Being There California, Summer, 1998 We had never gone away together, never taken a vacation. My mother had always been too busy cleaning houses, changing diapers, and dating worthless men. But she made time, one summer when I was fourteen going on fifteen, for us […]
Essay: The farmer invites us for a tour of the small church a short walk from his farmhouse. It’s a remnant of colonial days when Iceland was under the rule of Denmark, their attempt to turn pagans into Christians. We are guests staying in the manor […]
AL— It’s hot. We’re exhausted but we walk all day anyway. Scottie and Nelly figured out that if they whine enough, they can ride on my shoulders. Charlie can order food by himself—in Spanish—almost. The kids are all so big now. They miss you more […]
At the next table, a single dad expounds on the Kennedy years to his daughter, the Italian half of what was once a whole. Single fathers grasp at time, unlike the father at our table, who lets it run through his hands, a slippery eel […]
It was April, 2002. I contemplated my impending flight to Zagreb with Croatian Airlines with a sense of foreboding. Would I speak English, which I tentatively think of as my native language, or the language we routinely referred to as “BCS” (Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian—a […]
In early morning mist scented by the Pacific Ocean’s breeze, the garden leaves shimmered under tiny droplets in the muted light. A farmer at heart and now an urban gardener, I would descended the creaky, cold back stairs, drawn down by the strip of earth […]
