Still Friendly After All These Years
The elderly woman is perfectly coordinated–a pink dress, a pale blue sweater, a pink and blue necklace, blue eyes, gray hair to her chin. Her daughter is her accessory, tucked … Continue reading
Cat Confidantes
He’s rustling a sack as he walks, as he slows his pace. He begins whispering to the gathering crowd and smiling. He has come to pay his respects to the … Continue reading
Melt. –a guest post by Desiree Gaul
I am so excited to share this lovely tale. Enjoy this guest post from my friend and former student, Desiree Gaul. * The evening mist under the streetlamp highlights her … Continue reading
The Wave
The family of three heads for seats in the tram. The mother has a toy for her toddler, who refuses to remain in one place. The father tries to wrangle … Continue reading
Take Me
I’m renting an apartment in Budapest for a week. It’s an adorable building in a great location. The apartment has the amenities I sought, it is quiet and clean. However, … Continue reading
Icy Conditions
In the middle of Pennsylvania, after driving through sleet and ice for five hours, it is a relief to smile at the two older men sitting for coffee at the … Continue reading
My Journey Home
TSA airport security in O’Hare is making me cry. I receive glares, short-tempered orders, eye rolls, and blank stares. After twenty hours of travel, I have tears in my eyes … Continue reading
A Heartening Tip for Homebodies
Travel? One need only exist to travel. I go from day to day, as from station to station, in the train of my body or my destiny, leaning out over … Continue reading
Soup and Sisters
I’m willing to bet they are sisters, or perhaps very close cousins, but the group of three women are all sitting with identical postures while waiting for the airplane. The … Continue reading
Tram 6: Another Abbreviated Love Story
They see each other while she is a passenger and he waits at the stop. As the tram slows and the doors opens, they both lift their chins just a … Continue reading
Oh.
The blonde man wearing a blue shirt struts in his immaculate tan shoes. Even behind his sunglasses, I see him light up. Down the sidewalk a pretty brunette is waving … Continue reading
Your Life as a Masterpiece
Not all are called to be artists in the specific sense of the term. Yet, as Genesis has it, all men and women are entrusted with the task of crafting … Continue reading
Must Love (Beware of) Dogs
It’s a damp Sunday morning. There’s a vague rain and a gray haze. Between the center of the city and the airport, patches of trees are a deep green like … Continue reading
Slapstick Grandma
She gives her grandchildren a bright, rainbow umbrella. She opens it for those cherubs–a boy and a girl in galoshes–and lets the girl hold it over them both. She follows … Continue reading
A Home on the Horizon
It is just that, as it now suddenly occurs to me, this is the first time in my life that I have been really alone at night. My childhood home, … Continue reading
Shoeless Wonder
In the park, I sit with a friend on a blanket. We have taken off our shoes, made ourselves comfortable, catching up on what we’ve done while we were apart. … Continue reading
Show Me State Signs
Traveling, scrawling, but I thought you might like these signs from a road trip through Missouri. Wednesday, we will observe some mid-flight flirting. I watched the whole encounter with a … Continue reading
Shake It Up
If we attempt to fix a logic for the travel souvenir, I believe the following generalization might hold: the souvenir reduces the grand, the magnificent, and the beautiful to the … Continue reading
Intractable Gestures
In those years his father held that a nation could change its way of life, its history, its technology, it’s art, literature and culture, but it would never have a … Continue reading
Learning to be Cool
The father wants to take a photograph of his daughter at the large airport window, in front of the airplane they will take to Vienna. He’s removed his shoes and … Continue reading
The Nice Thing About Strangers 