Longwood just opened and it's not a bad day for first day of tennis, well maybe a little chilly, but Rob's in the ICU and it wasn't supposed to be this way. It was a routine surgery on an otherwise healthy, vibrant and charming man. He did his research, pulled favors from connections, found the best doctor, was serene going in.


It is a nice hospital, with a beautiful array of people; conversations weave in and out; medical people, car valets, food servers, organ transporters. Some wear their nationalities on their badges, covered with surgical hats and masks, others with full faces that tell stories about where they might have been born. There is an air of united compassion. The atrium is light and airy, there are real plants, polished floors and bathrooms that have full doors and some pretty glass art that greets you on the way in. There is a chapel that is not ugly.


It is a long wait, longer than we expect, but you know how it is, things happen, car accidents, shootings, other things that may take precedence and those doing this crucial work to save lives are thinking about that rather than communicating, right? So, we sit, in this quasi- enclosed room that reminds me of a car rental place with seating, plastic upholstery, understandably. There are four of us; my friend the wife, her dear friend from up north, and his buddy from college. In the hours we sit together, we ramble conversationally; sailing, kids, citizenship, college, arrests, mixed marriages, camping, people we knew, payroll services, skiing, sheriffs voted out of town, dogs, pony tails, salad preferences, we even dip into politics. All to distract, to make those many hours of waiting go by more quickly for our friend.


The friend from up north and I sometimes lock eyes, sharing a reaction to something, making me feel I've known her forever. Facing the surgery update monitor, she casually checks, kindly not wanting to draw extra attention to our waiting posture. But the stripe remains blue, he's still in the procedure. It is longer so we go up to the desk and talk to the man with a 6 inch afro that has been put into two perfect high pony tails. He says there is no news, my friend turns away before he's done, he looks at me with question and compassion in his eyes, I ask if he knows anything more, no. I see us for the old, stressed out people we appear to be and quietly thank him for being gentle and kind. 


My friend is sitting in the corner of our enlarged cubby when finally her phone rings. Her face freezes, she begins to hyperventilate, she bends over and puts her head between her legs as she's listening, once in a while saying no, no. She stands up to her full 5'10", turns around and faces away from us to the corner of our cubby. We watch as her body, which has been slammed with news too awful to comprehend, physically struggles to reject it by continuing to move around, not able to let it all in at once. She is breathless, nodding a lot. The surgeon is talking, talking, talking. Occasionally she writes down a few words on a crumpled piece of paper with her fat, white Dana Farber pen, but how can she listen, transfer words from ears to brain to hand, writing down anything intelligible when her being is processing this surprising and potentially life changing news? Her body continues to fight the news, eventually she hangs up. 


Breathlessly, she says "What am I going to tell the boys?" She is a brave woman with the tenderest of souls who thinks only of others. The kind man from the hospital senses what's going on, we lock eyes, he moves us to a more private room. We try to get her to focus on herself and let this news sink in to her person, but she is only concerned for others; uppermost her kids, but also his family, her siblings, friends. Eventually, we come together with a plan and begin to execute; communication, logistics, prayer.


At night, we visit him in the ICU. There's an odd contradiction between his serene, hooked up body and the 8 people with stress on their faces, urgently moving around him, scanning tags, administering to him, setting up temporary oxygen, keying things into the computer. The attending, immediately identifiable as German by the side bend of his head and nodding, comes over to the friend from the north and me and ever so graciously introduces himself while the chaos is going on in the room. His words are compassionate, respectful, encouraging, avoiding optimism. He invites us inside where we are in the way, standing next to our friend, in shock.


The boys have arrived now from the other side of the country, being there for their mom and processing the news and visual of their father, who currently needs help with breathing and pumping blood. He is resting peacefully and we are all letting him know how much we want him to take the time he needs to heal his body and come back to us. If you are a prayer, we'd be most grateful for them now.

It's hard to overstate the grey of Utrecht, which somehow feels more pervasive than even London, with only a few hours of daylight, and weather considered "nice" when it's not raining sideways. Flying into Seville, I could feel my body relaxing as I saw groves and groves of orange, olive and palm trees. The sun was out, the sky was blue, the buildings were orange and people didn't have their shoulders hunched up.

Once again, this lapsed Catholic, though even lapsed implies a level of commitment that was never there, has arrived in a Mediterranean country during an important religious festival. Last time it was Holy Week in Malta, this time the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. Panty hose, high heels on cobblestones, fur, feathers, purple, velvet, hats, helmet hair, men with neatly clipped beards and blow dried hair. They had just got out of church and were either sitting at cafes or standing at tapas bars, many generations together, so relaxed, enjoying each other's company, giving me a feeling of being a gate crasher at a private event. They seemed relaxed, present, happy. It was only late in the day after hours of wandering that I found out about the evening procession. The spirit was in, the body wasn't. 

