thoughts – Page 2 – Casteluzzo

On Settling Down Somewhere

March 12, 2019March 12, 2019Sarah Bringhurst Familia

For a long time, I really dreaded settling down. I loved the heady rush of landing somewhere new, and the sudden sensory assault from all directions–new smells, new sights, new sounds, new tastes; even the feel of the wind different on my skin. I have moving down to an art, even if it still stresses me out every time. I’ve rented quite a few houses sight-unseen from the other side of the world. I can look on Google maps street view and figure out all sorts of things, from where the nearest fruit/vegetable stand is to what kind of green space is available for kids to play nearby, as well as necessities like public transport and commute to work and school.… Read more

Are You an Expat or an Immigrant . . . Revisited

February 8, 2019February 9, 2019Sarah Bringhurst Familia

Nine years ago I wrote a blog post where I posed this question, mostly to myself: Are you an expat or an immigrant? That post was the summation of a couple of years of ~~self-reflection~~ navel-gazing; i.e. expat blogging. Being an expat–or a “serial expat”, as I started calling myself when we seemed unable to stay in the same country for more than a few months–began as a grand adventure. I think one way to describe those years is to say that I spent a lot of time back then seeing myself through other people’s eyes. It is almost impossible not to do that when you suddenly uproot yourself and move halfway around the world.… Read more

A Long-Awaited Goodbye

April 1, 2018Sarah Bringhurst Familia

Last week my husband and I submitted our resignations from the Mormon church. It was the final step in a journey of several years. In 2014 we stopped going to church after Kate Kelly, founder of the Ordain Women movement, was formally excommunicated by the Mormon church leadership. For years I had felt increasingly constricted by my lived experience as a woman in an overtly and overwhelmingly patriarchal church. And that church could not have sent a clearer message to women like me that we were not wanted than by excommunicating Kate Kelly, leader of the movement that sought equality for women within the church.… Read more

Nudist Librarian

June 29, 2017June 30, 2017Sarah Bringhurst Familia

So there’s this book that you’ve probably read, or someone you know has certainly read. Pretty much everyone I know seems to have read it and touted its genius and capacity for transforming one’s existence.

Which is nothing less than the premise and the promise of the book: The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. This was a book that I vowed I would not read. Probably at least 85% of the fights I had with my mother when I was a teenager revolved around the state of my messy bedroom, and the stuff she wanted me to throw away to remedy it.… Read more

My Transition from Mormonism, in Music

May 20, 2017May 20, 2017Sarah Bringhurst Familia

I haven’t written a lot on this blog about leaving the Mormon church. I’m not sure exactly why. I think at the beginning I had so many strong, raw feelings I preferred to discuss them privately. And after a while I guess it felt like there was less to talk about.

However, at the time that I left, it was really huge. It’s hard to overstate the significance of unraveling something that had been tightly woven into every aspect of your life since birth.

There were, of course, many reasons that Tony and I decided to leave the Mormon church, none of which I’ll go into here.… Read more

The Details that Escape Me

May 11, 2017Sarah Bringhurst Familia

Is there a name for the disorder where stuff is tiny but important, and you always forget it? Whatever it is, I’ve got it.

After a particularly frustrating day this week I Googled “opposite of detail oriented” and got a list of 61 antonyms. Topping the list are absent -minded, inattentive, thoughtless, and neglectful. So of course then I felt even worse. Although incurious also appears, and I feel like that’s not talking about the same thing at all. Because I am curious about hundreds of things. I know a lot. I consider myself to be intelligent. I’m generally articulate; in fact, depending on how angry I am, I approach verbosity.… Read more

My Podcast Career So Far

April 20, 2017April 29, 2017Sarah Bringhurst Familia

I was not a podcast early adopter. A couple of years ago when Serial first broke, it took several of my friends raving about it for weeks if not months before I finally got around to listening. And for years, it remained the only podcast I had ever listened to. It’s not that I was opposed to listening; it’s just that I was accustomed to reading instead, having left National Public Radio and audiobooks behind with my hour-long car commute when I moved to Amsterdam.

So the first time I appeared on a podcast, I didn’t really have a huge frame of reference.… Read more

London Without Kids – The British Museum

February 25, 2017February 25, 2017Sarah Bringhurst Familia

So far, London is spectacular. At least what I’ve seen of it, which is mostly the inside of the British Museum. Because let’s face it, we all know which person I am here:

It is entirely possible that I went straight there from the airport (having arrived at Heathrow shortly after eight in the morning), and stayed until I was literally shooed out at closing time. I also had to replace my audio guide when the battery died after several hours in the museum. So I guess I’ve confirmed my family’s suspicions on every vacation we take that I would just stay in that museum indefinitely if they didn’t drag me out.… Read more

Choosing a High School in Amsterdam, Part 3

February 5, 2017February 8, 2017Sarah Bringhurst Familia

Star Wars, A Love Story

December 17, 2016December 17, 2016Sarah Bringhurst Familia

Took the kids to see Star Wars last night. That sentence still kind of gives me a thrill. I always felt a little cheated by the universe that I was born a decade or so too late to see Star Wars in the theatre when it first came out. I grew up absorbing the story by osmosis, hearing about it and acting it out and seeing it in bits and pieces before I could even parse the plot as something more coherent than a vast, mysterious mythology that enveloped my childhood inner life.

It was another kind of thrill, certainly, to see the prequel episodes in the theatre as a young adult.… Read more

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