Selected essays exploring belonging, identity, and place.

When Home Stops Being a Place

After a week of winding my way from DC to Oxford to Chicago and then flying back east again, I’ve had hours of quiet in cars and airports—the kind of hours that make you sit with the questions you’ve been avoiding. One of them: What is Home?

Last week, we checked into the Airbnb I rented in the Chicago suburbs. Nothing was remarkable about the place—just a clean rental with neutral walls and a couch that has certainly hosted many families before ours. And yet, as I walked from room to room, I felt an unexpected ache rise up in me. Not sadness, exactly—something more like recognition. A quiet reminder of how much has changed in one year.

Since this time last December, I changed jobs, sold my house, and moved east to Washington, DC. I traveled through Cambodia and Laos, celebrated Tet with Minh and her family, wandered the streets of Paris and the castle ruins of Wales. I wrote a book. I began the next one. And somewhere in the middle of all of that movement, I started imagining where I might go from here.

I wouldn’t trade any of it—the job, the move, the passports filling up with stamps, the late-night notes that turned into chapters. But change, even the kind we choose, has a way of brushing up against the more fragile parts of us.

And nothing made that clearer than standing in a holiday season without the very things that once defined it for me.

For nearly two decades, Christmas meant unpacking the same boxes: the tree ornaments I collected one by one, the snow globes and school treasures the kids brought home, the embroidered towels we never actually used, the reindeers and lighted trees for the yard that made our house glow during the long Midwest nights. These rhythms were anchors—small rituals that said, You live here. This is your home. You belong here.

But this year, our Airbnb is devoid of any memories. The walls are bare. The fridge holds nothing but frozen meals and coffee creamer. The trash fills quickly with takeout containers. It is a place to stay, not a place that knows us.

And in that absence, I felt a flicker of fear: What if I’m losing my sense of home altogether?

This question followed me all the way from Chicago back to DC, where a tiny tabletop Christmas tree (purchased on a whim from Target) now sits in the corner of my apartment. It’s the smallest tree I’ve ever owned, barely two feet tall, nothing more than a strand of lights wrapped around a miniature frame with a few generic ornaments hanging from it.

And yet, in the quiet of the evening, when the lights reflect softly on the wall, I feel something familiar. Not the old definition of home—the one rooted in stability and sameness—but a new one, made of movement and reinvention and the willingness to let life shift without losing myself in the process.

I’m not sure I’ll ever arrive at an answer. But for now, I’m learning to see home not as a fixed point, but as something inside me—one that continues to adapt, reshape, and travel wherever I go next.

The Taste of Choice

I ate sushi in Japan and alligator in New Orleans. And it was my choice.

The young girl’s mouth quivered and her eyes glistened. She hated cheese—the smell on her fingers and the texture on her teeth—but her father made her eat it anyway. Sandwiches, scrambled eggs, nothing was off limits. Sometimes she slipped it off her baloney sandwich and passed it under the table to her brother. Other times, she simply ran to the bathroom and spat it into the toilet. It didn’t matter how many times she said she hated it, the outcome was the same every time.

She began dreading weekends—her stomach clenching whenever she heard her father say, “Who’s ready to eat?”—and she wished instead for the free school lunches. School lunches with steamed cheeseburgers. At least she could easily remove that cheese and didn’t have to worry about who was watching her. But at home, when she could no longer avoid cheese, she would take small bites of her sandwich, smoosh it into balls that she could then push to the back of her throat to swallow without tasting it. Throwing it out was wasteful; spitting it out was ungrateful. Her protests dismissed. She was a child after all and didn’t know what was best for her. She finally stopped protesting and she simply ate it. The tone of his voice was all she needed to hear to know anything else was unacceptable.

That girl was me.

But also, she isn’t just me. It’s the woman who is told to change her clothes or the one who foregoes her dream of traveling the world. It’s the woman who said yes when she meant no, all because someone didn’t agree with her choice. Because she and I learned early that our voices were silenced if we tried to protest.

