Some summers stay with you long after they end. I have a feeling this will be one of them. Not because of where I went. But because of the way I learned to see. It was almost ten-thirty at night, and the light still refused to disappear. I was sitting outside in a small restaurant in Paris. The table was covered with a white tablecloth. Around me, conversations lingered. Nobody seemed in a hurry to finish the evening. Every few minutes, the sky changed again. Blue softened into gold. Gold...

There is a city that has quietly accompanied me for most of my adult life. I first arrived in Paris when I was twenty-three, just out of the army, my heart broken in the way only a first great heartbreak can break it, completely, with no idea who you are on the other side. I didn’t come looking for healing. But one afternoon I stood near the Louvre, looking up at all that stone and history, and something in me went still. I understood, without yet having words for it, that I was standing in...

There is a piece of desert in me that has been there for as long as I can remember. Since the first time I stood in that silence and felt, inexplicably, at home. In the desert I have loved. I have healed a broken heart. I have learned what longing really means. This trip to Israel was just the boys and me. Three teenagers, suitcases, endless opinions, and 10 days together. When you travel alone with kids, every decision feels a little heavier. Where to go. What matters. What is worth a full...