One of my grandmother’s favorite expressions, unfailingly delivered with exuberant exaltation, was, “I will to live in a world that wills to live!” She would sing it out whenever she saw anything like a tree growing out of a rock. I think of her when I see the first buttercup of spring, reclaiming its territory […]

By now, Sidi Mohamed knew me. I had permission to take a double handful of dried pink rosebuds from the wooden barrel in front of his market stand. Sidi Mohamed was one of several merchants I had gotten to know on my daily morning food and bric-a-brac shopping trips to the markets in Rabat’s medina […]

“I think I just saw a zebra!” said my 16-year-old son. To be clear, we were not on an African safari, nor at a zoo. In fact, we were traveling along California’s Highway 1. This is one of many funny and fond memories we have of one of our family’s all-time favorite spring break trips […]