photo from the Ethnographic Museum, Ljubljana below are blogposts from my Fulbright year in Slovenia

It was inevitable, this love. I could have predicted it. I saw it out there in the sea four years ago when I first came to Slovenia. It was the kind of wave that builds slowly, takes its time. You aren't sure what its disposition will be when it finally gets to shore--a potent crash … Continue reading when you fall in love

In Celje, we climbed the stairs of the arsenal--walls 3 meters deep. We stood at the top and looked across at the castle, where Veronika somebody and Fredrick somebody did something something. My friends told me the story of star-crossed lovers, but I couldn't concentrate. I was thinking about what it meant to stand in … Continue reading standing in an arsenal

After I went to Prague last month, I began writing prose poems like crazy, inspired by some intangible element I encountered there. But I wanted to write a blog post too. "I want to write a blog post about our trip to Prague," I said to my friend from the Slovenian Literary Council as we sat … Continue reading Prague

This photograph was taken at Tolminska Korita, in the mouth of the cave, Zadlaška jama. After eating trout from the river at Gostilna "Slap" Vinko Pavić and following a tip to knock on the door of Bojan Kavčič to buy delicious Tolmin cheese (http://gugala.si/), we made our way to the southernmost entrance of Triglav National … Continue reading Tolminska Korita: Going Back

As April 7th approaches, I anticipate what has become inevitable these last few years: sudden emotional unraveling as I move through spring. It's never the date of his birth in April that that brings up feelings of grief, nor is it the anniversary of his death, one month later in May. No. It's the time in between. It's … Continue reading Approaching April

There we were: a biologist, an environmental geographer, a law professor and a writer, in my Ljubljana kitchen, each of us decked out with significant others and/or children. Most of us had met in Washington D.C. last summer at a Fulbright conference and bonded over photographs of the albino cave salamander--the proteus--and glasses of cold … Continue reading in my slovenian kitchen

We sat at a mountaintop cafe eating walnut bread, drinking hot tea and brandy. "What's this herb called in English?" I asked my Slovenian friend. "There's no translation. You don't have this herb in your country." "Well what's it close to?" "It's not like anything in the U.S. It’s from here. You have to come … Continue reading encountering: a photo essay at lake bled