Whenever I sit down on a plane, I resign myself to death. It’s the only way I can reconcile my fear of flying with the fact that I have had to do it... read more
We flew off into the most spectacular sunset over the front range with the Denver lights spread out in twinkling patterns below. That winter there was hardly any snow in the Rockies, a... read more
With flying you rarely know who will be seated next to you until, well, they’re seated next to you. It could be a priest who gives you a dollar for good luck. Or... read more
It’s a warm January morning and I’m heading to the airport in an old yellow diesel Mercedes taxi driven by one of my students. I spent the previous day swimming in the sea,... read more
Newsfeeds tripped across the flat screen in my basement the nights after Katrina slammed ashore, and I found myself a thousand miles away from the place that will always be home, calling my... read more
I had made a rather serious mistake. A few weeks before my family’s first-ever overseas vacation, when I would be strapped into a Dreamliner for eight hours, I watched Castaway.
I didn’t watch it on... read more
Our family had moved to one of the beckoning Chicago suburbs in the 1960s. Mom took a job in a typing pool at a large oil company nearby and my stepdad rode the... read more
Thoughts of kickflips and 50/50 grinds slid through my mind as if on a polished granite ledge. The thoughts flipped and spun and twisted my head into a different world. Skateboarding; and I... read more
At arrivals, a man stood with his chest out. His middle stretched against his seaweed green wool sweater. The man smiled at Dad.
“Czesc, Zdzichu,” Dad said.
Dad and Zdzichu hugged. I’d only seen Dad... read more
My fingers wind their way into my earbud cord, faded bluish and dreamlike in the dim glow of the seatback screen. Wrapping the black wire around my thumb, over and over, around and... read more
