Published in The Write Launch, December 2025

2018

Dodging cyclists, I scurried across the narrow road and headed toward Gaiole’s town center. A small Tuscan village of twenty-seven hundred souls in the Chianti region, Gaiole is known for its idyllic beauty, and these days for L’Eroica, an increasingly popular vintage cycling event.

Taking in the surrounding low hills, pear orchards, and omnipresent vineyards glowing in the early autumn sunlight, I was also taken by the single and tandem riders whooshing by. Warbling lively tunes at the top of their lungs, some wore cycling kits—jerseys, shorts, helmet and accessories—that matched their bikes’ vintage. Families, teams and friends zipped along, dressed in their kits or turn-of-the-century costumes, singing and chatting with each other as they pedaled by.

The closer I got to the center, the better I could hear the PA system barking enthusiastic event descriptions in Italian cadences, only a little of which I could understand. Interspersed, a variety of Beatles songs, old swing favorites, and a little opera added to the festal atmosphere. All around me cheerful Italian accents mingled with German, Scandinavian, Spanish, Japanese, English and languages I couldn’t identify. The mix of familiar and strange struck just the right note for the occasion, especially for this American. The diverse voices reminded me of the founding promise of my own country, whether melting pot or tossed salad. I was captivated—again.

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Published in The Examined Life, Fall, 2025.

Bruce and I stand on a small makeshift pier that sits just barely above the shallow water’s edge. We’re at Blue Springs in the Florida panhandle. Bruce, five years old and wearing overalls and cowboy boots, is reaching for my hand. I, his three-year-old sister, am holding on to his pants leg for security as I extend my lace-up boot to touch my reflection in the water. Below his thick, dark hair, my big brother’s expression is a mixture of caution and protectiveness, somehow caught up in a sweet smile. We were children then, with two lifetimes of testing, shaping experiences ahead. And while the essence of my brother’s nature that smile revealed didn’t change, I know that over the years the depth of it did.

About a decade and a half after that photo, Bruce wore, not his Blue Springs cowboy boots and overalls, but the combat boots and fatigues of a Marine in Viet Nam. Deeply committed to serving his country in that war, he had argued his way in with military doctors, despite a knee injury serious enough to result in a medical discharge.

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