G’Day!
June 6, 2018 Leave a comment
and the chapters in between
June 6, 2018 Leave a comment
September 24, 2017 Leave a comment
May 26, 2014 Leave a comment
You would hit the books most of your life in your hometown of Pittsburgh, PA until your twenties, when you would spend most of the years after college having roommates and misadventures and working in your dream job in a city you weren’t completely sold on, even taking it for granted, until it’s 20 years later, and you’re still here. Many times you would want to quit San Francisco, but you just couldn’t quite pull the trigger.
You would fall in love before you turn 30 and lose your job and man in one year. But you would travel to Paris at the end of the year with a ragtag band of your two sisters and two of your friends from high school and college, so that you would return to San Francisco, not only tinged with sorrow, but also the joie de vivre of that magical city. You would clean up after the party you had in your twenties and start figuring out in your thirties how you would want the rest of your life to look like. Your Paris gave you the spirit, and you would try to recapture and infuse it. You would tell people what you don’t want. The things you would love most–music, writing and your family and friends–are your saviors.
August 4, 2013 1 Comment
My cousins from Sacramento came to visit recently for a weekend, and while snacking on the most delicate macaroons in Chantal Guillon in Hayes Valley, our conversation turned toward our trips abroad and our divergent experiences. I had a more romantic interpretation of being in Paris than my sister, and my cousin went to Europe with a study-abroad program. Nonetheless, we agreed we would go again, and my other cousin has become more open to overseas travel.
It’s a test in patience to wait for one part of my life to catch up with another that is already established and for years dying to move forward. I’ve wondered when I would ever give myself permission to want to travel again, since I still had to consider getting back on my feet work-wise.
Now I feel certain this is the moment to return to my natural inclination to see more of the world. A job eventually becomes routine, and the past is forgiven. Other aspects of my life need more attention, especially the things that are most important to me. While perhaps more progress could still be made, the time for magical thinking and action can now take flight and soar.
Memorable Oltrarno square where I bumped into a Florentine Adonis during my last major trip in 2008.
July 26, 2012 Leave a comment
I’ve always been meaning to learn a second language. If not for journalism, I would have most likely majored in one, probably Spanish since I studied it for four years in high school. Language itself is a fascination with me. It reflects a culture, society and people into which their identities are wholly tied. Without it, they are just a shell without meaning or understanding. I don’t believe a classroom could teach me all that I need to know about another language. More than likely it requires an immersion in another country or a native-speaking community. But it is a start.