Cheese-free decades later, I was now free to say yes—to what I ate. But that didn’t mean it came without cost. Whenever my friends suggested Italian, I knew what I was having for dinner. A plate of spaghetti that I could make at home for $5. Sometimes, I would push back and suggest Thai or American. They’d say to me, Didn’t we just have that last weekend?Other times, I could see the disappointment on their faces because they wanted me to enjoy my meal too, but it often came at their expense. Like with pizza. Who orders no cheese on their pizza without apologizing to everyone else at the table? I would have if I thought a mass mutiny wouldn’t have occurred.

And then there were the times the kids asked me to make them grilled cheese. I wanted to say, No, I won’t make it for you, but instead I pinched my nose and held my breath as I unwrapped the stinky package.

Japan, December 2023. I was on a private food tour. Stops for tempura: kisu, salmon, lotus root, squid, eggplant, and then okonomiyaki, Japanese fried pancakes. I said yes to it all. But then my guide announced our next stop: a local sushi restaurant. I got quiet. I was afraid if he heard me speak, he would hear the voice of a child protesting a food that she knew she didn’t like. As we walked, I was taken back to a time when I couldn’t make my own decisions about what I ate. I could hear myself defending my choice: I don’t like the way the meat tastes on my tongue or the way the fish gets stuck on my teeth when I take a bite. The smell hitting my nostrils long before my taste buds. I thought of all the strategies I had used as a child when I had to eat cheese. Would they work here?

But then I started to wonder, Why do I need to use those strategies? Why can’t I just say, “I don’t like sushi.”

I was paralyzed with fear.

We sat at a table in the crowded restaurant. The backs of our chairs scraping against each other, elbows of people at the bar pulled in close to their bodies so just one more person could sit. My guide took the menu and asked, “Do you like sushi?”

I wanted to say no but instead I nodded. My head not matching what was happening inside my body. My stomach clenching and my mouth suddenly dry, wondering what I had gotten myself into. I wasn’t a foodie. I hadn’t reinvented myself. I was the same child afraid to say no to cheese.

But as I watched his eyes light up as he described the importance of fish to the Japanese, I heard the pride in his voice. I looked around the restaurant and saw plates piled high with salmon, yellowtail, tuna, and mackerel and smelled the wasabi, reminiscent of beef sandwiches from home. Suddenly, my stomach grumbled and my mouth salivated. I was no longer afraid to say yes.

When the sushi arrived, I chose a piece and took a bite, allowing it to first sit on my tongue and then dissolve away. As our server came to fill our sake, he filled each cup to the top, overflowing into a red-and-black lacquered box that caught it. I took a sip. And another. With each sip, it became easier to take the next bite, and the next. At the end of the meal, I was eating sushi.

Two years later, I was sitting in a restaurant in New Orleans with my son, my daughter, and a long-time friend. Creole sounds and Cajun scents filled the air. We looked at the menu, full of New Orleans staples—fried catfish, jambalaya, blackened chicken—foods and tastes that were familiar to me. But then I saw it. Alligator. The menu read: “slow-simmered alligator tails in a dark, aromatic roux with onions, peppers, and celery.”

I’d never tasted alligator before, and my mouth watered at the description. Confidently, I told the kids, “I’m going to have alligator.”

They nodded their heads in acquiescence. “Sounds good,” they said.

“Or maybe the catfish. What do you think?” I asked them.

They replied, “Both sound good.”

When the waitress arrived, I ordered alligator. It was a proclamation.

Later that night, I wondered how many other times I had said yes when I meant no. Working late. Driving when I was exhausted. Having sex when I didn’t feel good. What had I been teaching my kids about saying yes because you have to, and not because you want to? That night, the shift—from I have to to I want to—was mine. And my kids witnessed it.

After the meal, they asked me, “Was it good?”

I nodded and with a satisfied smile on my face said, “Delicious.”

Letting Go to Stay Alive

An essay examining quitting as self-preservation — and how the meaning we assign to stopping shapes identity.