At the age of 70-something, we can’t help but think about what we might have done differently with our lives--if we only knew then what we know now…

There is little I would change.  I married the right man and although I wish I had had more children, I think the two we have are quite amazing.  I’ve had a rich professional life and good health.  No complaints.

But I think I made a major blunder by never living in another country.  We have been lucky enough to travel extensively, but that’s not the same.  Our boys have both lived abroad, Jeremy for a year in Chile and Seth, in both Kenya and Brazil, and their lives are richer as a result.

I thought about this the other night when we had dinner at the home of one of my former colleagues and favorite professors.  He and his wife are Venezuelan.   They met when they were in graduate school in Boulder Colorado, married and now have two daughters, around twelve and nine.  Of course Dan and his wife are multilingual, as are their children. At home, the girls speak Spanish to their mother and French to their father.  So French is their third language.  One of the girls is also learning Russian. 

For dinner, Dan and his wife Gaby prepared a Venezuelan feast for Peter and me.  We loved it.  And we were so pleased with their homemade arepas (made from white corn flour and therefore naturally gluten-free) that they gave us a bag of flour to take home so we could make them ourselves.

It was a bit like a visit to Venezuela—but not as good as living there.