I'm grateful to be staying in Macarena, an up and coming neighborhood about a 25 minute walk away from tourist action. There are six or seven apartments in my building, with an open air marble, plant filled courtyard in the middle, each apartment two floors with a winding metal stair case. It's mostly silent, though once in a while there will be an interesting sign of life; a funky cell phone ring, Spanish TV soaps, laughter, and the other day, a man with a very good voice belting out a tune. And of course bells, churches competing for attention and attendance, there's an insistence about them. The neighborhood is mostly older people, ladies pushing shopping buggies or throwing out that pail of dirty water onto the street after they've mopped the tile floor. Some dog owners carry not only a poop bag, but a plastic squirting bottle full of soapy water, used after their dog pees. 

It took a couple of days to get acclimated to this new place. Mirroring a favorite dream, the alleyways go on forever, there's always a new way to get downtown or walk home, with things to discover every time. Today it was a store that sold beautifully embroidered fabric trim. But the cerado from 3-5 is real, pretty much the only things open at that time are restaurants, so I'll be going back there, if I can find it. There are outdoor cafes under orange trees on almost every corner, mostly populated by old men drinking beer at any hour, though there's no appearance of drunkenness.

The fresh and prepared vegetables are remarkably good, and cheap. 3 kilos of oranges for 3 euros. I found quality bread, cheese, tomatoes, olives, anchovies, marinated peppers and the salty beans that everyone eats while sipping on a pilsner. A nice change for the bod from the many (delicious) variations of cheesy bread in the Netherlands.

Today was tourist day, starting with the neigbhorhood church that my Uber driver had, using hand signals, told me was beautiful. It was unlike anything I've seen, even after touring the churches of Malta, both in terms of the amount of silver and gold, and also the condition of everything, so perfect. Frescos across the ceiling looked brand new. It was enough to help me decide to skip the Cathedral of Seville, the "largest in Christendom". 

Instead I went to the bull fighting ring. There are a few places I've been, Ephesus and Tulum come to mind, when I've been somehow able to feel the people who inhabited them, so long ago, and it was the same with the bullring, which unlike the other two, is still active. While there was nothing going on today, there was a feeling of what it would be like with all the people sun drenched and maybe a little drunk, yelling at the matador and the bull, hoping their bet would pay off. Maybe Ernest Hemingway even made the trip from Pamplona. Like the church, it was in pristine condition, making it clear that this beautiful old building, and bull-fighting, is a city-wide priority.

I felt like. had to go to the Plaza de Espana, which originally lured me to Seville when I google imaged the city. It's so big that it's hard to photograph in a way that shows scope, but it has a beautiful curve, lots of tiles and arches and police on horseback. There was Spanish music with castanets playing which brought it to life.

My aunt, who will be turning 90 and the reason I've stopped off in Seville, is perhaps better travelled than anyone, and doesn't shy away from criticism about places she's been. She called Seville a gentle city, and I think that's just about right.

It has been a solidly good week, a first being alone in a foreign country, a more than second dusting off my Spanish. While my go to phrase recently has been "pelligro, no patinar", from a sign on a tree I often saw at Jamaica Pond during COVID's first winter, I added "amarillo" after my sojourn through Texas. Back in the 80s, I spent a booze soaked week in Cozumel, and as well as having a fling with a dive instructor, picked up "una cerveza, por favor" and "la cuenta, por favor". So, with the exception of the notice about skating, I've managed to throw it all back into circulation this week, along with throwing out a "si" or "gracias", when I've been able to divine enough to understand the gyst of whatever the person is saying. Things get tricky when they hear my undoubtedly perfectly pronounced reply, look at me with a smile and start to spew unintelligible sounds from their mouths, fast. My only response can be a blank look and an expression I've added to my quivver, "no habla espanol", which, after the luxury of Netherlands where everyone speaks English better than I, has been a much bantered about. Almost ready for the diplomatic corps.

First days in Sevilla were for sussing out and taking photographs while things were new. While I was eager to go to what I'd been told was the best tapas place, when I'd get there, I'd see a sea of old men that had been drinking that same glass of beer for the last 55 years with the same cigarettes and same people. Who was I to come in, on my own, and a woman?, I imagined them thinking. But I really wanted those salty little pink shrimp, so eventually overcame any trepidation and marched slowly with my head high and a smile on my face. Yes, heads turned, and the server was beyond perplexed that I didn't want a beer with my 11 am order, but I let that slide and chalked it all up as a success.

