Necessary Madness: A Writer on the Road

Euphoria: A Dizzy Update

Although clearly recovering from my concussion, there'd been no sign of that delicious sense of well-being that usually washes through after an illness, producing energy. Energy wasn't just out of reach. It was invisible. Maybe I'd lost the oomph, the impetus, to...

Dizzy

It was a typical Sunday here in Coimbra. Bright and sunny, I'd walked from the local train station through Choupal Park, to Centro Hipico de Coimbra – the stables – for my turn with a friend's horse. I spent a lovely hour or so there, and walked back through the park...

When Thinking Feels New

Hannah Arendt wrote, “Loving life is easy when you are abroad. Where no one knows you and you hold your life in your hands all alone, you are more master of yourself than at any other time.” I’m finding this to be true in ways I never would have expected, but I don’t...

We’re Not Stupid!

  The Harlem River Bridge was open and stuck. The Metro-North train I was taking to Grand Central for the shuttle to JFK and my flight back to Portugal was, according to announcements, delayed “indefinitely” while waiting for “the Army Corps of Engineers to...

The Spoken Word

I’ve never opened a book without a pen. Audio books? Never! What would I do with my hands? My annotations are an elaborate system that fill most pages. My son calls them the rantings of a mad women. Maybe so. I don’t care. I am madly in love with my books. But I’m...

A Hollywood Bikini Wax and Alexander Hamilton

Hello all. What a week politically. Here's some distraction. Curious what sort of story caught Reese Witherspoon's imagination -- she snapped up the movie rights -- I picked up Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman. Social misfit, physically-damaged...

What Would Springsteen Do?

Yesterday, The New Yorker Radio Hour featured Bruce Springsteen. Asked what he would have done if no record contract had ever come through, he said, 'What I'd always done. Play music. I had no other skill.' The fact that most writers can't make a living with their...

I Won’t Lie

  The transition from a whirlwind trip – a few days in NYC to tie up loose ends and a few in Connecticut and Massachusetts to see family and friends – to this different apartment in a different part of Coimbra has been bumpy with jet lag, second-guessing, and...

Bloopers

Not everything has gone smoothly! Here are a few of my new-to-Portugal blunders. I can laugh about everything but the police. When I came back to my apartment the very first time the very first day, I couldn't get my key to work. Trying every which way, knocking on...

Four Women in a Car

  One day last week, I set off with three women I’d only recently met via expat Facebook groups, to explore Portugal east of Coimbra. There was Fran, our ringleader, with specific destinations – a house for sale and a famed Cerdeira village – Laura, her niece,...

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