Who among us does not yearn for a more perfect world? Who does not harbor idealizations of how the world might be, while longing to create that world externally? It’s our nature to want to exert control over external circumstances, in order to align them
Saint James and I have been friends for years. Meet my personal patron saint. Almost 25 years, to be precise. I first met him at nineteen, when, as an unchurched Protestant Midwesterner, I found myself in the the middle of Santiago de Compostela in January
The cold months around Christmas have always signaled that the time has come again to read Russian classics. The crisp air, the holidays, warm rooms and chilly paths, short days and long moonlit nights, all seem congruous with my days. Social intrigue, confessions, married couples,
Polls are in, and it’s done. Alabama flipped a senate seat blue, blue, blue. And by 1.5%, not just a handful of votes. This gives me hope. Hope that the US can maybe heal a tiny bit, that we may become less broken, at least.
Snap. A frame. Snap. A memory. Snap, snap, snap. Last week I returned to the US for a week of work in Chapel Hill, at our annual all-hands meeting with Terra Dotta. Jason and I are now in our sophomore year of EU living, which
A storm blew through last night and early this morning, pulling cold air behind it, stripping the trees of their fall color, now plastered in a solid sheet over stones and pavement. The Firenze marathon ran today, in the worst of it. I shuddered to
Any parent of children under five will tell you that it’s a long game when it comes to family health. You cannot lose hope, or good cheer, as a barrage of microbes and viruses slam repeatedly into your herd immunity. Even as parents fight off
“Come on,” Iris said. “We’re having cake in five minutes. In front.” I was sitting in the grand salon of the language school where I have rented office space for over a year – the Sprachcaffe. The classes did not conclude until two, so a
The seasons are turning at this latitude. Fall has set in, and thankfully it is not as drenched a fall as last year, when we were plunged into a dark and rainy night that lasted for weeks. The summer heat this year thoughtfully retired on