Later, I got to thinking about when things like this happen on a grander scale; challenges or wishes that kick around in my head for days, months, years. Whatever is holding me back from achieving them, could be lack of commitment, courage, vision or desire, causes low key longing and discomfort. I realized there's some part of me that has always assumed that the joy of achieving the thing will by nature be equal to the discomfort of not having done so yet, but it seems to not be so. It's funny to me that I'm just figuring that out now, I suppose the takeaway is to just get on with it and stop making a fuss.. So, yes, the shrimp was delicious and it was slightly fun to be eating them with the old men that were aware of me, but no big deal and there was no overwhelming joy of having reached the summit of a mountain of challenge. 

Like most of the other places I visit for the first time, I'm in love with Seville and have already decided which neighborhood I'll live in when I retire. To make things better, there's a buddy who is on board and then, a sign it will certainly happen, Nat supportively texted me a screenshot of the nearest Costco. Imagine the monster jars of olives stuffed with anchovies they must have. I hope they don't have that bad tasting Hawaiian bread they always serve at the sample tables. Once I've figured out what they do serve, I'll be able to con Nat into visiting.

Seville is a low-key beautiful city, and by that I mean not like Nantucket or Stockbridge or Utrecht which are quaint, pretty and perfect, nor Valetta, which is beautiful if you squeeze your eyes almost shut to oversee the chipping paint and dusty windows. It's an ancient city inside the walls, modernized enough but not too much, predominantly filled with residents rather than the likes of me, and neither crowded nor desolate. Buildings, streets and storefronts are clean and well-maintained and everything seems to just sort of work. One of the things I was struck by was seeing people getting out of work around 7pm (3 to 5 everything is shut down), the lack of urgency, stress on their faces, tiredness. No one ever seems under pressure, they walk 3, 4 or 5 abreast, chatting away and don't concern themselves with Americans who might be impatient and in a super rush for no particular reason other than conditioning. Drivers wait for pedestrians and don't seem resentful, and eating, drinking and talking appears to be one of the cornerstones of the life of a Sevilliano. I hope that for more than a week upon my return, I will remember how to lead a better, slower, more deliberate and content life,  convinced I'd get more out of it. 

OK, I do have to boast about one thing I did that gives me hope, no doubt inspired by my daughter who at the age of 9 had to covince me that it was worth waiting in a 5 minute line at the Tower of London to see the crown jewels. The airbnb owner was supposed to meet me at the place at an appointed time. When I exited the cab on a very narrow and fairly used sidewalk, with my excessive luggage, I got a text that he wouldn't be there for 45 minutes. I replied "no problem", took off my coat got out my book, enjoying it, the scenery and locals while the sun shone. 

A funny flavor to the week was the hundreds of Glaswegian rugger players that accompanied me almost everywhere I went. They were at the bull ring, tapas bars, afternoon cafes, where they sang their songs in unison while quaffing litres and litres of lager. And then they were at the airport, though not headed to Madrid as I was. How were they identifiable? Fluorescently white skin with ink, sports jerseys on every age, short hair, large in stature, burly. With an accent which was uninteligble, I first thought it was an Eastern European language. 

Hopefully I'll be back in Seville with a posse of friends, able to take over sections of cafes and tapas bars, but in the meantime, I've got a coat that smells like saffron, which I hope will hold me till then.

By the way, I got the best idea for a website that would be most excellent for travellers. Do you know anyone who can design interactive websites? LMK if so.

Off to the country of my birth and back to the grey.

So, London was to be the final stop for my most colorful auntie's 90th birthday. Life at her house in not difficult. As well as a beautiful exterior and interior, there's a classic English garden with grass as fine as Longwood's courts. The tidal Thames provides a trickling water sound and river light, and then there are piles of berries and yogurt for breakfast, the comfortingly familiar smell, stair and floor creaks, and non-contemporaneous hourly sounds of three clocks; grandfather, grandmother and animal roar. Always a cornucopia of people.

Wandering in and out were her son, who lives mainly in Malta and Tanzania, grandsons, one of whom lives similarly and the other who was leaving for Thailand in a few days, Belem, from the Philippines who works there, Andrew and Sal who had just retuned from the Canary Islands, Natalie Rose from many places, Josef, a Kew student from Munich, Brita from Petersham, Christine, Annie and Angus from Barnes. 

