There’s a stranger standing in my yard as I write this. He’s wearing a suspiciously floppy canvas hat and carrying a glinting, metallic object in his right hand. A year ago, when I was living in town, this scene would have inspired me to call the local police with an invitation to come on over. But I’ve learned to expect the occasional wanderer in my yard. I know it’s not me they’re after; it’s the fish.…read more

I'm standing inside the Louis XV Room, where Edith and George Vanderbilt, Biltmore's original owners, welcomed their only daughter, Cornelia, into the world. It's an intimate space, part of a suite of four rooms forever associated with scenes of quiet domestic bliss. But I am seeing it without its makeup, in the midst of a restoration, cluttered with drop cloths and cans of paint. The walls, shorn of their elegant covering, are bare, paste-colored like the yellowed underside of an antique postage stamp…read more

Dan Lebbin is sitting on a motel patio—in full view of traffic—when he exclaims in horror, “I’m naked!” This is cause for concern, but it can’t distract him from the tiny bird flitting from a power line to a tree that’s shedding pink tissue-paper petals. He leans forward, squinting, wishing he could get a better look. When the bird finally darts behind a house, he slumps back in his lawn chair and sets his sights skyward…read more / view gallery

It’s 4 p.m. on a Saturday in Ellerbe, North Carolina, and though the races are not scheduled to start for another two hours, a lively tailgating scene has already formed. William English, a regular, is with his little boy, who timidly approaches some of the drivers for autographs. William says, “That boy only likes three things in this world: school lunches, dinosaurs, and the lawn-mower races.”... read more

It's unsettling to have a severed, still-warm bull's ear hurtling toward you—something I discovered firsthand—but being the target of a projectile body part during a Spanish bullfight is considered an honor. I learned this cultural tidbit from reading Ernest Hemingway. My journey with the writer began many years ago with a poster, a $3 thrift store find that, at first glance, didn't seem to have anything to do with Hemingway…read more / view gallery

My mother-in-law is looking at me as if I've just said I'd like to go dancing around her suburban Milwaukee neighborhood in a tutu, holding 20 sparklers in each hand. "Polka?" she says incredulously. "You want to go hear a polka band?" My request must seem surprising…read more

I live in Southern Appalachia, a region where curb proximity is often valued as much as curb appeal. Given this, I wasn't surprised when a friend's first question about my new house was, "How long does it take you to go out and get your mail?" I admitted that the task required taking a little hike…read more

I've been at the Corpus Christi festival in Cuenca, Ecuador, for over an hour before I notice Maria, the small-for-her-age 8-year-old I befriended a few weeks ago after she'd asked if my canvas tennis shoes needed shining. They hadn't, but Maria seemed to find my spotty Spanish interesting. In the weeks since we met, she's taught me a plethora of gestures considered rude in her culture, and I've taught her to play patty-cake…read more

I'm leaving my house with a rolling suitcase and a passport. I look as though I'm off on a Roman holiday, but the suitcase actually holds a surplus of books and the passport is for identification in a human resources office. I've just signed up to teach a writing class for freshman at the local university, and I have no idea what I'm getting myself into…read more

The man sitting next to me on this flight is having a spiritual experience. Actually, he’s remembering a spiritual experience, but the wild, alert expression on his face is evocative of someone giving religious testimony. His memory has been sparked by my confession that I am headed to the Mexican state of Michoacan to see millions of monarch butterflies congregate in its mountains…read more / view gallery

It was the flash cards that prompted Helen White to speak up. Seven years ago, the school counselor at Sparta Elementary School was observing a third-grade music class when the teacher held up pictures of stringed instruments…read more

I consider myself a good sport. But my sporting ability – well, that's another matter. Two other prospective archers, Melissa and Irene, are standing in front of me at the archery range in England. They look as though they know what they're doing, and, even though their arrows are not quite making it to the target, I'm impressed… read more

My fiancé, Matt, and I are standing on a roadside in Kentucky deciding whether we want an old cast iron sink full of mud. For some, this might be an easy choice. But we are playing the is-it-a-piece-of-junk-or-an-antique-worth-saving game… read more / view gallery

Postcard 1:  I have just reached my hotel in Quito, Ecuador. It is a city screaming with bus brakes and rabid dogs. I am already weary, but I pause to talk to a woman who has set up shop on the stoop outside of the lobby. Her name is Rosa. She is 79 years old, and she has spread her white linens over gray cement where they appear as fully bloomed lilies growing in stark contrast to such a gritty city…read more

I noticed the puma on my first day in town. The cartoonish, carved wooden mask hung just inside the open door of a store next to the hotel where I was staying during my time in Cuenca, Ecuador…read more

Unlike our parents, as my generation navigates the professional world we are faced with a job market that expects us to move on after a few years so they can hire younger, inexperienced workers whom they can pay less. The corporate ladder may have been in place a generation ago, but we're the ones for whom the rungs have been spread out across the country and all over the world... read more

To reluctant skiers, the bunny slopes of Colorado look more like bears. I am one of them...read more

There must be hundreds of claw-foot tubs in this field. They're lined up in long, straight rows that, from a distance, might look like cotton waiting to be harvested. The owner of this offbeat crop, Mr. Faircloth, is known in my small town as the "tub man." ...read more

“Can you believe this is here?” Gary asks, heavy sadness in his eyes. By trade, he is a biologist, but I know he is not referring to an out-of-place species. He is referring to the people. They are all around us, mining the garbage of Quito, Ecuador...read more

Ladybugs are, well, ladylike houseguests. I should know; I hosted dozens this winter. Living in an old farmouse, I'm used to unexpected guests...read more

When my plane touches down in Guadalajara, Mexico, I disembark with a plastic bound conversational Spanish guide and a small rolling suitcase. The agency arranging the home stay for my study abroad hadn't been able to give me any details about the woman I would be living with for the next few months. So, I search the crowd looking for my mysterious hostess...read more

The concrete-and-tile house in which I'm living in Boquete, Panama, is often filled with echoes of the indecipherable chatter from the restaurant next door. It is patronized by men in evenly pleated Panamanian shirts and women in flower print, polyester dresses...read more

I cringed when I saw the bicycles. They looked harmless, stacked like dominoes against the wooden fence. But dominoes were designed to fall, and so, in my experience, were bicycles...read more