The night of my first conversation with her father, her name was his answer to my question, which he later confessed had annoyed him: “Was is your favorite word in the English language?”

In my defense, I had only been in his country a week, and words fascinate me. He fascinates me.

It’s one of those rare days where the sunshine calls us into its light and we have the freedom to follow. Yearning to feel the wind whip our faces, my man and I hop on his Harley, but every stop sign and every intersection, there’s a traffic jam. An obstacle course to our rush.

I just turned 47. After more than two decades in America, I still haven’t grasped why it’s considered impolite to ask a woman her age. I am so relieved not to be 17! The world was spinning then, as an Alice-in -Wonderland concoction of disconnected experiments, and I didn’t know where to find solid ground.