What I have loved most about this blog is the feeling that I could transmit an experience to someone else: show them something new, help them see everyday things in a new way, or understand someone they didn’t before. Receiving comments about my writing being an “eye-opening” experience, or that “it made me think” have…Read more Why Then? Why Here? And What Now?
The Present
The Dismantling
As the daughter and granddaughter of war survivors, I reflect on war, its wake of post-traumatic rituals and indelible scars on the psyche, as a new war unfolds. Another war stubbornly heedless of the past.
2022
Two years is a long break from the internet. And I can tell you, it was a needed one. A restorative one.
2020
If 2020 was the first year we could remember, would we think of it as a “normal” year? If we had no comparison, would we use it as a template for all subsequent years? In this way, I can’t write about 2020 without context—as chaotic, as challenging, as unprecedented this year currently is and has…Read more 2020
Born of Disappearance
Do you really have to do this? This question comes at me every day, an accusation on constant repeat. Do you really have to do this? I feel the reluctance. I feel the hostility. I feel the privilege, the delusion, the artificiality behind my strivings. All too often I must admit, I am defeated by…Read more Born of Disappearance
Have you ever been told to “go home”?
“Have you ever been told to “go home”?” Somewhere in the swirling dust clouds of reaction storms to publicity pining populist power plays, this question appeared. It was recently posted on Instagram with a seemingly empathetic request to "respond with your own personal story in the comments section". This isn’t just any question. It’s a…Read more Have you ever been told to “go home”?
Perspectives on a Dream
My blog is in indefinite hibernation until I finish my book. Remember my goal of completing it by the end of January next year? That actually still seems possible! It’s June and I have a compelling outline and some nicely written passages (well, I think they are for now). But it hasn’t been, isn’t, won’t…Read more Perspectives on a Dream
The Tree Planters
I’ve lived in this Berlin neighbourhood for seven years. That’s the longest I’ve ever stayed in one place. I buy my groceries from grocers who chat with me, flowers from a florist whose children go to the same school as mine, receive parcels from delivery men who know me by sight. Not everyone knows how…Read more The Tree Planters
Home in the Ether
“I want to drive into the sunrise.” Years ago, when I was living in Seattle, commuting every day to a comfortable desk job in the eastside, I used to mutter this half-jokingly to my carpool companion. This must have seemed to her not just wistful and slightly pathetic but incredibly dramatic, as we were usually…Read more Home in the Ether
Unwriting
If I were suddenly forced to come up with the most compelling reasons to write, I would say: To nurture and strengthen the heart, deepen the dialogue, expand the wisdom and imagination of humans on what it means to be alive and aware now. Those seem like worthy and compelling reasons right? But I can’t…Read more Unwriting
A Light Circle 