“Do you have children?” is a question I’ve grown used to hearing whenever I meet someone for the first time. And yet after all these years, I still hesitate over my answer. A simple “no” never seems sufficient. I almost always add that Tom and I were not able to have children. This usually ends…
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Redefining Refuge Refuge means different things depending on context. It can refer to shelter or protection from danger or distress, but it can also refer to a feeling of being seen and cherished, of belonging. Refuge may be found in places, in community, in relationships, in whatever nourishes the human spirit. I say sometimes that…
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Can a Home Away be Familiar? In The Reader, a novel by Bernhard Schlink, the protagonist comments that he once believed he should be more adventurous in his travel, and so he explored countries and cities he might not have visited otherwise. Eventually, though, he recognized that he preferred to concentrate on the locales he…
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