“Is this Kelly Laura?” It was a she on my cell phone, someone I didn’t know. Someone who sounded like she wore thick eyeliner. Someone whose Russian accent made the question seem as if it were spreading itself onto a slab of dark bread. She said she was with Human Resources at the university where I’m teaching. The post office had called; I had a package....
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It was 1987. Prozac, disposable contact lenses and The Simpsons were introduced into American culture. The average gallon of gas was 89 cents, and airwaves were dominated by ’80s hair bands. No cellphones, no internet, no GPS. I moved to Miami that year and bought a car that seemed fitting: a heavily used, white, 1972 convertible Cadillac. The top was...
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“Those who know they have enough are rich.” — Lao Tzu I spent the December weeks before last Christmas boxing and storing my stuff to make way for an incoming tenant. Part Two of my holiday follies was folding into a torturous origami and cramming into two suitcases all the possessions I anticipated I would need to live abroad for a year. If we can put a...
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It occurred to me when I saw the babushka tottering toward me on the sidewalk that she most likely did not understand the large English words on the front of her T-shirt: BLOW ME. What I immediately wanted was to make eye contact with someone nearby, someone like-minded whose look would fleetingly telegraph they thought this as odd and destabilizing as I...
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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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