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Seasons of the Sea

During my Pennsylvania childhood, the seasons paraded through the years in lockstep formation: Spring’s promises and petals. Summer’s lush ripeness. Autumn’s harlequin leaves. Winter’s icy grip. Here on the Northern California coast, the indomitable wind and waves have created seasons of their own: Upwelling (March through July), Relaxation (late summer through October), and Storm (November through February).

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Growing A New Brain

When you learn a language, a linguist once told me, you see with new eyes, listen with new ears, speak with a new tongue. In essence, you grow a new brain. As I began my coastal wonderings, waves of words—some entirely new, others familiar but with different meanings—washed over me.  I quickly realized that I would need a new vocabulary as well as a new brain.

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The Edge of Edges

California’s Route One surfs the rim of the Pacific— swerving, curving, diving into gorges, curling around coves, spiraling up cliffs.  Sixty-five miles north of San Francisco  the rambling road skids into my town, the incorrigibly funky fishing port of Bodega Bay, immortalized in Hitchcocks’s The Birds.

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A New Chapter in a Writer’s Life

Like a book, a life has many chapters. My latest began in 2020.  For more than a decade, I had been writing books—La Bella Lingua: My Love Affair with the World’s Most Enchanting Language, Mona Lisa: A Life Discovered, and La Passione: How Italy Seduced the...

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