories, stories told and retold and made old not so much by the…
Spread the Word
Venice is a city of illusions: illusions of water and light, of time and space, of stillness and movement. Looking…
Venice
Imagine a city where the taxi journey from the airport so satisfies your desire for adventure, your longing for beauty,…
And Now For Something Completely Different
Take heart, readers! This post will not be yet another cry of dismay over the troubling ascendancy of Donald Trump….
De Ja Vu All Over Again
There it was again. That feeling. The feeling that I hadn’t felt in a long time, but that I still…
O Canada
A flash of light rent the October sky, lasted a few short moments, and then vanished as quickly as it…
The Long Walk Across Europe
In December of 1933, a young man set out from England on a great adventure. His intention was to walk…
Everything Old Is New Again
The summer I traveled to Sweden nearly thirty-five years ago the national news there was full of reports of phantom…
Savages
On the southwestern edge of the Wiltshire Downs in England, in the valley of the River Kennet, lies the ancient…
Letter from England
Normally, when you say you’re writing a letter from somewhere that’s where you are, but our time in England was…
Fruits of the Earth
Nadine Gordimer died today, the great South African writer, though I had actually sat down to write about another great…
Westward Ho!
Keeping on the travel theme, my husband and I had reason to strike out for California last weekend, and if…
Arrivals and Departures
The Dutch novelist, poet and journalist, Cees Nooteboom, wrote a wonderful book called Roads to Santiago. In it, the author…
The Sochi Saga
You have to feel sorry for the Russian people. Or you don’t have to, not if you don’t want to,…
Christmas in the Caribbean
Christmas Eve in Bequia is a day of frenzied shopping, for unlike up in the States, no stores down here…
Road trips
Crumbling provincial towns, the Gypsy wedding of a fourteen year old, the dismal condition of the M10 which connects Petersburg…
One if by Land
So, we went up to Boston, my husband and I, about three months after the Boston bombings and found the…
Hopscotch
You remember the 1980 movie “Hopscotch,” don’t you? Walter Matthau played a rogue CIA agent who was publishing a book…
Stockholm’s Burning
Stockholm’s burning. That city I went to 33 years ago as an exchange student in the summer of 1980, that…
Waiter, There’s a Horse in My Soup
You really have to feel sorry for the French. No matter how bad things ever got over there, no matter…
Island Of the Clouds
Let me just get it over with and explain where it is we are. On an island called Bequia which…
School Days
So the Taliban are now shooting girls who want to go to school, are they? Not that this is really…
First Aid
On September 18th, the US government announced that the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), after two decades of…
September 11th
And so another anniversary of the September 11th bombing of the World Trade Center has come and gone replete with…
Spanish Flames
As if they needed anything else to go wrong, the country of Spain has this last week been battling yet…
Washington in Botswana
What do you think would happen if someone produced a film about George Washington filmed in Botswana with a local…
Carcassonne: Land of the Cathars
One summer when I was about ten years old, my mother went to the library to get some novels for…
Aragonese Pyrenees: What Spanish Crisis?
There are fires to the east of us in Catalonia after one of the driest winters on record in the…
London Calling
It’s raining in London. What a surprise. Yes, but it’s been raining for a long time, practically the whole summer…
Summer Solstice
What do you mean the summer’s over? Why it just started didn’t it? I only got out of school last…
Russian Reformers Old and New
The demands of the Russian reformers seemed reasonable enough to me. They wanted the Russian government to stop being so…
Midsummer in Scandinavia
“Make hay while the sun shines.” The phrase always had a lascivious ring to it for me. It suggested someone…
Juneteenth
Juneteenth is an African-American holiday officially celebrated in 41 states of the United States. It commemorates the final abolition of…
Don’t Go to Gibraltar!
“Whatever you do, don’t go to Gibraltar.” This was what our friends and neighbors down on the Costa del Sol…
Fascinators Forever
I’m going to a wedding in England this summer and I’m pretty pleased about it. Of course, I’ll be happy…
Bilbao on the Baltic?
The Helsinki City Council has finally decided. No Guggenheim for them, thank you very much. The city of Helsinki, chosen…
Blame the Germans
They’ve been muttering about them in Greece, and in Spain, in Portugal and in Italy. All the countries of Europe…
Haavisto Loses, Finland Wins
Back in January, the Finns had an election, too. It was the first round of their presidential election. The Finns,…
