Category Archives: Non classé

As a traveler my whole life, leaving places and – much more painfully –people I have loved (and still do) all down the trail, I was both excited andchallenged to talk today about belonging with you, my friends, mycommunity, my new tribe of Anglophones here in Paris.I suspect most of us, certainly I, started asContinue reading “Belonging”

What’s with this meaning of life stuff? What does cosmic meaning even mean? Why am I here? “to do God’s will” What the hell is that? “to love my fellow man” What is he here for then? “to make the world a better place” Well that’s a low bar. What if…life just is. What ifContinue reading “What if”

My mother-in-law lived with us for 5 years full-time and for 15 years before that half-time, from the time her husband died. She was an alcoholic from the moment I met her (when she was just about to be sixty) – which by the way was how old I was when my own crazy motherContinue reading “Joan’s Funeral”

Last week, I was off enjoying a lovely afternoon birthday party in honor of me in a friend’s courtyard clear across town when I got a couple of unexpected phone calls from a French cousin who I haven’t spoken to in years. I thought she was wishing me a happy birthday and I ignored them.Continue reading “Birthday Break-in”

Forty years ago (at 21 years old) I came to Paris with my 17- year-old sister for our junior year abroad/gap year. We met two 19-year-old Canadian girls en route and became fast friends. We four travelled together, partied together, and learned together. Us “Paris gals” have remained good friends throughout the years while weContinue reading “Time and Atrocities”

Easter for me has always been a celebration of rebirth. Winter in Buffalo NY – where I spent many formative years – was bleak gloomy even a bit scary with the potentially deadly snow falls. So, to get through it we had to have complete faith (yes faith) that winter would not last forever –Continue reading “Earth and ReBirth”

In my lifetime I have seen the demise of the concept of “the greater good” in the USA.  Maybe it was a myth when I was a little kid in the 1960’s, but at least it was a myth. Probably back then “Common Good” was limited to members of ‘your community’ which didn’t include womenContinue reading “The Common Good”

Today the Maasai of northern Tanzania are asking for help online to save the lions of the Serengeti. This fact got me thinking. The Maasai are of course a famous nomadic ethnic group (‘tribe’) of East Africa who used to roam up and down the rift valley through what is today Tanzania and Kenya. TheyContinue reading “Maasai Warriors”

Love from Paris.The story of St. Valentine’s day started in the third century after Christ (ie 200 and something) right here, under the reign of Claudius II, aka Claude the cruel. At the time it was against the law for soldiers to get married. This just seemed logical to the Romans, because it was presumedContinue reading “St Valentine”

Back home, to my own place, after six weeks staying with family all over ‘the old country, as I call the USA. I go to the basement storage – lovingly called the ‘cave’, as in wine cellar, here in Paris – to get my suitcases out. I had put them away while I rented myContinue reading “Unpacking”