
I've made it back from my sojourn across the Atlantic, feeling just like a shiny new penny with all the oils of a thousand hands rubbed clean off and the golden copper Lincoln grinning through. After twelve years, I returned to the city where I studied abroad and where, in many ways, I think I first started to bloom even though I didn't know at the time what colors I would be. I saw new terrain too, new monuments to beauty and joy and struggle, in cultures that value putting public money into creating and sustaining such majesty. I feel [...]