My blog has a new home, here on my new website! Welcome! I haven't written much in the last few years through reentry. This past...

I keep hearing people talk about things “going back to normal” soon. Spoiler alert: I don’t think we’re going to back to normal. I...

I’ve long loved the look of watercolor painting and wished I could do it myself. Seeing a friend share some of her beginning watercolor...

Re-entry is hard, in many ways even harder than living overseas. In re-entry, you are trying to sort out a massive change in identity,...

Peterson Beach With What I Think Are Pitcher Thistles, a Threatened Species Native to Great Lakes Dunes “We have traveled this day / to...

There’s a question I’ve come to dread in my life: “Where are you from?” I’ve been asked this question many times by many people, in...

“Let Love clasp Grief lest both be drown’d” –“In Memoriam A.H.H.” stanza 1, Lord Alfred Tennyson Love clasping grief as I said goodbye to...

One way I’ve been dealing with my re-entry shock and our isolation is by experimenting with cooking Chinese food. I didn’t cook Chinese...

A couple of years ago, I arrived back in Beijing on about March 17. A few days later, I noticed that the lilac bushes in my apartment...