Lessons from My College Son, While We Were Home Together (The Washington Post)
This is what happened when my son flew back to the nest from college because of COVID-19. “We fell into familiar rhythms — meals together, walks around the city, long talks — but with one big difference: My son is now an adult. He’s also part of the politically aware generation born between the mid-1990s and early 2000s that includes environmental activist Greta Thunberg and gun control advocate Emma González.”
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.”