Here I sit on a friend’s terrace in southern Switzerland’s Lötchental, enjoying a postcard view of the Alps…
Category: travel
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…
Mme Chocolat
The sun shone and the humid air felt crisp as I walked down rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs, where Hemingway and, earlier, a host of Nordic artists once lived…
Local Food
You know those experiences that occur so unexpectedly, ones you couldn’t have envisioned when you woke up that—or any other—morning, ever? Experiences so wonderful that they wrest you from your normal state of mind, regardless of how mindful it might be? Experiences that remind you of how infinitely varied the world seems, despite its perilously… Continue reading Local Food
Appreciating Maillol
We all possess essential facets to our character that remain unknown unless the right person reveals them to the world through an anecdote, don’t we?
Stolpersteine
I thought everyone knew about them but apparently not! Stolpersteine (literally ‘stumbling blocks’, singular Stolperstein) commemorate individuals (mostly, but not exclusively, Jews) who perished in the Holocaust…
German Expats
German Expats, particularly those hailing from Dresden, played decisive and undervalued roles in the development of Neoclassicism in the eighteenth century…
It’s Back!
Before I left Sweden a few weeks ago, the Swedish Health Minister, Jacob Forssmed, warned that a new and virulent mutation of the COVID-19 virus had emerged and advised citizens to take necessary precautions…
Forest Bathing
Today, I did something that for me was once unremarkable but nowadays isn’t: walking in the forest of southern Sweden. For most, it was a stay indoors kind of day—chilly, thickly overcast, windy, and intermittently drizzly…
Gardening
I am happily surprised by the joy I derive from gardening. My father would have observed dryly, ‘I told you so’…