It was not to be a big tourist visit as the intention was to celebrate Sarah, to whom I did my best to explain that no amount of national fervor over the finals of Strictly Come Dancing (why Strictly?) was going to get me to sit through the two hour extravaganza. "Annie, come, you must come, you'll love this!" Mmmmm..... Instead, I joined her for a nature program about how to read the weather in clouds and decorate a Christmas tree for birds, also an imitation Antiques Roadshow featuring china cats and chipped enameled teaspoons.

On Sunday I wandered over to the Chiswick High Road for the monthly #cheesewick. Utrecht has markets many days and of course, cheese is featured and I confess to having made a habit of swinging by a certain stall when I felt peckish, sampling multiple varieties of gouda-like cheese, all tasting the same to me. So it was in that spirit of loutish greediness that I approached the stalls at Chiswick, which were generous with their samples. Joke was on me though, as I found myself with a bag full enough to lubricate 2 nights of most hedonistic cheese eating.

I have become one of those people who remembers back to when things were better and more interesting, doing my best to keep these thoughts to myself as I do also have some memory of how tiresome they were. Having spent quite a bit of time in London recently, there wasn't much desire, especially at Christmas, to hit the hotspots that no longer hold any mystery, so I decided to seek out an area I thought time might have forgotten

When I turned 24, I received a letter on thick paper with a fountain pen signature and an imprinted address in navy blue of Gray's Inn in London, notifying me that my grandmother had left me £20,000. There was something about the physical letter that made me try to imagine where it came from, so I decided to answer that question by picking up the check in person. It was a few years later when I flew over the pole from Portland, Oregon. Dressed in a suit, I found myself in a courtyard of red brick buildings on three sides, filled with men in pinstriped suits, bowler hats, handmade shoes and umbrellas. I was received in, offered a cup of tea and called Miss Asphar. The rest of the story isn't particularly interesting, but the memory was distinct enough that I was again curious about it.

Much simpler now with maps, I took the Upminster train to Holborn, got off and decided to pop into Pentreath and Hall, a shop that I found via the instagram of a talented architect and interior designer. Well, the shop was closed but Bloomsbury was quietly local with the ghosts of all those talented writers roaming around. Then I found it, that place I remembered, and knew immediately which door and felt how I had felt. No bowler hats, but the Etonian air prevailed, dark suits, no women and a lively lunch crowd in a hall most perfect for the British legal profession. I sat in the courtyard for a few minutes and thought about all that had transpired between then and now, wondering how my 24 year old self would have reacted had she known how life would turn out. For the most part, I believe she would have been happy, though some of the heartaches and disappointments would have stressed her out.

My aunt's party was a lunch for 26 with beaded African animals and masses of flowers on the tables. Getting there early, I stood with a glass of champagne, looking out the window onto the Devonshire Road, guessing, based on appearance, which pedestrians would be turning in, most often dead wrong. There was Lord So and So who had a dirty tie and fell asleep in his appetizer, a well-known kiteboarder, a palace gardener, a man with dreadlocks down to his feet, a handful of British women with rosy cheeks and frosted hair and a few rowdy young men. Better than a movie, really.

Thus ends a long and incredibly rich month and a half. Feeling grateful for all that's come to pass, all that I have. Happy New Year to you.

Listen, to begin with there really wasn't any choice about whether or not I'd play, having been born into a tennis family going back many generations. As you might divine from photographs, it wasn't all rainbows and unicorns in the early years; playing with family, playing with friends, playing in league matches, club tournaments, regional tournaments, playing inside in winter, playing paddle and on and on and on. 

Due to what went way beyond 10,000 hits, probably in the millions, I got into college thanks to tennis, but after a few rough early Saturday morning practices, quit the team and the sport in favor of nights of wild abandon, lasting some years. 

It took 25 years to return, and what I remember most was being outraged that my level of play was not what it had been, and that I no longer had the body of a 20 year old. But after a short and dangerous swerve into women's league tennis was reversed, I found my way. What I love thinking about, even now, is how a bunch of one-off interactions somehow turned into a life. Here was the very start of it:

As an adult, I started taking lessons at what we jokingly referred to as the grass courts of Pine Manor, because the cracks were prevalent, old and deep enough that there was almost as much grass as hard court. The friend who brought me to lessons there then introduced me to another player from Brookline who had her own court. The first time I played there, my big toenail was jamming into my sneaker each time I put the brakes on, causing me some pain. But really, who asks someone they don't know who has their own court for a time out and some toenail clippers? I suffered in silence, which led to my nail falling off the next day. But we played again, and again and again. We drank a beer or two, met for dinner, exchanged gardening tips, perennials, frustrations, concerns, plumbers, laughter, sunny destinations and so many hours on the court. And as I now know, she is the last person to stand on ceremony and would have happily taken a break and got me nail clippers, but I didn't know that then.

