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Cuba Libre
If you haven’t yet read Three Shots of Rum, at least take a peek at the first few paragraphs, otherwise the lovely cleverness of this title will completely pass you by. It was the second second day on the job. The medical team and I took a tired-out bus painted a lurid purple an hour into…
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So Much More
After many hours of wandering with a mounting sense of panic, I am no longer lost in the foggy, newly plowed and reorganized fields of northern Spain. Whew. And I didn’t go more than a couple of miles out of my way, either. I followed the distant sounds of cars and my compass readings to…
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Third Person Love
Self-care can become a whole new world (cue Aladdin, please) when we think of ourselves in the third person. As in “I’ll bet Naomi would really love it if someone washed this three-week pile-up of dishes here in the sink for her.” Invariably, I’m willing to do an act of loving service for a friend…
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Holy Baby in Holy City or The Magic Carpet Ride that Never Happened
The streets of Old City Jerusalem wander and stagger through the covered souks of various quarters – Armenian, Muslim, Christian, Greek Orthodox. This rabbit’s warren of never-ending stall-lined streets sellis anything one could possibly want or need and has been in existence in this place, in some form or another, for literally hundreds of years.…
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Three Shots of Rum
Other than having a clever name, I wasn’t quite sure how or when I’d begin this story. I didn’t know if I’d have anything interesting to say until we got up into the hills and started seeing 19 year old moms with 5 kids already, dads with machete wounds and small brown children with bellies…
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On Being Single. Or rather, On Being Lonely. Because the two are not (always) the same.
I recently spent time with a friend who is grieving the death of her husband of 26 years. She noticed that we’re switching places. She is now single and I’m happily partnered up. She wanted to know if I had any tips on how to do it well. This being-single-business. I was flattered, mainly because…
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Love Is
It was a dreary, rainy, long walk in mid-Spain, mid-Camino, mid-October. Thirty or more kilometers, with at least half of it through rocky, rain-lashed fields as far as the eye could see in either direction. It was one of those stretches where all you can do is long for soup and dry socks, hope that…
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To Peel an Egg
“If you don’t stop eating those, you’ll get diarrhea!” my mother used to warn. One of my brothers would accompany her dire prophecy with the appropriate sound effect, at which point we’d all collapse into giggles. And we always ignored the warning. How could we not?
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Albergue de Ada
As I walked into the town of Reliegos on the Camino de Santiago, I was looking for an albergue called Albergue de Prada. I didn’t see any signs for that one immediately, but I did see indications for Albergue de Ada, which hadn’t show up on my comprehensive albergue list. Thinking that perhaps the…
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L’Chaim
“The day you cease to burn with love, many others will die of the cold.” François Mauriac Carol Burton 22 April 05:22 pm Well, this has been a long time coming, thankfully, but Tim has now entered the stage of active dying. The hospice nurse said she couldn’t give us a time frame, but it’s…
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Behind the Blue Door 