In the beginning

Post Number One; how momentous. Or not, considering that I'm writing to myself.

Leto is a minor deity in the classical Greek cannon. Heavily pregnant by Zeus, she is forbidden by Hera to give birth on land or sea and must wander until she finds a floating island, a place between.

Clearly she had charms or she wouldn't be in that predicament. She probably saw a few things along the way too. I'm guessing that she had a personality even while she was raising her twins - who became gods, by the way, so she didn't do a bad job with them. But there are no accounts of any of that, just her reproductive status. When the kids are grown she disappears from the record. I can identify with that, and I rail against that identification. I will not disappear without having first been seen.

Here are my blog rules: I may post about any topic, but primarily about Real Food and cooking, development politics, being foreign, intercultural family life, international adoption, and whatever academic follies catch my fancy from the headlines. Pseudonyms will be used unless and until I decide they're untenable (I am L, my husband is J, and our two-year-old daughter is A. Nice to meet you!). There will be no postings that my mother should not read.

I hope that writing things out will help keep me sane, keep up my skills in my mother tongue, and perhaps elicit response from some kindred souls feeling stranded and simplified by Life. Discussion is healthy! It reminds us that we have brains and usefulness both inside and outside of the hearth-and-home model.