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.
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.
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...