Turkish filbert leaf, nut, catkin.

Life at Home and Abroad

The distinction between home and abroad, here and there, us and them gets both blurred and accentuated when you’re getting more mileage from your passport than your driver’s license. Sometimes objects and people are closer than they appear, sometimes farther away. The essays and anecdotes in this section examine life at home and abroad from both ends of the telescope and either side of the mirror.

A Disturbing Thing Happened on My Street

By Gary Lee Kraut

One day you’re walking down your street on your way home, taking in a view that you’ve seen a thousand, no, ten thousand times, when a disturbing thing happens: there among the ever-so-familiar surroundings of sidewalks and buildings, streetlamps and awnings, shade, trunks, and leaves, something seems off.

It’s just a small detail, a spiny husk fallen from the tree, for example, but when you bend down for a closer look you realize that you never knew the tree in your street bore such fruit.


Dunkin’ Donuts in New Jersey and That Cute Little Café in the Loire Valley Travelers more spiritual than I sometimes say that “it’s all about the journey,” but I disagree. I think it’s all about the people, the place, and me/you among and within them. It’s about being local. Travel local while you can and save “the journey” for when you’re reflecting on things back home. That’s what I say–or at least that’s what I find myself thinking this afternoon in Dunkin’ Donuts in West Trenton, New Jersey. Read More
On Being The Press New Year’s Eve—I've been visiting my mother in New Jersey. The other day I invited her to come with me to visit the Philadelphia Art Museum and the city’s Rodin Museum. She was ironing at the time, preparing her bags for winter in Florida. Read More
Of Cats and Friends Travel writing can be solitary work, but a travel writer with a cat needs friends. I used to leave my cat Moumoon with Isabelle, but whenever I returned to Paris her daughter would cry that I was stealing her cat. Corrine would be willing, but she doesn’t care for cats; once or twice she did keep Moumoon, but waking up to his steely stare from the head of the bed creeps her out. Jean-François would be willing, too, but he creeps Moumoon out since Moumoon associates Jean-François, who also happens to be his vet, with needles and pain. Read More
Cross-Cultural Insights into Health or How I Spent My Winter Vacation Only an expatriate can understand the pleasure of returning home without having to be someone’s guest. There’s no place like home, of course, and there’s no freedom like being there alone. Read More
Fear and Loafing in Paris A message from Sue arrived today through the website: “My husband Phil and I are considering visiting Paris this winter… I’m wondering if I’m concerned that the French are so anti-American?” I’m not sure whether to take that as a question, a comment, or a thought bubble, but the grammar seems sincere enough to warrant a response. It’s been a while since I’ve r Read More