Lessons from Seat 47A

47B. That’s me. Aisle seat. On a 17-hour flight, I made sure to take an aisle seat. I was flying from LA to Bangkok and was seated next to a short 50-ish Indian man wearing bright yellow Bermuda shorts. His eyes sparkled behind big gold-rimmed specs and his moustache stretched across his face as he …


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Shouting into the Wind

Grace had been crying since we arrived in Iceland. The wind stung her eyes; she was cold and it was gloomy. Her stuffed cat Gretzky kept getting blown out of her hands. Even though we’d bought her a blue fleece balaclava within an hour of checking into our hotel, she still objected every time we …


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You Have the Right to Experience Silence

It is 2am and I am awake. This is because a few sites over, some 17 to 22 year old white males are whooping across the campground at a site a bit up the road from us where another group of 17 to 22 year old white males are whooping back. This is a frustrating …


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When We Meet, I Know I’ll Cry

My childhood dream was traveling to Paris to see the Eiffel Tower. Over the years I fed that dream by trying to learn the language (unsuccessfully, so far) and falling in love with a country I never stepped foot in. You can imagine my surprise and pure joy when my boyfriend asked me if I …


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The Rugged Northern Coast…of DEATH

In the early 2000’s my wife Melissa, my husband Tim, our daughter Rhiannon, and I trekked to Maui for a relaxing, tropical holiday. It was our first time off the mainland. Tim, whose atmospheric comfort zone consists of a 7-degree span in the upper 60’s and lower 70’s with 0 humidity, did not care for …


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Myrtle Beach: Where I Call Home

A sea of brake lights gave me time to absorb the spectacle sprawled out in front of us. There was Hard Rock Cafe’s pyramid, Planet Hollywood’s house-sized blue ball that appeared to be sticking its tongue out at me, and a three dimensional billboard featuring a larger-than-life great white shark for Ripley’s Aquarium hovering above …


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