Paddle tennis became an additional layer of social glue. Early on, there weren't many women who played, so while we had a posse at the home club, the real action was at tournaments around New England that involved chatty early morning drives, the glare of winter sun or sting of rain/sleet/hail/snow, sweaty layers and if things went well, somewhere between 9 and 12 sets. Drives home tended to be on the quiet side. We competed against each other, but perhaps because of a shared need to be outside and active, the spirit was convivial. We made friends in Maine, Vermont, Rhode Island, Chicago, California, New Jersey, all over, really. OK, not Texas because there are no courts there. As any player will tell you, there's no better camaraderie than the post-tournament action in the hut. I often took comfort in losing quickly as it meant socializing sooner.

Over the years as we've continued to play together, life has had a tendency to happen, sometimes even interfering with our games. We've shared births, graduations, break ups, deaths, divorces, marriages, new houses, new jobs, lost jobs, kid issues, work frustrations, car accidents, illnesses and injuries, so many injuries. 

So yeah, traveling is great, I love it and will do it for as.long as I can. But returning, I've been struck by how lucky I am to be part of this group of funny, enthusiastic, caring, intelligent, talented, patient, determined, kind, curious and a little bit crazy women. As my mom often said "You meet the nicest people playing tennis." (paddle too)

No, I'm not there now, this is retrospective by quite a few years.

This morning I was having an old school phone chat with a friend who like me is moving away from default drinking in all social situations. It's interesting the reactions I get when I pass on the alcohol, from assumption that I'm joking, I'm a recovering alcoholic (usually a solemn nod with no words), and sometimes, something close to personally affrontery, as though I were letting down the team.

My friend was telling me about a family wedding she was dreading that was going to be enough of a social minefield that she wasn't going to drink, which she knew would be perceived as laying down the gauntlet with particular family members. As a joke, I suggested she also sharpen the spear by ordering a glass of milk, which launched into a funny story.

Back when I had even less sense than I do now, I was dating a musician whom I met and also worked with at Tanglewood. And recollecting, a shout out goes to him for giving me the best surprise ever. He had seen me drooling over old Mercedes 190SL convertibles, so on my birthday, showed up in one he had rented for the weekend and kindest of all, let me drive, despite his Nervous Nelly disposition. That was a great day.

We had been dating a while when it got to be that time when we either needed to meet each other's families or move along. He invited me to drive with him out to Kenosha, Wisconsin where his  8 brothers and sisters, their spouses and kids and his parents lived, he being the only one who had left town. A family tradition, they always put together and rode on a Fourth of July float, representing Kenosha Beef, his father's meat packing plant.

When we got there, I got a tour of the hotspots; the drive-in, Snap-on-Tools headquarters and most memorably, a tour of the Kenosha Beef plant. It was a Saturday, so very clean with no sign of blood, but there was that smell and the big fat bullets they put in the heads of the cows to "humanely" kill them. I did my best to be polite but couldn't wait to get out of there. 

I remember he was apologetic about Kenosha, which I thought was pretty country in an American plains kind of way, and also of his family, who were all very little and kind but slightly wary of me. Fourth of July came and I thew myself into float design and creation, affixing red, white and blue crepe paper, everywhere, but was a surprised when I wasn't handed the white pants and red shirt that all the other women received, complementing the men's white pants and blue shirts. Instead it was deemed to be more appropriate for me to be a spectator at what turned out to be a most incredible middle-American Fourth of July parade. While I didn't understand picture taking back then, I do wish with my heart and soul that I hadn't thrown my photographs out last year in a purge of pique.

Reuniting after what was deemed their float's tremendous success, we headed to the local Hilton, where a private dining room had been reserved for their rather large family. When the waiter came around to me, I asked if there was a vegetarian option and like that old EF Hutton commercial, the room went quiet and everyone turned around to look at me. 

There I was, sipping my glass of white wine and doing my best to enjoy a hamburger bun with plastic cheese and ketchup while the rest of the room avoided looking at me, enjoying their steaks with a glass of milk. 

Needless to say....

At the risk of going Uncle Colm on you (who may be the best character ever created, though Sister Michael comes mighty close), this one may be a bit of a conversational wander. 

The other night at a dinner party, a guest mentioned that her glasses were always dirty, another that contacts were expensive. I was asked if my contacts were each different strengths, to which I replied in the affirmative, after all these years wondering why. 

