When I was in college, going back home to Paris a friend sent me a letter from Illinois, where she’d gone to visit her grandparents. It was super symbolic because she knew how important living in Chicago had been for my sense of identity. Despite it essentially amounting to the blink of an eye. Don’t…
Category: On Countries
Trying to understand the little intricacies that make a country what it is, purports to be and what it really, truly wants deep, deep, deep, deep down inside when it’s convinced itself that no one else is looking.
Going Back
I never considered Germany to be home in any way, shape or form. Ever. Unless you count the time before I knew we would move to the US for the first time. We’d gone before, but it always seemed like a vacation. Just another destination among the countless other destination we had been to. In…
Back to School – what’s in a name (especially when it’s yours)
… my mother’s boss decided to address me as Adelheid. It threw me off for a minute because my middle name was nowhere close to what she was calling me, phonetically or through any stretch of the imagination when it came to meaning. As it soon transpired there was a more sinister element to her bestowing such a Germanic name on my poor teenage self.
The Avon Lady Makes An Appearance, Albeit by Proxy
We’ve been back in the neighborhood for four days and so far we’ve been avoiding the Avon Lady just fine, though with the instinct of the truly calculating she must have sussed something out because she is sending her son over for Russian lessons from someone in the household who is truly qualified and should…
When Finnish Independence Day and the Xmas Spirit Collide
As Finnish Independence Day comes and goes the city is ablaze with Christmas lights Finnish style. Which means, more reminiscent of a traditional country Christmas than the neon lights seen in most capitals and cities of importance. For the record, I love and embrace both (much more than the concept of snow beyond Epiphany). The…
The People Watcher Revisits Some Principles on Mourning
It is that time leading up to All Saints and All Souls, which brings with it the customary cemetery visit to honor those passed before us. And like most people with enough freedom to do so (and with a desire to avoid crowds), we decide to go a few days in advance. Because while it…
Another Nero, Another Site – Green Café Nero Pałac Kultury i Nauki
That instantly recognizable tower was, of course, one of the first things I saw when in Warsaw, and among one of the first I visited. Mainly because when asked what I wanted to do and see in Warsaw, I wanted to opt for something light before getting into the deeper, heavier stuff. I’m not a…
Ode to a Lost Friendship Polish Style II
Click here for Part I The thing with broken kids and kids from broken homes, we always recognize each other. What we do with that information is one thing. But there really is an invisible bond, accessible via the subtlest of signals that brings us kids together. Perhaps Babette was broken, too, but that didn’t…
Ode to a Lost Friendship Polish Style I
He came to me fully grown as a seven-year-old boy about to turn eight, so that’s how I always saw him, as the boy who lived below us in my building and was a year and a month younger than me. There were three of us on our side of the building, so that there…
A Midsummer Night’s Dream: A Drug Deal Goes Down in the Neighborhood
Behind the house where the German pickup artist lives with his teenage daughter, wife and dog is a small path that gives you access to several buildings, including mine. It is a path gladly taken in the summer, for it is easier to handle the wildlife than it is to tackle the elements, especially the…
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