Lefty Parent

FYI… a number of circumstances have kept me from posting these last few weeks, but hopefully I am back to regular posts…

Starting in early July of 1996 just prior to her seventh birthday, our daughter Emma had her world disrupted by a series of calamities over the next two years that profoundly shook her world and led eventually to a severe separation anxiety that she, her mom and I would come to refer to as “The Phase”. Somehow I think giving this issue a name and referring to it almost as an entity unto itself, helped Emma finally put it behind her and move forward with her life. continue reading »

Nearly two months into my European odyssey, on a train from northern Italy to Switzerland, a weary traveler and somewhat of a lost soul, I entered what I recall as the Saint Gotthard Tunnel, under the Alps, and emerged into a completely transformed world and a new chapter in my existential journey with fresh insight into the human condition. (Note that I may have actually gone through a different tunnel of comparable length, as noted by someone who read this piece with a good knowledge of Western European railway geography, though at the time that was my recollection.) continue reading »