I wear them for racquet sports, hiking and the gym. While they're great at helping me see the ball come hurtling at my face, there's a level of detail I've never had while wearing them. When I lived in Brookline Village, if I there was a person walking towards me, it was likely someone I knew, but couldn't actually tell who it was until they got awkwardly close. Fortunately, most people had dogs, which became an aid to helping me identify them earlier, making for a confident hello with a name and a smile. 

Today at my gym, I had to laugh to myself at the ways my life has changed based on this particular identification challenge. In a neighborhood where I know few people, my prior worries no longer exist, now it's the challenge of identifying which young, pumped up white dude I'm looking at when I climb the eliptical mountain. Two things have been a great help: tattoos and hair. The predominant haircut is shorter in the back with a big wavy curtain hanging over their often broken out forehead, perhaps for the purpose of not having to acknowledge other humans. There are (still) also a few samurai mini pony tails with shaved hair underneath. As I move forward in my gym habitat, I will endeavor to begin cataloging the tattoos and report back (I'm not there yet).

While the same chain as the gym I went to in the Village, the luxurious Cleveland Circle branch, at least twice the size, has a whole different vibe. The people who work there are friendly and helpful, always with a greeting and a smile, putting up signs that say KEEP BEING AWESOME in the women's locker room and ONE MORE REP near the free weights. When I began going, I had a pretty bad foot injury which limited my "exercise" to walking, so began with short stays on the eliptical while watching Mujer on the TV to hopefully learn a word or two in Spanish. But I loved watching the guys and some women pump iron and got it into my head that for the first time, I was going to pay for a personal trainer. I could see where I wanted to go, but knew the road was long and I didn't know how to get there.

I hadn't seen Carlos since pre-COVID, when he had led an Abs class I took for many years in the Village. He was great with us older folk, modifying exercises, never calling us maggots and giving up on including burpees after we all refused to do them. He came to class with a great playlist, sharing his encyclopedic knowledge of music by giving us backgrounds on the performers and songs. So, I was delighted he had moved over to my new gym and knew he understood my pace and needs. I was thinking free weights, boxing or even jujitsu, which I knew he specialized in. I could wait to get going!

At our first session, he did an assessment, asking me to squat, do a lunge, touch my toes. From there, we began by me doing a toe touching stretch on a wedge, calves one way and hamstrings another. Then there was some other stretching; knees, ankles, shoulders, hips and before I knew it, time was up. Despite what seemed more like PT than a gym session, I wobbled out of there and the next day, thought hard about getting a raised toilet seat for times like this. 

I was diligent about doing the things he had taught me every few days and looked forward to diving in the following week. Same thing. At the end of that session, I told him that I had this stuff down and could do it on my own, I wanted to learn other things, particularly core and cardio. Despite my request, following week, same thing.

So yeah, reality is crashing in hard to my vision of becoming like the tattooed dudes and mop heads on the free weights, but like any exercise I've ever done, I know the secret is to put my head down and put everything into it and have faith that it will get me somewhere. As Wawrinka has tattooed on his arm, Trust the Process. It's mind bendingly boring work, but keeps me out on the courts. 

And if you haven't watched Derry Girls yet, you're in for a treat.

I have been looking longingly at my photographs from last year's road trip across the country. It's about the time of year I set off and well, there's not much good to be said about February in New England. My prevailing memory is actually a feeling, of being deeply moved by the absurd abundance of these wide open spaces. Abundance of air, time, of sky, trees, varieties of rocks and mountains, kinds of people, ways to live, and thanksfully, Love's truck stops. It made me feel a strong sense of all the life, literal and figurative, that's out there to be tapped into if we can keep our eyes open and be receptive. 

It would be fair to say that accessing a feeling of abundance doesn't marry easily with consulting work. There's always another candidate or client that needs to be unearthed, cramming me into a corner. Luckily, before returning from my roadie, I found an audio book called The Abundance Project. Like anything self-help, it can be hokey but the predominant message has pulled me back to a happy mindset whenever I begin to get worried about money, time, my cranky foot, erratic forehand drive or the leaky faucet that I know will lead to a big plumbing project. It usually only takes a few minutes of listening to produce a reframe and a deep sigh, leading to some of my most productive and insightful work.

Extrapolating on this led to the hybrid European trip at the end of 2023. While much of it was spent with family and friends, or working, there was a solo week in Seville that got me thinking. It's a beautiful city, the people were endearing, but frustratingly, the social fabric of the city was woven in the evenings at tapas bars, in big groups of which I was not part! I wanted in. 

