“Laughing and crying, you know it’s the same release.” —Joni Mitchell I made my way back to the United States last Saturday after the completion of a disorienting spring semester at my university in Bulgaria. The notion of flying internationally unleashed trepidation, but my primal need to be near my ailing mother in Florida was the stronger force. As I...
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My brother called last night just as I’d climbed under my covers. We traded stories about emotional numbness and our lapsed personal hygiene. I’ve spent the whole day wearing nothing but my underpants, he said. I countered with the admission that I hadn’t showered in five days. He told me that my nephew—his 25-year-old son living and working in New York...
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When my niece Carmen and her brother Lucas were children, I often babysat and stayed with them while their parents went on business trips. I am very close to my brother and sister-in-law. We lived in the same neighborhood, and I saw those kids almost every day. At times I felt like a third parent. But I am not a parent; I am something far more delicious. I...
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It was during my early adolescence when I saw Alfred Hitchcock’s 1963 film The Birds. Critics were mixed in their reception. I wasn’t. It terrified me. Before I watched the film, I’d thought of birds as benign and decorative. I saw them as accessories for trees and the sky. They looked good sitting on docks and they made nice sounds. And they fly, which is...
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Last Thursday was the final meeting of my fall semester Writing for Media class. Final exams loomed. Exhaustion etched shadows beneath everyone’s eyes. There were 21 students in the room, the survivors of three and a half months of composing and editing, learning the rigors of media writing in a language that is not their mother tongue. Bulgarians,...
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