It is May, and I’ve been away from Flagstaff for five months. It is our longest separation since I moved to town nine years ago. Most days I move through this yearlong decampment to Kyrgyzstan bustling with purpose and the rational understanding that this time away from home is temporary. I remember why I thought it was a solid idea to leave my community,...
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Fifty years ago, the Civil Rights Act was signed by President Lyndon Johnson, Beatlemania was in full bloom, a first-class stamp cost a nickel, and Ford rolled out the Mustang. I was seven. Fifty years ago the top stories in my life were becoming a first grader at St. Francis of Assisi School and the debut of the NBC television show Flipper. First grade...
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When I was in third grade, my grandmother and I began writing letters to one another. She lived with a smelly dachshund in a cottage on Mobile Bay in southern Alabama. I was her oldest grandchild growing up in a swarm of siblings in south Florida. I can’t recall the contours of her face with much clarity, but in the eye of my mind I can see her looping...
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Water is my mother tongue. I grew up on a flat patch of landfill just north of Palm Beach called Singer Island, a place named after the 23rd child of Isaac Singer, the sewing machine millionaire. My family lived a blemish-free, resolutely middle-class life two blocks from the Atlantic Ocean. What I remember most about my childhood is the milky blue-green...
Read MoreThe solstice has arced through and left its promises of light and longer days. Christmas, Boxing Day and Hanukkah are in the past tense, and once again we inch our way toward the trailhead of another year. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m done with the resolution business. All those lists taped to the fridge, the scoldy shoulds hidden beneath...
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