So, yes, I'm still stuck on the tapas bar the women who let me in to my airbnb told me about. The one that wasn't touristy, was nearby that I walked by quite a few times before getting up the cojones to go in, that turned out to not be so fun alone. But, seriously, who's going to be in Spain for a week and not go to a tapas bar?? Maybe at my age, I don't have to worry about being hit on the way I would have when I was 28, but the scars are still there and it's awkward at best to be a solo woman at a bar or restaurant at night. 

When I got back to the US, a friend sent me this video about women traveling solo. Yes, days alone are the best, whether working or exploring or buying groceries, but the nights need help, falling into either the dull or stressful category. It occurred to me that I'd love to host a traveler in Boston, making life even more abundant, and figured maybe other women would feel the same way. Certainly not for everyone (one friend replied "great idea, sounds like hell"), but for the traveling sisterhood, a way to connect might be just the thing. So, I've created this website to bring us together with "host" women in the city we're visiting. It's not a dating site, but an opportunity to enjoy a dinner out, with a local woman at an un-touristy restaurant. 

Hopefully you'll click on the site (in beta). You may notice there are many whited out locations, meaning there aren't any hosts in those cities yet. In fact, the only places that currently have hosts are Boston (me) and Adelaide (my cousin Clara who, though we are only related through paternal great grandparents who were siblings, look very much alike). 

I have some asks. When you have a few minutes of downtime: (1) If you're a woman and live near a touristy city, can you sign up to host? (there's no expectation that you need to be regularly available), (2) f you know women in other big cities around the world, can you send the website link and ask them if they'd be open to hosting? And finally, (3) if you're a woman traveling alone, please keep the site in mind which will hopefully become populated with hosts soon. 

Muchas gracias.(about the only two words I was able to use in Spain)

Last weekend, I was in Portland with a friend who has known me through many different iterations. We were wandering the docks and enjoying an unseasonal spring day while walking off our absurdly delicious Eventide brown butter lobster rolls, fried oysters and scallop ceviche, making room for the M&Ms we'd consume on the drive home. 

We were reviewing our week and I told her about what seemed a pretty big revelation.A few days prior, bored on the T in the tunnel where the train moves slower than molasses, I broke my rule about never reading the paper and logged onto The Guardian, hurrying past photos of Donald Trump and the profound inhumanity in Gaza and Rafah, to what seemed a benign article about an ADHD diagnosis and a marriage. I was surprised by how much I could relate to the issues the writer had, and sent it off to someone who had, despite being far from hyper, impulsive or socially inappropriate, self-diagnosed herself with ADHD. A lot of back and forth transpired with links shared and exclamation marks, resulting in both of us being pretty sure we had ADHD.

When I told my friend in Portland, she laughed, in disbelief that this was news to me. Wearer of the same badge, she asked me a few times if I had never suspected I had ADHD and I honestly (and appropriately for someone with the diagnosis) replied that I didn't remember., but didn't think so. 

I had lazily thought that ADHD was that thing little boys had, identified by hyperactivity and impulsivity. Not surprisingly, in women it's quieter and harder to diagnose, often leading to adverse effects on a woman's emotional well being. Luckily, this other woman and I have not had to deal with depression or anxiety, but there have been other things that are hard. We shared the shame of teachers telling us we were smart but weren't making an effort. And then there are other every day life things: unintentional double booking that insults or annoys friends, impatience for waiting in lines, an inability to do anything repetitive. Maybe the hardest thing is being genuinely enthusiastic about something one day and the next, not having the slightest interest.

Because other people can deal with things that I have not been able to, I'll get frustrated with myself that I can't do any better and feel bad about it and about me. As an example, I have blamed myself by pinning many of my problems on excessive weed smoking when I was young (I'm sure that didn't help...). So, I'm hoping that labeling the problem and getting to the root if it may help to get rid of the feeling bad part. Now it seems  there's a possibility that some of these problems aren't the result of something I did, aren't a result of a lack of will or good intention, but structural. 

Despite the potential of this self-diagnoses alleviating bad feelings I've had in the past, I remain ambivalent. All these years that I haven't known, I have been pushed to create systems for myself and ways of dealing with life, allowing me to at least partially harness some these challenges and be a problem solver and self-reliant rather than feel like.a victim. I make lists, I purge, I always put my keys in the same place, I rarely plug into media. I've a fear that I'm going to start feeling sorry for myself, be helpless, take the easy road. In the first draft of this post, my writing was undisciplined in a way it usually isn't, wandering down different paths, but then a hard edit came, phew. I am curious to see if the drill sergeant in my head will remain, telling me to parse words and keep to the story, or whether I'll allow myself to go off on some wild word adventures Only time will tell.

