Aging on the Run, Israel/Palestine, Nationalism, PTSD and Historical Trauma, Radical Hospitality
In Tom Wolfe’s 1940 autobiographical novel, You Can’t Go Home Again, a young white man moves to New York City and then returns to the South, where he no longer feels like he belongs. I was assigned his book in 1975 at Oberlin College when I was a 17-year-old...
Aging on the Run, Nationalism, PTSD and Historical Trauma, Public History, Racism, Social Movements, Sustainable Economies
The Political Geography of Northern Ireland Then and Now. To begin to understand Northern Ireland, I needed to stare at some maps. Ireland before 1920 was divided into four provinces. Ulster, the most northern province, was itself divided into nine counties....
Aging on the Run, Nationalism, PTSD and Historical Trauma
I began to write this as we pulled out of the bus station on our way to the Netherlands. Ten days in northwestern Germany were hard on me. My body told me so – a painful rash, heart palpitations, chest pains, and a headache that began each day the moment I woke up. We...
Aging on the Run, PTSD and Historical Trauma, Racism, Social Movements, Sustainable Economies
Brussels, like Paris, unfolded as a mash-up of old and new. While Paris was a hard 24 hours, Brussels was an inviting and fun three days. The difference was serendipity, not a true reflection of these two venerable places. This is the problem with short...
Aging on the Run, Balkans, PTSD and Historical Trauma, Public History, Radical Hospitality, Social Movements
Albania’s oldest city has 1,000 identical windows in its Ottoman-era old town, and a Byzantine city on top of one of its mountains. The Osum River runs through Berat, with buildings hugging the slopes. A green ridged range covers its north side. South of the...
Aging on the Run, PTSD and Historical Trauma, Public History
One of the books I gave away when we started this journey was Carolyn Forché’s Against Forgetting: Twentieth Century Poetry of Witness. I treasured this collection that recorded humanity’s ugliest moments so that we do not forget. I have spent a lifetime being...
