I couldn’t write for a while because everything I was concocting had to remain quiet until I informed my employers. Also, I’m not very good at being indirect or coy, so I felt a bit muffled. Then, once I was free to write, I felt like a giant container of mixed and turbulent feelings. The […]
I don’t expect whatever spiritual energy there is (call it god or the force, or gumby, I’m not really sure and I’m unattached to the particulars) to act or intervene in my favor in practical ways. But my faith has been tested (perhaps strengthened) recently, with a series of minor, but delightful surprises. I’m feeling, […]
I love Sumerian guardian figures–curly hair, bushy beards, wings, and I’m sure what used to be colorful frocks. The world they come from is heavy with scents I will never know. I feel for and respond to them how I might if I met a living fairy. I am especially fond of the giant winged […]
I have been to London. But I have spent far more time in the London of my mind, which has been richly fed by many-faced narratives. That London was nourished by children’s tales where bears roam train stations, children fly out the window, and there are suburbs named Narnia and the Shire. I am simultaneously […]
I have four delicious days with no urgent deadlines or projects. I’d get this kind of satisfaction from traveling to Tahiti, receiving two daily massages for a week, or… being able to metabolize meals made of nothing but red wine, bacon and dark chocolate with no impact on my weight. I honestly don’t know what […]
When I was in my twenties, someone said to me that I would never truly be done examining any issue in my life, that it may lie dormant for a part of my journey but that it would reappear in other guises at different times, and take me off guard. The metaphor at hand was […]
Seems like everything in Chicago is made of meat or cheese or some of both (when it’s not beer). In this case: bacon fat popcorn with bacon (of course) and shaved Parmesan and fried Sage. There’s something oddly earthy about this whole place – grounded and sensible – close to the earth. Despite the many […]
I’m leaving West Philadelphia for Northern Liberties. I’ve lived on the western shore of this city for almost twelve years – its the longest time span I’ve ever spent in a single neighborhood. I used to fantasize about which Philadelphia neighborhood I would leave for, and then the idea of leaving became totally absurd. I […]
It’s been a full week since I beat down my first year of grad school into submission. I remember last Thursday like a distant dream: the other me and her journey, now complete. It feels like a million years ago. It feels like another reality. My priorities have quickly been rewritten. I’m now in the […]
My grandfather plunked me into the sea before I was six months old. It’s one of my oldest and most gratifying relationships. It doesn’t matter what’s going on in my life, when I step into the ocean, I’m a newborn again. I’m free. I’m safe. I’m floating. I’m happy. Some people have churches, some people […]
After working for ten years on a piece that was almost, but never quite, satisfactorily finished–I decided, inspired by the Matisse show “Paires et Series” I saw in Paris, that if I couldn’t get my story to behave as I had written it originally, and rewritten it countless times, perhaps it was time for a […]
I wanted to throw in a few elegant gray paris pics into the mix.
We took more than 2000 pictures in our short 9 day stint in France. When I went to put together a small album, 53 pictures total, a subset of the images we had collected, I ended up largely with pictures of people I love. I had some beautiful architecture or surprising scenery in there, but […]
So I went to Paris with my honey, which I understand you are supposed to do, and we toured the bestselling sights, which I suppose was my duty, and it turned out to be a delight, because it forced me to look again, spectate afresh, at what I already thought I knew. So my lesson […]
I’m flying out, friends, soon. My mind is already traveling while my body dutifully reports for my shift at work. My mind’s teeth are slowly biting into the most intensely chocolate frosting of all the frostings found on top of chocolate éclairs in Paris, while my tongue feels the pliant flesh of the puff pastry […]
So, I’m dating a lovely person who happens to be far more daring with his body than I am. (I tease that he is an adrenaline junky.) He would deny this. But he would be wrong. Specifically, the ways he likes to use his body are: snowboarding (on black diamond slopes); rock climbing; and whitewater […]
As the time came to board the bus back to Philadelphia on Sunday night, after three really good days in New York City, I started feeling the usual: relief plus validation. Relief because I’m always happy to come home. I’m a little bit smug in the knowledge that I picked the right city to live […]
I lived in New York City, Manhattan–so I’d get those spiffy envelopes that said it: New York New York, for five years right after college. I moved to Philly more than a decade ago, but when it came time for my 30th birthday, I had my party in New York City. This was an act […]
This weekend I went to a friend’s baby shower in NYC. As friends and parents dispensed advice on the parents to be, my favorite analogy was how traveling and parenting resemble each other: How you have to adventurous, brave and flexible and face sudden setbacks while you travel and after you procreate. (This is true […]
I’m not going to let the birth of a savior and the word mass get in the way of my Christmas spirit. Strictly speaking, I’m more of a winter solstice/festivus kinda gal, but there are still many things about the Christmas season that I truly enjoy. I’ve already discussed my live tree fetish. But there […]