On the road
Life's journeys are worth sharing.
Category: Life in America
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(Or why I write about migration, the new home and the old, and everything in between) I am a journalist by education and profession. Recently, I acquired the status of immigrant to the United States, the latest in a lifetime of twists and turns. My life has been like a road trip, one that has…
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I was headed for the Carmelite Monastery on Highway 1 in Carmel when I entered what turned out to be the wrong gate. After driving up a short road, I found myself beholding one of Monterey County’s most stunning views. I would later see the sign that said I was at the Villa Angelica, a…
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If time is precious, then a bonsai is gold. Each one holds the years of care, skill, and concentration its owner poured into it to create a miniature landscape from the saplings of a normal tree. That would make a bonsai the ultimate luxury. That is what it seemed to me as I viewed the…
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There are places in our part of Monterey County in California that you can visit for free, which somehow offset the high cost of living in this popular tourist destination. The impetus for this post (and please pardon the pause in postings) is the recent three-week visit of family members from the Philippines, one of…
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Christmas is for children. Well, children of all ages. And nowhere did we feel it more than at Candy Cane Lane in Pacific Grove, California, where it’s become a tradition for homeowners to put up a display for Monterey County residents and tourists. Along with the dazzling lights that adorned trees, fences, roofs and eaves,…
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I was recently reminded of a fictional conversation that took place at a poker game in a popular TV series some 25 years ago: CJ Cregg: (dealing cards to other WH staffers ) King… possible flush… ace no help…. six… possible straight…. Dave of love for the dealer… ace bets…. Mandy: Check! Sam: Check! CJ: Check!Leo: Check!Josh: Check!Toby:…
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The sound of steady rain woke me one recent midnight, and I imagined monsoon clouds irrigating the land as they always do this time of the year in the home country. It’s the kind of soothing sound that makes a person sink deeper into bed, an announcement that the season has simply arrived and is…
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For the past two weeks, I’ve been taking my daily walks around the neighborhood in the company of Ben Tucker, more precisely, his mesmerizing voice reading the 1962 novel Big Sur by Jack Kerouac.* Big Sur is a first-person stream-of-consciousness account of a summer the alcoholic writer Jack Duluoz spends in the San Franciso-Monterey-Big Sur…
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Around this time last year, my family made a three-day/two-night trip to Yosemite National Park in California, and among the hundreds of images I took home were variations on this one. Only when I was reviewing my photo gallery much later did I realize that I had seemed to capture at least three pairs of…
On the road 