Twice before, I followed the steep path to the ruins of the castle of San Salvador in the north of Catalonia. Twice before, the wind around those ruins was so strong that I gladly descended all five hundred meters of elevation back to Palau-saverdera, where all hikes started and where there was no wind to speak of. Mild wind today and my heart is pounding in my throat as I sit on the weathered stones of a castle wall and take our Stanley thermos from my backpack. I fill t

My heart skips a beat when my phone rings, and I realize I couldn’t have been more engrossed in translating The Ukraine War & the Eurasian World Order, the latest book by Glenn Diesen. Under some notes on my desk, I find my phone, a Spanish number lighting up on the screen, and the thing keeps ringing as I tap and tap a green button on the screen. Anger assails me, and … bogger! I should know by now that when there’s a phone number lighting up on the screen, I’m getting a reg

For a moment, I wonder why nostalgia tries to grab power here, in the Catalan village of Sant Pere Pescador. Then, I surrender to that power grab, and I’m no longer a frustrated dwarf who just left a surf shop, but I’m a nine-year-old standing through the rolled-open roof of a Citroën 2CV—my eyes darting—as it passes through French villages so different from the half-built housing estate in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, where I’m growing up.

The doorbell! It’s the first time it rings since we moved into this house. Heidi, sitting behind the dining table opposite my desk, editing a video on her laptop, is startled out of her work. I’m not startled out of mine. Something warned me that at least two people were sneaking through our garage toward our front door—which is exactly what I’ve been hoping for since yesterday.