It's been a week of many journeys, starting with the kind of mistake I've made so many times when trying to get something off quickly. Setting up a board hiring committee interview, I forgot to include a form that assesses the candidate they were to talk to, only remembering the next morning which is really too late. So they had to make up their own. These kinds of repeated mistakes make my stomach hurt and give me a feeling of powerlessness, they sit with me for days. How could I have done that? Again?? No matter how much I am committed to doing better, it is so far unsustainable. Lest you have changed your mind about hiring me for an executive search, I am good at creating a job scope and unbelievable at unearthing unlikely candidates, creating interview scripts, selling candidates on an opportunity, and closing the deal, it's just these little details that trip me up.

I had received an email from a Mexican woman named Bessie who owns a restaurant serving delicious tamales, among other things. She and I had been recently introduced because her "startup" Friends Who Dine, dovetails in an interesting way with my 24dinner. When I expressed interest in joining her at her next dinner out, she sent an email newsletter that I forwarded to Nat, who brought to my attention some small print about an Iranian Film Festival taking place at the MFA. Having committed to staying put in cold, grey Boston for a few months, I was craving more colorful sights and signed up for tickets immediately.

Terrestrial Verses was 8 vignettes. If you might see the movie, skip this paragraph. A man is at the birth registry getting a certificate for his newly born son. After proving payment and birth, he was asked by the man behind the counter what the baby's name would be to which he replied "David". Then the question "Why David?" to which the new father responded that it was a name his wife had chosen after her favorite author. The dialog continued as the bureaucrat, in a conciliatory tone that implied the father was not being reasonable, told him David was not an Iranian name, the baby could not be called David. After much back and forth, the vignette ends with the new father about to call his wife, we assume to ask her for another name. The other vignettes told the same story in different situations; a high school girl who had been seen on a motorcycle, a little girl wearing western clothes who was made to wear a full burka, a man applying for a job who was quizzed on his Shia rituals, a man who is made to take his shirt off to display his tattoos in order to get a driver's license. All the vignettes shared a person in power who had a chilling combination of a warmth and feigned camaraderie with a rigidity you might associate with 80's Eastern Bloc, which to me felt like crazy. The eerie combination somehow seemed crueler than straight up cold and mean.

A few nights later, I attended the dinner that Bessie organized, which was wonderful (sign up if that's your sort of thing, we had such fun) and listened to her mother talk about giving up her law practice in Mexico when her husband died suddenly, so that her daughter could receive a good education in the US, the challenges they have faced as a result, better explained on the website noted above than by me. And here she was, the matriarch of the table, beautifully dressed and more elegant than all of us put together, with her daughter, a dynamo who has an unfair amount of positive energy. 

A young, sweet and helpless newly arrived Haitian couple in Brockton had asked me to drive them to a Bank of America so that he could open an account. The first appointment he could get was on March 7th, more than 2 weeks out, and they wouldn't allow him to sign his paycheck over to his wife, who already had an account there. The couple needed to pay rent before then so we drove to the bank of record on his ADP check, TD Bank. They have purple and green lollipops, sports on TV, free pens and employees who wear fleece vests that say TD Bank. But they don't have cash for refugees. His passport was the wrong flavor as was his federal ID. How about if he opened an account? No. Could they open a joint account? No. When we decided to try opening an account at Harbor One, a local bank, our faith in humanity was restored. The unfortunate part was that I had been down there to help them get set up for job hunting, and because they had, honestly almost insurmountable logistics that had to take precedence, we weren't able to get to that work. Did I mention that they didn't have coats? Words can't begin to describe the hills they are climbing to get established.

Friends and family who are having health issues seems to have ramped up. Moms sick or in hospice, girls painfully young facing debilitating illnesses, sons fighting hard to conquer addictions, husbands receiving surprise diagnoses. I will certainly devote a post to my niece, in the photograph above, who has begun to post raw photographs of her excruciatingly difficult experience, none without a smile. There is a shock and heaviness that caring family members carry that is not possible to articulate, perhaps not even possible to identify while in the middle of it. 

I haven't even mentioned the young couple who insisted they make me a delicious dinner, despite the husband having MS so smokes weed all day to dull the pain, while the wife works way too hard. You likely know where this is going. I forgot an attachment on an email? 

Gratitude is a charged word for many of us. It often feels like "stop whining, there are so many worse off people than you, be grateful." While true, inducing guilt doesn't actually help anyone, so as much as it has been messaging that has framed a good part of my life, I try to dismiss that particular flavor. This week, I had the privilege of intimately sharing lives of different kinds and a shocking number of struggles (all real but one). There in front of me were all the blessings I've got right now, may not have forever, but have right now.


PS The Persian Version was a fun movie