The View from a Broad

Jasmina

I watched with fear and loathing from our middle-class home in the suburbs of Washington DC to the beginning of the crumbling of Yugoslavia. I had a Serbian friend who was studying medicine in the USA and she was very civilized and not at all as brutal as the media was portraying ‘the Serbs’ toContinue reading “Jasmina”

Awakening on the I-95

In the rush of suburban, capitalist, 30-something, parenthood its easy to forget. Maybe that’s partly why we clutter up our lives so much. But every once in a while, it hits you upside the head. Today it did. It’s hot today, but the air is clean, it’s a slow and summertime day. It’s Sunday butContinue reading “Awakening on the I-95”

How we got to Dhaka

The year was 1995, my kids were in elementary school, and I was working part-time at a tax publishing house in Northern Virginia so that I could be there for them after school. We owned a house in Falls Church, VA and visited Florida to see Lew’s mom often. We got a dog and IContinue reading “How we got to Dhaka”

Dhaka Dowry

Something about my own baby girl’s 35th birthday has made me remember an episode that she didn’t understand back when I was 35. It’s another true tale from our time in Dhaka, Bangladesh, in 1996 when my daughter Sadie was seven years old. Sadie was often as tall as grown-up Bengali women. I have troubleContinue reading “Dhaka Dowry”

Instant Intimacy

Gonna Getcha I was only in California for one week in 2018 to legalize my separation when our daughter explained how she had booked three activities for this, the last weekend in November: She had got a scholarship to some sort of a love and intimacy weekend retreat before she knew I would be inContinue reading “Instant Intimacy”

A Stranger in a Strange Land

I’m sure that all of us feel like a stranger sometimes. But I’m here to say that I belong. I have always accepted the responsibilities of being a member of the human tribe and so I am worthy of its privileges too. I have never felt like I really belong anywhere as much as IContinue reading “A Stranger in a Strange Land”

Poison Ivy in Berlin in 2014

My itchy patches were climbing up my legs and arms in a scary fashion, and with a bright red color, on the Thursday in late June so I went back to the Pharmacy in downtown Berlin. I was walking towards the huge modern central train station that morning to buy my overnight ticket to ParisContinue reading “Poison Ivy in Berlin in 2014”

I was just mugged by the Kenyan Police

We were getting off a motorcycle taxi (called a boda boda in Kenya) at about 1 pm this afternoon, when two regular middle-aged guys (Andrew later said they smelled of liquor, but I didn’t notice) came at our driver (who really was a very young man). One of the guys grabbed the motorcycle keys outContinue reading “I was just mugged by the Kenyan Police”

A true story

I was in boarding school – or actually staying in a teacher’s spare room, because the dorm was full, in Thika, Kenya when my father died at 41 years old. He was in Vancouver, BC. I got the news on a phone – at a neighbor’s house – from my mother in Dar es Salaam.Continue reading “A true story”

Lest we forget

I have little to no recollection of my life before I was 8 years old….but today it occured to me that the vignettes I do remember from early childhood are so charged with emotion for me that they left me – in my own mind at least – feeling fully formed and equipped to runContinue reading “Lest we forget”