In Albania, time folds, though the marching chronology of the country’s last 130 years appears stark with fundamental change: The Ottoman Empire, Nationalist Monarchy, Italian Fascism, Enver Hoxha’s Stalinism, Enver Hoxha’s Maoism, Enver’s Hoxha’s Enverism— a...
First impressions are precious and dangerous. Precious because you see things that later you gloss over. Dangerous because you make quick assumptions based on slim evidence. Shqiperia at first glance looks to me like an in-between place: part Southern Europe, part...
Getting off the train in Madrid we followed the crowds into the dark city. Our train companions formed a line for taxis, but we crossed the street and miracle of miracles, got on the right bus with backpacks and naked guitar, off at the right stop, and to the right...
On our first night in Spain, during a short yoga routine, the online instructor said we should check in without four bodies: physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. My physical body was aching with new debilitating pain, my left hip on fire; lightening radiating...
For seven months in Minneapolis, we gave away our things. Items with memories attached, once gone—are quickly forgotten. Gifting two thousand books I thought represented me, I felt more free than I had in decades. And yet, in our tiny apartment in Portugal, what did...
