I was raised to tell the truth, though sometimes I can't help but say what other people want to hear: No, I don't mind waiting. Yes, you're right, I should take tango lessons. The lie is out of my mouth before I can stop it, though it doesn't feel like a lie because it's what I imagine a better version of me would say. And yet, last summer, when my honest response to an airline steward's request was met with a scowl of disapproval, I couldn't stop feeling guilty. Crazy. Right?
Ellen Barone is an American writer and wanderer. After 15 years as an independent content creator for travel and tourism, she has been enjoying extended stays abroad for the past decade, the inspiration behind her travel memoir, "I Could Live Here" (November 2023)
Many years ago my husband, Hank, bought me a T-shirt that read “I used to be schizophrenic, but we’re just fine now.”
We joke about the crazy woman he married. The unconventional wife who reinvents herself every decade or so and still doesn’t know who she wants to be when she grows up. And, as the shirt suggests, there’s more than one of me in this marriage.
Ellen Barone is an American writer and wanderer. After 15 years as an independent content creator for travel and tourism, she has been enjoying extended stays abroad for the past decade, the inspiration behind her travel memoir, "I Could Live Here" (November 2023)
Who has time to think about the meaning of life, happiness, and fulfillment when iPads, Facebook, and jobs fill the days? These are big concepts. Deep questions. Topics that, for much of my life, I rarely contemplated. Like most people of the world, I was busy doing my best to hang on and enjoy the ride as life whizzed by.
The miracle is that despite a formidable capacity for denial and significant gaps in knowledge of myself and the world around me, important questions still accumulated: Who am I? Where do I find meaning? What is my purpose?
Now, with streaks of gray in my blonde hair and fifty years on this planet, these are questions I’m finally getting around to asking. The answers are not what I expected.
Ellen Barone is an American writer and wanderer. After 15 years as an independent content creator for travel and tourism, she has been enjoying extended stays abroad for the past decade, the inspiration behind her travel memoir, "I Could Live Here" (November 2023)
It was a golden November afternoon. I strolled across the bustling Mexican plaza in the Jalisco village where my husband Hank and I live part-time. Photogenic scenes were everywhere.
It was fiesta time and I immersed myself in the jubilant celebrations and felt the strength of community in the vibrant Mexican village. Absent, however, was an urge to photograph. The goodwill that surrounded me felt too precious for a bystander’s camera.
Ellen Barone is an American writer and wanderer. After 15 years as an independent content creator for travel and tourism, she has been enjoying extended stays abroad for the past decade, the inspiration behind her travel memoir, "I Could Live Here" (November 2023)“Just be yourself,” a trusted friend once advised me. I’d been in a panic over a public appearance, caught up in a whirlwind of self-doubt, and certain of only one thing—that ‘myself’ was nowhere near good enough. What I needed, my inner critic assured me, was a razzle-dazzle multimedia presentation to hide behind and a pedigree that I did not possess.
Ellen Barone is an American writer and wanderer. After 15 years as an independent content creator for travel and tourism, she has been enjoying extended stays abroad for the past decade, the inspiration behind her travel memoir, "I Could Live Here" (November 2023)