On Pandemic Writing, Journeys Within, and Creative Possibility (Princeton Arts Alumni)
A look at my creative work during the pandemic, for Princeton Arts Alumni’s new online space, On Craft & Process.
My Great-Grandfather’s Saddle Rug Helps Me Remember a Tibet That’s Gone (Catapult)
Contemplating the mandala design of the saddle rug draws me into my great-grandfather’s story in a similar way, I like to think, as meditating on a mandala opens the door to its inner geography. It helps me keep hold of him, and of a Tibet that’s vanished…
New Tibetan Photographers: Beyond Shangri-la (Tricycle)
“Foreign photographers have shaped the Western images of Tibet. Now Tibetans are taking control of the camera.” A talk with Oxford Professor Clare Harris about her work on photography and Tibet.
My Father, Montaigne, and the Art of Living (Catapult)
A Notable in Best American Essays 2021, and featured in Memoir Monday. I explore what I learned from my father, and Montaigne, about how to live well. “As a philosopher and a physician, my father wasn’t afraid of dying; if anything, he feared coming to the end of his life not having lived.”
How a Tibetan Turquoise Pendant Keeps Me Close to Home (Catapult)
In giving me her pendant, was my mother not only wishing me well on my journey but handing over our family’s story?