“Dober dan” I said with a smile to the woman wearing a Mercator uniform. “Dan” she responded not returning my smile. “Do you speak English?” I asked her in Bosnian. “Ne”, she replied and started to walk away. “This is my chance”, I thought to myself. I was eager to try the very little Bosnian […]
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My Grammie was from Bingham, Maine, a small rural town with a current population of well under 1000 people, that prides itself on being the midway point between the North Pole and the Equator. Like many parts of Maine in the “olden days”, Bingham was a logging town and most of my male relatives worked […]
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I found myself not knowing where to look. The scenery was nothing short of breathtaking in every direction and so my eyes darted from here to there and I marveled in the natural beauty. The hike up to Chimney Rock at Ghost Ranch near Abiquiu, New Mexico turned out to be one of my most […]
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Our chartered yellow school bus drove under the sign that read “Greenbelt Metro Lot Full” and I said to my friend quietly, “wow, really?” in disbelief. I could hear other women saying, “I’ve never seen that lot full” and “It can’t already be full so early in the morning”. But as we passed the very full parking […]
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My dearest Mindy, How can I begin to sum up the past ten years? Perhaps I should go back to our wedding day, which feels both far away and just like it was yesterday. Watching you sleep the next morning, I felt so incredibly lucky and grateful that you chose to share your life with me. […]
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As I took the exit to I-4, I began reflecting on why I was going to Orlando in the first place. When the news of the Pulse nightclub shooting broke, I was in a wifi-less cottage in the woods next to a lake in Ontario, Canada. When I eventually got online the internet lit up […]
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Due to jetlag we had been awake since 1:30am and the sky was just starting to get light. It was finally time to begin our journey from Manila to Puerto Galera. We checked out of the hotel with our two backpacks and headed towards the Pedro Gil Light Rail Transit station (LRT). Jeepnies were starting their morning routes […]
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It was so cold that I could see my breath in front of me, my feet and legs ached and I was standing at the bottom of the black diamond trail looking up at what I had in store if I accepted this challenge. I hadn’t seen a single person for over an hour and the way looked a bit precarious […]
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Sitting with one of the beach dogs we had befriended, I looked out across the silvery water and could smell a mixture of salt and impending rain in the air. I was glad that we were staying for an entire week. Talipanan Beach was quite small and cozy and was said to be the quiet answer to […]
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