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In a blinding moment of clarity
Have you ever had one of those blinding moments of clarity? You know, the ones that make you see everything in a completely new light? I was invited to dinner a few days ago. As I broke bread with this wonderful family, I sat beside their eldest son. I’ve watched him grow up for the past few years, starting as a shy boy starting grade 9 in a new country. Now in grade 12, he’s a polite and handsome young man with a shock of black hair, bright sparkling eyes and olive skin. He was confidently telling me about his… Read more…
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Looking back – way back – at a big adventure
It seems impossible to believe that it is 30 years ago to the week that I started a grand adventure. A scared 18 year old, I boarded a plane on my own, first to Frankfurt and then on to Istanbul, Turkey. I was headed off on a year-long Rotary Youth Exchange Program, preparing to live with another family and go to high school in a country I had only learned the location of some six months earlier. Nervous “Inbounds” in Istanbul: Sept. 1985 The process of being selected to be an exchange student was arduous. The application forms, multiple rounds of… Read more…
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Young love
I went to a movie with my daughter the other day all about young love. A real tear jerker, it made many of the teenage girls seated all around us sob. I guess I must be getting older, because I only let a single tear roll down my cheek when the grandfather told his comatose granddaughter that it was ok if she needed to leave them. But the movie stirred up memories of first loves and the impact they have. The thrill the first time a boy notices you. The anguish when he ends it. The way you feel when the… Read more…
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Rekindle – or shelve – the dreams of youth?
Ah, youthful dreams. Our whole live are ahead of us. We haven’t had to make choices that narrow the field, so the sky is the limit in terms of what we might be and do…. If you reader my blog regularly, you probably know that I spent the last year of my high school days living in Istanbul and that I fell in love with the city and its people. Of course, those exchange years come with an end date, and I knew I had to come home at the end of it, despite how difficult that was. I had… Read more…
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The call of Istanbul
Istanbul’s “Old City”, at sunset, from the Asian side of the city. On the eve of municipal elections in Turkey, and after international media coverage of Twitter and YouTube bans, my mind is occupied with thoughts of this country. Years and years ago (we won’t count how many), I spent my last high school year in Istanbul, on an exchange program through Rotary International. I lived with three lovely Turkish families – one on the Asian side of the city and two on the European side. With my school on the Asian side, that meant for more than half of the… Read more…
