My fourteen-month-old daughter’s favorite animals are turtles. So much so that it’s fairly common for her to wake up in the morning, open her eyes and say “tortuga” (that or “pizza”, another favorite). So when we saw a massive turtle in the courtyard at the gym where her father works out (because that’s what buildings…
The Liminal Stage
Breakfast with a Side of Parrots: Dispatch from a 14-Month-Old Expat
My name is Amalía and I’m a Greekaraguan. Tomorrow I am 14 months old. These are my favorite things: pizza, woof-woofs, Papou. Right now, I am living in Granada, Nicaragua, where my Abuela was born. Here is a picture of me with Abu. In Miami Beach, Mama…
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In Gratitude for Funerals
Of all the liminal stages and rituals that exist, everyone’s least favorite is, of course, the funeral. In a life filled with baptisms, weddings, and birthday parties, the funeral is the Eeyore of rituals: solemn, sorrowful, and downright depressing. But, like Eeyore, they serve a purpose that’s as important as those fulfilled by their other…
What the Frigate?
This post is a guest post I wrote for the “Great Authors” section of Andrea Peskind Katz’s fabulous blog, “Great Thoughts”. When I was in high school, every year the faculty awarded one student a book stamped with a bookplate that showed two children under a tree reading, and the maxim “There is no frigate…
Deja Vu All Over Again
According to Chinese astrology, every 12 years we repeat certain characteristic patterns. This makes sense, as there are a dozen animals in the Chinese zodiac and they take turns ruling each year, influencing it with their personality; you might radically change your life every dozen years under the influence of the restless, impulsive Tiger, say….
From Pumpkin Spice Latte to Pitaya Juice: An Autumnal Journey
As a folklorist, I often feel that marketing messes with holidays. I don’t want to think about Halloween the day after the fourth of July, but the drugstore and the “seasonal” aisle of the supermarket and the forests worth of catalogs that arrive at my door want me to, because there’s really no big ticket…
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