The pope came to Philadelphia. A full assortment of feelings were expressed by the Philadelphians I spoke with–a few were delighted, most were inconvenienced. A friend of mine, closer to the gathering on the Parkway, said her block socialized the whole weekend, taking advantage of the car-less streets. In my neck of the woods, across […]
When I visit Manhattan, I feel seized by that New York excitement, a state of being which resembles my hyper teenage self. (I know there are songs written about this, and the reason there are songs is because it’s real: That NY state of mind.) The great mix of people and the sounds and the […]
I went back to Fallingwater, as I had promised myself, but this time I took my sweetie. I had the same reaction as the first time, I was moved by all of its beauty–a feeling of profound wellbeing settled in. Fallingwater feels like home. Home. Looking through Merriam Webster’s definitions, the snippets that resonate with […]
In keeping with my new-found passion (to visit as many Frank Lloyd Wright [FLW] buildings as I can), I went to Oak Park a week ago to see Frank Lloyd Wright’s first home and studio. I found the experience both anticlimactic and bracing. As an artist preoccupied with words, languages, and story telling, I often […]
It’s been an exquisite banquet of stress in graduate student land of late, as I wrap up the eighth and final consecutive semester of my part-time MSW program. (Starting in September 2011, I’ve had classes in Fall, Spring, Summer, Fall, Spring, Summer, Fall and now Spring. The experience, drawn out, exhausting, was chosen by me, […]
Even though it was six months ago, I still get asked “How was India?” The question is so huge, it leaves me either rambling or wordless. The scope of the question might be, “What are your thoughts on being a woman?” Or perhaps, “Tell me about your childhood?” (Childhood I could tackle, that’s a narrative […]
What can I report on France which I have just visited for the first time? (I was raised there until I was 11, I am fluent, and I am half french. In my hundreds of weeks spent there with family, I have never toured the countryside–the expatriate lifestyle is full of obligations to aging grandparents […]
Everybody talks about the culture shock of going to India, but no one I spoke to did justice to the psychic shock of returning home to the United States. Everything is simultaneously familiar and alien. Right now, when a CVS invisibly opens the door as I approach it, I feel like I’m entering a magical […]
Sometimes I worry that it’s very easy to become cynical, especially since I care about “trying to do some good.” As I become a social worker, I don’t want to take myself seriously, but I do want to be sincerely hopeful–to believe that things can and do change at the personal, community, and society levels […]
The Taj is a waking dream. It is a building on the shores of a river, in a specific town, but I think it functions better as an apparition and a dream. I couldn’t really enter the Taj (technically, yes, I visited its obscure heart, but it didn’t help me make sense of the experience), […]
I have spent six weeks in India over two visits. I have never seen the Taj Mahal. In November 2011, I came to New Delhi and spent a week. The only day I had off from the conference I was running was a Friday. The only day of the week the Taj Mahal is closed […]
My written french is abysmal, so when I wrote to my french grandma that Kolkata was pretty interesting, she chided me that I needed to try harder to convey the experience. The fact is that it’s very hard to explain what makes the city so captivating, so exhausting, so worthwhile, so magical, so frustrating, and […]
The experience of conducting collaborative community-based research in the red light Sonagachi district in Kolkata India is transforming me. It’s hard to say exactly what is happening to my mental and emotional frameworks (I think that insight will emerge over time), but I can maybe report on what I hope is happening. One of the […]
I’ve been in Kolkata for two weeks. The amazement and excitement of first arrival has faded and I’m now faced with the day-to-day business of living in a crowded, busy city where I have some bearings, but am equally easily lost. The relentless scrutiny and the language barriers are no longer new, they are just […]
A recurring theme this weekend, as I struggle with minor health issues and a general feeling of being run down from the humid heat, is that no one knows what to do. We have a set of external guidelines, suggestions, common wisdom and personal opinions, but there’s no definitive knowing against which I can make […]
Here’s one of my theories about travel: For every major city known around the world (think London, Hong Kong, New York, Cape Town, Kolkata), there is a dream version of the city which lives in our minds–a dream composed of impressions, movie clips, song lyrics, images, fleeting conversations and travel fantasies. Equally, certain (sub)continents are […]
For the next six weeks, I live in Kolkata. Not even in Junior High did I think so hard about what clothes I wear, how they fit my body, and what my appearance conveys about my identity, my values, and what interactions I am seeking out and hoping for. The wearing of clothes in Kolkata […]
My roommates and I decided (I think on our first day) that the space-time continuum needed to be altered to the space-time-heat continuum–a few hours in Kolkata bring home that point abundantly. Heat changes the way your body experiences both space and time–they both lengthen. For example, what I’m convinced is a five minute walk […]
In each train car in the Kolkata Metro, there is a section for Ladies where the women huddle together. On Saturday night, the train was too crowded and I could only really see faces and I marveled that even in this heat and humidity, the ladies wore their makeup and weren’t streaky blurs. I’m not […]
It took me 36 hours, three planes, a train ride, and a taxi cab to get from Philadelphia to my apartment for the next six weeks in Kolkata, India. My checked suitcase and I made it together despite a tense 40 minute transfer window in Zurich where I was told United had pulled me off […]