-
The First Connection
Two Septembers ago, my husband and I sat at a long wooden table built for 12 in a hostel in the middle of Spain. There were only four of us at dinner that night–Ben and I, the owner of the hostel, and a man from Denmark who was volunteering there for the year. The pandemic…
-
And Hey, the World Still Spins
I find it hard to believe that not all writers are secret catastrophists. I can’t be the only one who fears that the misused words and typos will come banging on my apartment door to haunt me like Jacob Marley. I’ve spent the past week throwing my causal daily dose of anxiety toward the upcoming…
-
Losing Sleep Over It
An early draft of my memoir manuscript started with the sentence, “I come from a long line of women who don’t sleep.” It then stretched back to the prophetic dreams of my great-grandmother, my grandma sitting up all hours of the night, my mom feeding the cats at 2 AM, and eventually to my sister…
-
“So, what now?”
Ben and I have a few favorite writing tropes. If we’re sitting in the audience of a play and one of the characters blurts one out, we’ll grab each other’s knees and try not to crack up. To be fair, tropes become tropes because writers often need a helping hand when their story gets stuck.…
-
The Power of Simple Acknowledgment
Earlier this week, I decided to launch an account on Instagram called Dear Pilgrim. The aim of the community is to provide a home for those considering walking the Camino de Santiago as well as those who see themselves as seekers, spiritually or not. The idea is connected to a larger project I will talk…
-
Leaving 80th Street
The first time Ben and I visited our 80th Street apartment, we didn’t have a lot of hope for the place. The rent was just $50 more a month than an apartment we’d looked at in a much less expensive neighborhood uptown, so I said something like, “I’m sure it’ll be a dump,” as we…
-
The Fourth Camino: Part 13
There are two battling forces in my mind on the final day of a Camino. The first one wants the day to move slowly–to savor all the greatest hits of hiking. A long second breakfast, another cup of coffee, photos of every field, pretty tree, and flock of sheep. The second one dreams of the…
-
The Fourth Camino: Part 12
We packed up before sunrise. It was my 90th day walking the Camino. The tiled hallway reverberated every swish of our backpack straps and squeak of our hiking boots, so we moved slowly. The last thing I wanted to do was wake anyone up after making the wrong impression the day before. Without the sun,…
-
The Fourth Camino: Part 11
There were three hiking days left in the trip. Years of planning and we were just an hour’s drive and a three day’s hike to Santiago. No matter the length of each Camino I’ve walked, the questions, “What comes next?” and “What was the point of all this?” start to creep in and distract you…
-
The Fourth Camino: Part 10
It’s been a minute since I’ve written here. Ben and I had an incredible trip to Iceland last week so I’ve been slowly coming out of vacation mode. But after starting this blogging project more than three months ago now (!!), it’s time to get us to the end. And so…here’s the fourth-to-last Camino day.…