Author: Radiance Dream

I never remember wanting a sister even though my best friend through high school had three sisters and I thought they were mostly great and I spent a lot of time with their family. However, having a sister always seemed to me that you gave up a unique position within your family for questionable benefits….

Subtitle: Radiance speaks a language badly (AGAIN) and the intersection of hairspray and candles. Greek Easter was my favorite holiday in Greece, just like Thanksgiving was my favorite when I lived in the US. That doesn’t mean that some of the traditions around it were explicable to a non-Orthodox person. Leading up to Easter, village…

This weekend being Easter, I started to think about Easters Past. I remember spending weeks sewing a turquoise patterned dress, a matching turquoise linen coat with lining that matched my dress and wearing it to church on Easter Sunday – the traditional time for showing off new clothes. I must have been about 14 or…

On a recent trip to Vancouver, our friend Nancy brought me some hazelnut butter from a women’s group in Oregon. It looked delicious and since I love hazelnuts, I was eager to try it. I liked it but soon defaulted to my usual peanut butter – maybe it has more salt to suit my taste….

For most of the time I lived in Greece I lived on the mainland about an hour south of Thessaloniki and about half an hour from Litochoro, the village at the base of Mt. Olympus. My best friends in Greece were Jane and Stathis – she Scottish, he Greek and we did most everything with…

Since Ken has hearkened back to our youth, I wanted to add a story from then. I’m not sure how old I was – maybe about six or seven. I was out in the back field following Dad around. Not sure what he was doing out there but I liked being outdoors. Only now do…

My (our) mom was an artistic unconventional soul. She enjoyed painting, writing short stories (some of them rather good) and traveling. One particular item she had that I remember very clearly from my childhood was a serving tray with a picture of Santa Maria del Salute in Venice. Of course, I didn’t know at the…

While waiting for a residence permit in Greece, I had to leave the country every six months to renew my tourist visa. These quick trips out of Greece could be quite adventurous. One such trip had my husband, B and I deciding to take the train through north eastern Greece and cross the border near…

I lived just a few blocks from the Xania Harbor pictured below. The town is old (some say neolithic) and has been invaded by various groups over the centuries. The house I shared with my friend and fellow teacher Frank was over 600 years old according to our landlord. It certainly creaked and moaned as…

Almost exactly 30 years ago I arrived at the Jakarta airport at midnight, all alone with my art easel and a backpack. I needed to find an inexpensive place to stay and sat thinking about how to accomplish this. I had my travel books of course but… I looked across the baggage claim area and…