“I love everything!” Hearing my six year old daughter call out these words, her voice filled with the joy of the truth of them, I turned to look at her. She was twirling around in circles, eyes closed, her arms spread wide to embrace the coolness of the evening. I[…]
Summer on the coast of the Arabian Sea means day after day of sun. Its light is intense, yet thin and sharp like juice from a fresh squeezed lime. With the sun comes heat- an oppressive, smothering heat that grabs a hold of you and wraps you up in its[…]
This morning, as I sat in the midst of schoolbooks, notebooks, pencils, crayons, and children, I suddenly felt the urgent desire to just get out. It was too late for a walk to the beach, and the flies are terrible right now, so jumping rope or sitting upstairs on the[…]
Yesterday I got a firsthand look at some of the destruction caused by the rioters last week. I use the word “rioters” purposefully, as all that took place was a few hours of destruction and immaturity that had nothing to do with “protesting” and everything to do with selfishness and[…]
When I was a kid, summers sped by, leaving pinwheel impressions of color and movement, the feeling of wind through my hair and warm grass under my feet, lasting well into the fall season of school year hustle and bustle. As much as I loved school, and cherished snow and[…]
We are no strangers to turmoil, to change, to the search for something better for our family and our way of life. Since our marriage, we have lived in Wisconsin, Virginia, Maryland, Colorado, New Jersey, and New York state in America, and Sana’a, Ma’bar, Damaaj, and ash-Shihr since coming to[…]
The weather has been a little cooler this week, the waters at the Sea’s edge tantalizingly cold, the wind acting as messenger bringing much needed relief to the land and the creatures which inhabit it- a small break in a months-long string of hot, humid, sunny days. My mind turns[…]
My sister Patty loved Morning Glories. I remember her house in the north woods of Wisconsin, one whole side almost covered in these bright, beautiful little bundles of hope. Perhaps one of the most precious things I carried home with me from that one visit I was able to make[…]
A few weeks ago, in this land of moist, intense heat and political instability, I felt the calling to make a quilt. I paged through a box of quilting magazines that a friend left us when she moved to Egypt, trying to find something challenging, but not too challenging- it[…]
Sitting at my computer, writing letters late at night. The swish of the ceiling fan comforts me- it has been a week of power outages, some of them lasting for hours, exacerbating everyone’s heat rashes, causing tempers to shorten, and making it difficult simply to breathe. At night it is[…]
