In 2009 my husband, Hoyt, and I took a 4 1/2 month trip around the world. We planned the itinerary ourselves. Our purpose, a combination of work and vacation, included stays in six countries and also Tibet, an autonomous region in the Himalayan mountains, the former home of the Dalai Lama. … [Read more…]
Don’t know about you, but I’ve been focusing on trying to be more thankful for what freedoms and joys we actually have … especially for beauty when I see it or hear it or feel it these days. Which has prompted me to wonder, thanks to a famous poem, about beauty’s relationship to truth. … [Read more…]
Until now, I have hesitated to give any of my blog post space to writing about the hideous death cult known as ISIS. Why now discuss it? Several things. First: Around this time of year in 1973 I lived in Pasadena, California, not far from San Bernardino where terror and murder … [Read more…]
How is a hospital emergency room a metaphor for anything positive? Emergency rooms The rush to an emergency room: swift action, diagnosis, remedy, cures. Fragility is in the air like a china cup breakable if held too tight. Walk quietly, speak gently. An emotional emergency room—invisible until someone winces, cringes, shouts in … [Read more…]
Turkey. Cook it. Eat it. Or visit it … the history-soaked land in the Near East, the crossroads of Europe and Asia, includes lands even farther east reached via the Silk Road. Our Turkey trip My husband and I traveled around Turkey in 2001 for one month. When we got home, I created the most complex … [Read more…]