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Eleni Gage

Author, Journalist, Pop Folklorist

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    • The Ladies of Managua
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The Liminal Stage

Navigating a modern world with the help of time-tested traditions

What is a Liminal Stage?

Liminal stages are psychological thresholds, times of transition when we stand “betwixt and between” one state and another. The biggies are birth, marriage, death-cultures develop splashy rituals around these transitions to ease the anxiety they provoke. For the smaller, but significant, crossroads we traverse every day, I offer the celebrations, superstitions, and coping mechanisms found in this blog.

You Can Run, But You Can’t Hide

A word of advice: be careful what you say around me. Be very careful. Otherwise, you might just end up as the inspiration for my next novel. But don’t worry. When I write about you—and I will!—I promise to be kind. In fact, I will follow the advice I gave in this guest post for…

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Magic Cake, Magic Cake, Bake Me a Man

  There aren’t many problems that can’t be solved in a Greek yia-yia’s kitchen. (It would be great if the Greek government could let the ladies in our village, Lia, tackle the current economic crisis. But I digress…) During the year in which I lived in Lia, my neighbor ladies made it a village project…

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Breaking Out of the Toddler Ghettos

I had such fun reliving my trips with Amalía for PureWander, a great web magazine that focuses on family travel. It’s a topic dear to my heart as right now I’m typing with seven week old Nicolas on my lap, having brought him to New Orleans and Miami on book tour for The Ladies of…

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Have Ritual, Will Travel

Well, it’s the End Times. Which explains why I’m having so many revelations lately. Maybe that’s a little dramatic. I’m fairly confident it’s not the end of the world. But it is the end of our time in Miami. See, on Monday we move back to New York, after three years in Miami Beach. And…

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A Life Less Ordinary

Yesterday morning, while 64-year-old Diana Nyad was swimming from Cuba to Florida without the protection of a shark cage, succeeding, on her fifth attempt, in becoming the first person to do so, my  52-year-old cousin Spyro Economou had a massive heart attack at his home and died in the ambulance on the way to the…

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Casita, Sweet Casita

When Amalía gets tired, she turns to me or her father and says “go to casita.” She knows the word “home,” but it’s not exactly what she intends to say. Casita means “little house,” but it doesn’t refer to size in this case (although it’s true, Amalía has never spent more than a few nights…

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Eleni Gage

About Eleni

The daughter of a Greek father and a Minnesotan mother. I grew up in Athens, Greece, and the suburbs of Worcester, Massachusetts—
and became obsessed with cultural rituals and traditions along the way.

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Lucky in Love

is a guide to planning a wedding that’s unique, meaningful, and, above all, auspicious, with the help of customs from all over the world

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Travel Writing

I love covering places that inspire me—from Greece to Nicaragua and everywhere in between—for outlets such as Travel+Leisure, Condé Nast Traveler, InStyle and more. Join me on my trips here.

 

Essays and Reviews

From parenting to politics to pop culture, I’ve got opinions —and I’m not afraid to share them in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere. Learn why I’m a bad mom here.

Lifestyle Articles

I may not always live my best life, but I’m trying to live a better one! I enjoy learning from the experts when writing about everything from reading more to wasting less. Pick up some tips here.

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