“I’ve been around the world…” A year ago today, I woke up in Germany for the first time. If I close my eyes, and tune out Sting on the stereo, I can still picture that morning. We had arrived at our hotel in Andernach quite late. I remember standing at the window the next morning looking over the biergarten below our room and admiring the age of the stone gate across the road. The light was golden in an early fall sort of way, gilding my nervousness for this adventure with a fierce excitement. Despite the long day of travel …

“I figure if they don’t come home with scrapes and bruises, then they are not learning anything.” I enjoyed a walk with a certain young man, all of 20 months old, and his parents yesterday. The day was lovely in the way that summer-to-fall transition days often are, simultaneously warm and golden, yet still somehow cool and foggy. We walked among hills burnished with dry grasses and small-leaved members of the sage family, in a sea of feathery pampas grass waving over our heads. By our feet, the blackberry leaves were starting to shift from green to reddish-brown. Our climb …

“My name is Moby, and I have a dirty little secret to confess… I like to go out to raves and dance until 7:00 a.m.!” We enjoyed Moby‘s third (!) sold out San Francisco concert on Monday. The genius behind the amazing Play (more than one year among the top five bestsellers) is obviously in love with sound: making it, layering it, exploring it, bathing in it, reveling in it. From our balcony seats, I watched the audience reactions as much as the performance. The main floor was so completely packed that the inclination to dance translated itself to a …