No one is entitled to me. Not my presence, not my voice, not my endurance. And I am entitled to seek my own safety, even when that inconveniences someone else, even when it disrupts something they were counting on, even when they never quite forgive me for it. I did not always know that. I had to learn it. Over and over, though each chapter wore a different face. Nobody told me I had to stay. Not directly. Not using words. It's all subtle. A hesitation when I mentioned leavin

In a few days, my shipping container will leave the New York port and head across the ocean to Constanța, Romania. It holds my books, my instruments, family heirlooms, spiritual items, keepsakes, and some furniture — a twenty-foot container packed with the material record of a life I am moving across an ocean. Everyone, it turns out, has an opinion about this. And there is a particular opinion that echoes, over and over. Did you really need to bring all of that? And the meani