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Love Where You Live – East Village, San Diego, California
As an obsessive, serial relocater, my heart is often pulled toward the next possibility. Will we live overseas? Global south? Middle East? Adventure awaits somewhere. But over the course of many relocations, I’ve also learned you must determine to love where you live. For the moment, that place is near East Village in downtown San Diego.…
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San Diego in Six Playgrounds
It happens to every parent or caregiver. You intend to visit the museum or library, but you get stuck for hours at the playground outside. The weather is sublime, birds are soaring overhead, the kids are having the time of their life. Why turn this idyllic moment into a battle of loading up the stroller…
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Jane Austen had a sister – Jane Austen’s House Museum, Chawton, England
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” That? That tiny little table? That is where she penned those most famous of novelic opening lines? A true writer, I suppose, just needs three things – pen and paper and a flat surface…
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The World of James Herriot – Thirsk, Yorkshire, England
I have distinct memories of my dad chuckling while silently reading weathered copies of James Herriot’s writings. As an adult, on a one years stint back in Mozambique, I picked up those same copies of Herriot’s All Creatures Great and Small series and I read, for the first time, literature I could truly call exquisitely written and heartwarming. Literally.…
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What Refugees Need Now
I am compelled to add my voice to millions of American citizens who are crying out, lamenting, over the refugee families who are turned away at airports, those who have been told at government offices abroad that their application is now on hold. Though I am not an expert in consular affairs, I do know…
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The Backyard We Didn’t Ask For
Our family recently relocated from rural Romania to urban San Diego, California, USA. The southern California climate is known for encouraging an element of indoor/outdoor living. Its outdoorsy culture cannot be overstated. I was not surprised, therefore, to discover that San Diego’s version of Central Park – Balboa Park – recently created a nature play…
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Where is the treasure in Christmas?
Every year I am struck by the one-liner about Mary in Luke’s account of the Christmas story, the one line that gives a hint of how she responded to the unfolding events. She rode a donkey while full-term pregnant, traveled far from home, pushed out a baby (as my children call it) in a barn,…
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Perspective in the Midst of Transition
Transition. The word makes me tense. Our family is currently in the midst of transition, relocating from Eastern Europe to Southern California. For many, the end of summer signals an impending transition – families moving, new neighbors, new church, new job, new house with a different floor plan. For some, transition does not include a…
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Facing the Device
One early morning in June, just as the sun highlighted the red-tiled roofs of Lisbon, I walked down the street to a pastry cafe, pastelaria. Elderly folks chatted at the counter with the barista, who had been up since 5am receiving the pastry and bread delivery. A middle-aged man read the paper. Two women walked…
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Learning in Africa
We spent most of the month of July in Namibia, Zambia and Tanzania with family. Here are a few things I learned. 1. Washing clothes by hand cleans your fingernails and stretches your hamstrings. Sometimes, while traveling, washing machines are available. Sometimes they are not. In Africa, it seems Westerners are often content to wear…
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will travel with kids 