By Becky Band Jain It was at the end of the year I spent in the South of France, fully in the grips of my Francophilia, when a friend invited me to a barbecue. A week after Bastille Day, the summer heat was at its peak. The rosy tan stucco on the houses matched the […]
By Kathy Harding They discover what they’re willing to risk for love. Buoyed by the brazen optimism of our new love affair, my Kiwi, Rob, and I cast ourselves adrift in a revelatory landscape, the South Island of New Zealand. I was 41 years old and desperate for a baby, he was a stranger from […]
By Amanda Mander “Stay away from my son,” his father said as we stood alone on the balcony. Tears were threatening to burst through my barely-calm exterior when I noticed Kirin, my fiance, listening from inside the Bombay apartment. His warm, brown eyes pleaded with me to hold strong against the force of his father’s […]
By Mary Jo McConahay Floating in a Beat-Up Canoe Yellow-headed swallows dipped in and out of thick mist resting on the river. That fog probably followed the water’s curve for miles, I thought, maybe the whole length of Belize. I won’t see a thing from the boat. Atop a high bank overlooking the Macal, I […]
by Jeanne Stark A story of war, lost love and hidden keepsakes. Her name was Michiko Araki and she was my father’s girlfriend. That’s all I know, but here is their story. My father was 25 years old when the USS Talladega sailed into port in Honshu, Japan in October, 1945. Hiroshima was a pile […]
by Angie Chuang Two sisters-in-law in Kabul unveil the domestic world of post-Taliban Afghan women to me — and try to marry me off to one of their own. The yellow door was made of wood that felt too light. Every time we, the Americans – Laila, Stephanie, and I – swung it open, we […]
by Rosalie Justus Hiking sola in Peru’s Cordillera Blanca, the author worries about same-species predators and other problems. I know right away, the Dutch aren’t going. Marlie’s teeth are all purple from the herbs she’s been chewing. They’re a sharp contrast against her pale skin. She’s one of those naturalists that think if it’s not […]
by Kim Brown Seely How Rwanda Reached Out and Grabbed Me. Charles weighed 400 pounds, stood nearly six feet when fully upright, and was one hundred percent alpha-male. His massive black head was luxuriantly hairy, and our eyes met daringly as he reclined in a bamboo thicket as big as a Barcalounger. Charles, I’d been […]
by Kevin McCaughey Natashas have always seemed long to me. Long-haired, long-legged, comfy at great heights, like in an expensive revolving restaurant. Which is funny, because I never met a Natasha like that. But, if I ever saw a Russian girl like that, I’d think she would be a Natasha. My Natasha wasn’t that type […]
by Landon Spencer My friends are concerned. “Why are you going to Yugoslavia ” they want to know. “There is no Yugoslavia.” I reply. Like the pop star, Prince, who for a time changed his name to an unutterable symbol, the word Yugoslavia can now only be invoked when preceded by the phrase formerly known […]
