As the old saying goes, judging a book by its cover leads to all sorts of ill-advised judgments and wrongheaded conclusions. So, my warning today is to not judge this library by its cover. This is the National Library of Kosovo. It taught me something about perspective and freedom and the thirst for knowledge. The…
My heart goes out to the residents of Maui who lost loved ones and livelihood, pets and property in this week’s fire. To have witnessed one’s own community go up in flames must have been so horrific. Seeking shelter in the ocean or abandoning a car to scramble from the flames must have been terrifying….
“I’m bored,” said no adult, ever. And said every teenager who ever lived, repeatedly, on hot summer days that seem to languish without end. My, how I long for the days of being bored, a distant memory that I can’t seem to recreate in my own hectic life filled with travel and screens and deadlines….
A recent visit to Corolla’s Maritime Museum prompted me to reflect on whether characters should be anchors or buoys. An anchor holds tightly, tethers a person to a place and time, while a buoy marks a place but adapts to changing tides and circumstances. Characters who hold onto strongly held beliefs or their past can…
Hiking up to the remains of the Prizren Fortress in the city of Prizren, Kosovo, requires fortitude, imagination, and a few extra breaths. Our hike was steep and burdened by unreliable knees but lightened by the questions of young and curious minds. My hiking companions ranged in age from two and a half to thirty-five…
In addition to being a Founding Father, the architect of the University of Virginia (my alma mater), and a philosopher of democracy, Thomas Jefferson was an inventor, known for his precision and innovation. On this July 4th, as we celebrate our independence and the empowering language of the Declaration of Independence, we are also reminded…
