Traveling In A Pandemic

The euphoria hit me after I passed the ID checkpoint and got clearance to enter security at JFK. The pace of my heartbeat quickened and my breathing paused. I was about to do something I haven’t been able to do since January. I was about to travel. I mean, really, seriously TRAVEL. I was about […]

2020: A Check-In at MidYear

The sticky heat of the midsummer holiday clung to my skin in a tacky sheen. I could feel it where my forearms contacted the chair and where the bend of my elbows creased. It’s summertime in Michigan, where I sit on the screened-in porch of the cottage listening to the cacophony of children splashing in […]

The Ending Before The Beginning

As I passed through the last doorway and left the world of pages and in-baskets to the trusted and talented hands of my partners, my thoughts lay with two things. First, I needed to get to the gym. The prior two weeks, including the Christmas holiday, had been incredibly hectic, and my schedule had rarely […]

In Which I Begin The Long Journey Home

I looked at the food on my plate, the slightly creamy, and very wet vegetable curry paired with the steamed slightly lumpy but very fine-grained mass of … well I don’t quite know how to describe it, but it was made with rice flour. That was the starch, and there’s an almost essential curry/starch combination […]

On The Shore of the Arabian Sea

We waited on the beach for the day to end, an occasionally ambitious tendril of the Arabian Sea leisurely climbing up the shore to graze the soles of my shoes. Prema and Beena had both kicked off their sandals, more water and sand-friendly than my sneakers, and waded deeper into the waves and returned already. […]

When A Country Is Closed

Today was a lazy day. We didn’t originally plan it as a “down day,” but as is my pattern, India held a strike today. This wasn’t just a specific museum being closed, or the metro being shut down – this was everything. Stores weren’t allowed to open, with some specific exceptions. And taxis weren’t permitted […]