Versatility Friday, 6 April I just took the above photo from my work chair in Berlin. A similar display stares at me in Paris. Lately, as I look at the pictures, I've been pondering how bringing up children compares to training a dog. On one level the goal is
Profound France Togetherness Friday, 9 March I like to think of myself as a curious person. Someone who goes out of her way to understand people and places. It’s one reason I was lured abroad in the first place; it's what makes our half-move to Berlin compelling and the
The Princess and the Pellet Friday, 23 February In Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale The Princess and Pea, the prince searches high and low for a princess to marry. No one he meets is quite right. One rainy day a bedraggled young woman claiming to be a princess arrives at the castle. The
Forgetful Snow Friday, 9 February Paris is an old city that has suffered many a blow. For at least the last 10,000 years humans have resided on the banks of the Seine. In around 250 BC the Celtic Parisii tribe developed the first real settlement on the Ile-de-la Cité. Over the
History Repeats Itself rice paddy, Sri Lanka Friday, 26 January The last 18 months have been a whirlwind of travel, at least by my standards. Besides six trips to the US around my mother’s final illness and death, there’s been Rwanda, Iran, Sicily. And last week we returned from the trip
Clutter and Dust Friday, 22 December Maybe I was resistant to renovating our Paris apartment [https://mf.ghost.io/changing-perspectives/] for a reason. Last Sunday we survived another punishing 11-hour drive from Berlin and arrived to an apartment covered in plastic. The whole centre had been gutted and was stacked up in the
In the Shadow of Tomorrow Friday, 8 December The vice of winter is tightening. In Berlin today the sun will come up at 8.04 and will go down at 15.52. Twilight will begin about 14.30, if the sun is shining. If not it will be hard to ascertain whether or not the
Giving Thanks Friday, 24 November Yesterday was Thanksgiving in the US but it felt very far away here in Berlin. Beyond the fact it was a normal work day, David is in London and I ate my Thanksgiving dinner of leftover Georgian food alone at the kitchen counter. A good part of
This Good Old World Friday, 10 November People often ask me why I like living in Europe. Usually my answer is a rambling, vague discourse that ends with an I-just-do shrug. But not anymore. Now I can sum it up in one word: Sicily. We have recently returned from eight days there. Barely long
Changing Perspectives Onion dome of the new Russian Orthodox Church, seen from the quayside Friday, 13 October Because the world is uncertain enough as is, I generally dislike change. The routine of my days is a comfort: up early for some work before a dog walk along the same rutted road, then
Exponential Living Starting small: Georgina, William, Christopher at Victoria's wedding to Antony, 1996 Friday, 29 September “Once you start with the international thing,” my friend Victoria W said, “it’s exponential.” She meant that I, an American who has spent much of her life in Paris and was first married
Processing My father and William, 1998 New Marlborough Cemetery Friday, 1st September 'The unconscious is where most of the work of the mind gets done; it's the repository of automatic skills, the source of intuition and dreams, and an engine of information processing. Fleeting perceptions may register in
Life Goes On Freiberg, Saxony Friday, 18 August As the paucity of recent postings indicates, I have not been a bundle of creative energy these last months. The sense of numbed detachment and lack of focus I felt after my mother died [https://mf.ghost.io/in-memoriam/] early June have not much subsided.
Spider Dog "Stop writing that bloody blog." Friday, 14 July We've just passed the six-month mark since Tasha arrived in our life so I have been thinking about how far we have come. Or not. Sometimes—such as that anniversary Monday when she barked at an old woman
In Memoriam Friday, 23 June In April my mother was hospitalized, once, then twice. Her health had been declining steadily for some years. Osteoporosis had reduced her from a stately 5ft9 to a hunched and crunched 5ft2. My mother and sister Catharine, 1968 She’d had several falls and brittle bones had
Lessons for Living Friday, 28 April “Have you done any yoga?” asked Anna, the dog coach, as we sat around our living room for the first session. We had met her at the vet when we took Tasha in for an eye infection that wasn’t going away because even David and I
Thinking makes it so Friday, 14 April Two days ago I had a birthday and aged 15 years. At least to my eyes and in the eyes of world I did; the difference between being 59 and being 60 is that big. Because at 59 it's still possible to convince yourself you
La Terreur des Tuileries im Treptower Park First paw-prints in Deutschland Friday, 31 March Usually I return to Berlin with a certain eagerness. There are so many elements of our life there that I like: our lovely apartment, the park and woods nearby, the scarred streets that hit me like a jolt of electricity after the graceful
Tasha Outside and In Friday, 17 March Unfashionable though the truth may be these days, I am going to be honest with you: Tasha is not an easy dog. Astute readers of this blog may already have picked up on this but it has been hard for me to admit. I would like my
Danger! Men at Work Friday, 3 March It’s hard to know in New York. Is this edgy, flinty, vigorous city a trend setter or just a particularly intense reflection of the times? Or is it sui generis, a one-of-a-kind kind of place? Generalization is of course a dangerous exercise and New York is
New Horizons Friday, 17 February Even in a buzzy, beautiful city like Paris it’s easy to fall into a rut. To find yourself getting up in the morning, putting body and mind on automatic pilot and just enduring the day. To feel at every trudging step as if you’ve seen-this-done-that.
Good Intentions Friday, 3 February When our Elsa died in December, I got many wonderful messages of sympathy (for which I send heartfelt thanks across the blogosphere) but one particularly stuck in my mind. My ex-sister-in-law Anna F., who has had countless canines, wrote: “I often have the feeling that the previous
Adieu et Merci (photo by William Fleming) Elsa, 17 December 2001 (Tours)-8 December 2016 (Berlin) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Friday, 16 December Our dear Elsa is gone. She died last week, just short of her 15th birthday, and we are bereft. When our other dog Lily died, it was also very painful. But there was
East-West Thoughts Dismantling the East? Friday, 2 December This will undoubtedly come as a shock to anyone who knows or lives in Berlin but people sometimes say to me, including a few who have actually visited the city: “There’s no difference between East and West anymore, is there?” It’s true
Fly Me to the Moon Super-gibbous-moon Friday, 18 November This month the moon has been following us closely. It has in fact been as near to the earth as it ever gets, making it appear 14% larger and shine 30% brighter than usual. The scientific name for this phenomenon is a perigree-syzygy of the earth-moon-sun