All in Personal essay
When Denise Kusel decided it was time to give away her sweet, old Martin D-28 Herringbone guitar that had traveled with her for 55 years, she picked up the phone and called Billie Blair, who had been her boss at “The New Mexican” when she was Pasatiempo editor and a columnist. Billie always had answers.
For years Nancy King resisted buying a smartphone. One day, to celebrate her 84th birthday, she ordered one. A flashback to childhood abuse and the resulting PTSD reactions triggered by the phone’s arrival wasn’t the journey into modern technology she’d anticipated.
Cliff Simon has carried memories and told stories about his family ever since he was an unhappy teenager. There’s just one problem:, they weren’t true.
Compelled by necessity, Carolyn Handler Miller and her husband, Terry, set off for California from Santa Fe, New Mexico, with the coronavirus still gripping the country. Finding themselves in an unpredictable new world, they returned home safely and wiser, but would they do it again?
Elyn Aviva decided that culling her computer contact list would be a productive Corona project. Easy, right? In theory perhaps, but the reality wasn’t quite the cleanup she’d anticipated.
Are there some stories that are best left untold? In this essay, American expat BJ Stolbov recounts a decades-old experience which—until now— had remained private.
With a successful gallery business shuttered by COVID-19, Susanna Starr muses on adaptation, aging, and life in isolation in northern New Mexico.
BJ Stolbov, an American expat living in the Philippines, reminisces about changes in human freedom of movement and the futility of nationalistic boundaries during a global health crisis.
As more and more folks seek their tribes, author Jules Older adds one more tribe to the list. It’s more significant than Jewish or Buddhist, Italian or Iranian, male or female, maybe even gay or straight—goers and stayers.
Boundary setting and truth speaking have been a lifelong journey for Nancy King. So when she honestly communicated what she wanted and needed in a ski buddy to a friend, it was more than a difficult conversation, it was a chance to bring her authentic self to the relationship.
When a burst valve results in a flooded study, author Nancy King is left temporarily book-less and bereft.
When American expat Elyn Aviva and her husband relocated to Asturias, Spain, after seven years in Catelonia, the safety net of knowing how to do things and where to go was suddenly gone and their spirits soon matched the region’s dismal winter weather.
For global nomad, Bhavana Gesota, the question “Where are you from?” is not an easy one to answer. Are people asking, she wonders, where she was born? Where she lives now? Or, are they asking which passport she carries? Is there a single answer to this single question? Read on…
Kristine Mietzner shares the joys and challenges of travel with a disabled adult, and points toward the truth that everyone benefits from travel.
Only weeks after her mother’s passing, Laurie Gilberg Vander Velde traveled to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, on a previously scheduled vacation. San Miguel was also the place where twenty-four years earlier her mother had sought refuge from grief and Laurie finds memories of her mother everywhere.
When B.J. Stolbov travels, he sometimes find answers; other times he finds more questions. During a recent trip to Korea, he was struck by the absence of public litter which triggered this essay about what is valuable and important in a culture and for its people.
For expat Keith Digby, the tragedy of the French terrorist attacks turned unexpectedly personal during a visit to Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris' best-known resting place.
Having beaten breast cancer in 2004, Charmaine Coimbra now finds herself facing the unexpected and unwelcome return of cancer.
Early Monday morning on October 9, 2017, Katya Miller was roused from bed and evacuated from her Sonoma County home by raging wildfires. She takes you with her on her frightening journey, and tells how you can help.
A transformational hike in the mountains results in a profound emotional release for Nancy King, leaving her with a lingering sense of solace and clarity that had previously proved elusive.
