The challenge of travel, for me, is time. My nostalgia vein runs deep, so I constantly want to return to the places I love, and when I’m there, I wander around narrating what makes each spot meaningful to me. “This is where Papi and Mami got married,” I tell my children each time we pass…
Greece
Some of the People, Some of the Time
I have a feeling President Lincoln wasn’t actually talking about family vacations when he famously quoted the poet John Lydgate to say, ““You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the…
Lockdown in Lia: Larger than Life Days in Our Tiny Village
After a whirlwind three weeks of weddings (my cousin’s on the Peloponnesian coast), ruins (the Byzantine city of Butrint in what is now Albania), and beaches (too numerous to mention), I thought we’d end our annual trip to Greece with a few relaxing days in Lia, the quiet village where my father was born, which…
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All My Found Saints
When it comes to cultural events and spiritual uplift, I love church and I love dancing. But you just don’t often get to do the two together. Except in Diriamba, Nicaragua, where I just attended the Reese’s Peanut Butter cup of community events, the last day of the festival for the patron saint of Diriamba…
I Saw the Sign: On Feet and Fate
Yesterday we lost power, and I thought it might be a sign that the Lord wanted me to get a pedicure. I know this is the kind of thing that only a crazier-than-crazy person thinks, much less says out loud. I know that the Lord probably does not spend much time thinking about my toes,…
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…