While I don’t consider myself an opera fan, the generous invitation of a friend to accompany her to the 150th anniversary of the legendary Wagner Festival in Bayreuth was an offer I couldn’t (or at least didn’t) refuse…
Category: memoir
14 July – Bastille Day
Quatorze Julliet (or Bastille Day, as Americans have dubbed it) in Pau didn’t turn out to be festive in the way I anticipated…
La Vita è Bella
I love those days of blissful serendipity when you wake up with no particular plan, and then, while still in your pajamas, come up with one modest goal…
Adieu, Adine!
When Mother and I discovered and fell in love with Tolg’s ‘tailor’s cottage’ in 2003, we had no idea that a huge part of our Tolg happiness would be generated by you…
Life Surprises
After three successfully completed marriages and a host of other unanticipated twists and turns…
Knut & Ute
Knut and Ute are farmers living in Germany’s Zittau Mountains, a gentle, Catskill-like range that stretches across the ‘Three Corner’ region…
Americans Abroad
Most Americans are descendants of individuals who left their homelands due to discrimination, famine, greed, poverty, war, or (in the case of many with Irish and African roots) colonial dispossession or enslavement. Perhaps the restless longing for a homeland and community—a reassuring sense of rootedness—is what shapes the American character?
Snow Happy
Here I sit on a friend’s terrace in southern Switzerland’s Lötchental, enjoying a postcard view of the Alps…
Cause and Effect
A friend just sent me an email containing a scan of her most recent black and white drawing. Her drawings and paintings often convey a still, contemplative mood, and this one made me cry unexpectedly…
Wish Fulfillment
Have you ever wished for something for as long as you can remember? Not with an intense, burning desire, but more with a relaxed, unconscious, and unexpectant vigilance…