Growing up  Was like fighting my way out of a ball of yarn  Warm yarn.  Loving yarn.  Intelligent but myopic yarn. Lutheran yarn.  German Lutheran yarn.  Eventually, bits of German Lutheran fuzz all over me,  In my eyes, in my brain,  I got out:  Stranger in a strange land.  I...

Every now and then, I think about a conversation I had many years ago with one of my professors. We were talking about travel. He was saying how important he thought it was to venture beyond the main tourist paths. “You don’t even have to go very far,” he said....

I was thirty-one years old. I had two fine arts degrees, both in printmaking. “Printmaking?” an acquaintance once commented. “That’s like having a degree in dressage.” In terms of usefulness or relevance, he meant. Or employability. I was onto something now, though, working at a graphic design and typesetting business...