This morning, porteros were busily, ineffectually sluicing dust blown from the Sahara off Madrid’s doorsteps. The meteorologists tweeted: “don’t go…

Saturday morning, I got the text: the person I’d spent a few hours with on Friday was suddenly part of…

Today, for the first time since Christmas Eve, I’ll be able to walk outside our apartment without wearing a surgical…

(He Who is Hungry Thinks of Bread) To be bereft, the late 16th-century past participle of bereave. With its idiot rhymes:  to…

America, as in the United States of — because once you’ve left it you discover America encompasses a lot more…

This morning, there were figs at the frutería, with a dusky purplish bloom to them like grapes, exotic and twice the…

The young woman referred to as Elder Girleen when this blog started 14 years ago — when she started kindergarten…

This year, I swore I’d notice the actual moment in August when the swifts, a fixture of the Madrid sky…

Half a lifetime ago, that night in May when the curfew ended and young people partied in the streets, El…

The buskers haven’t packed it in and the construction workers are still on the clock, but you can tell it’s…