My husband is transported by music: a half-hour of vintage salsa refreshes his outlook like little else. Although he doesn't need to analyze the "why" to benefit from the practice, I looked into it. The reason that listening to music makes us feel good dopamine, the same pleasure chemical that encourages us to eat, sleep and…
It was like there was a spotlight on us on that sunny day, a spotlight and a megaphone blasting “Here are American children alone” all up and down the street. I waited for something to happen...
Bogotá, Colombia November, 1964 When my mother wrote this to her parents, we'd been in Bogotá for a year,…
The ground was sprinkled white by the time we pulled up to Mom’s childhood home on Wilson Street in Winona. It looked like the coating of powdered sugar from the Embassy commissary that Mom shook to over our Norwegian Christmas cookies.
There stood a witch. A long horrible nose quivered in the middle of a face framed by stringy black hair. She opened her mouth, revealing a few yellow teeth and dark holes where other teeth should have been.
“So, you’re cheating,” Mom said, sitting back against her chair. She looked at me, tapping her fingers on the chair arms for what seemed like a very long time. Then, she folded her arms in front of her chest. I waited for the other shoe to drop.
By the time you’re halfway through your second tour, third tour bidding goes from an abstract concept to very applicable. The end of first and second tour “directed assignments” means the beginning of your own advocacy to get your next Foreign Service position.
The nomadic life of my youth taught me four things: 1) be at home where you are; 2) let go when it's time; 3) settle in fast; and 4) forget there's anywhere else to be. This cycle puts you right back at 1) being at home where you are.
Before Hispanic Heritage Month 2018 comes to a close, let me jump aboard with this declaration: I am half-Norwegian, one-quarter Scottish, one-quarter German ... and 100 percent Hispanic.
I am writing today as a daughter whose father, Robert C. Amerson, also served a mission to his country, a place organized around inspiring ideals, our best selves affirmed by principals worth defending, an America that is generous, welcoming, bold, resourceful, and secure because of our capacity to inspire others