For the past 12 years, I’ve been writing a book about secrets – my spy dad’s and mine. Every day that I wrote, I was immersed in feelings. Love. Sadness. Fear. Lots of that. But I just kept doing it – kept sitting with memories, doubts, and questions. I had so many questions. About my …
As Aleppo falls, I think of an old Tibetan man who kept refilling my glass with buttery yak tea at a café in downtown Lasa. I think of so many of the people I met while traveling last year: the construction worker in Myanmar, who transported a stack of bricks on her head; the swimmer …
Cuba was my father’s first assignment with the CIA. He was young, only 26, when he began working at the Board of Estimates. His job was to monitor the intelligence on missile deployment in Cuba. “I watched the whole thing,” he said to me once, “saw the entire build up.” He joined the agency of …
One of the things traveling for a year revealed to me was how much stuff my wife and I had. On the road, we had very little – one suitcase, one backpack and one day bag. We got used to needing and using less. It felt good to travel light and wearing the same clothes …
I’m back after traveling for a year, trying to make sense of things. Who am I? Which life do I go back to? Sometimes I catch myself wanting to fill my days with completely unexplored paths and places. But then that’s not quite it either. It’s more than that. Or deeper. What I’m really hungry …
Everyone in Cambodia is young. Tuk-tuk drivers look like they are in their late teens or early twenties. Hotel and restaurant staff look twenty-something too. Outside the city of Siem Reap, young mothers walk along the roads with small children. Outside a handful of monks and nuns, I hardly saw anyone who looked elderly. People …
Traditionally dressed Tibetan men in wide brim hats and heavy, dark coats, and women in long, multi-colored skirts stand near the entrance to the courtyard where I’ve come to take photos. I’m in Tibet for a week and during one of my wanderings a faded yak skull hanging on a shop door catches my eye. I move …
The sounds of talking are distant, bouncing off trees and walkways. I’ve made the morning trek up Takao Mountain outside of Tokyo with my partner and many other tourists. Everyone has come to see the main Buddhist temple further up the mountain. Soon enough, I will see it too. It will be vibrant with color …
I have difficulty interrupting others. I wait my turn, look for an appropriate opening, one in which I can respectfully assert my view without cutting someone off or talking over anyone. I generally don’t like to interrupt, but sometimes it can’t be avoided. Like when transgender rights activist Jennicet Gutierrez interrupted President Obama’s speech at a recent …
The Cuban flag now hangs at the newly re-opened Cuban embassy in Washington D.C. The Cold War freeze is thawing. But I wonder what Dad would have thought about these changes. He worked on the Cuban Missile Crisis after all, and growing up I remember hearing plenty of criticism of Castro and other totalitarian leaders. …
