Lost Boys

The guy who tried to blow up this latest airplane, his dad called our embassy to say, “My son is missing. He’s gotten some wacky ideas in his head. Look out for him.” Was this an agonized act of love, or a furious slap back at a wayward child? The guy’s family had lost contact […]

The Word

St. John declares that words make us human. That words, even, make us exist. It is words, and not pictograms or tools or logic or emotions. And so St. John is the patron saint of writers. I mean St. John the Evangelist, theoretical author of what is known as John’s gospel. I don’t know or […]

Gluing It Back Together

I drove out to the nursing home listening to Barry Manilow, lending some theatricality to what was probably a false alarm. My parents often played a Barry Manilow record when I was in preschool. So it isn’t my fault. I was listening to “This One’s For You,” which has a bold, swelling orchesteral sky, and […]

Yellow Brick Road

Partly because my parents divorced, I had Emerald City dreams. I wanted the shiniest brightest marriage and the glowingest cheerfulest children and possibly a horse that changed colors, since we would be living there in the fabulous 21st century. I set out from my Kansas (which, coincidentally, was actually Kansas)– exploring, meeting people. For all […]