Mary Smith was born and raised in a country behind the Iron Curtain. She lived in a tiny apartment and shared a bedroom with her parents during the frigid winter months. She wore school uniforms and red pioneer ties. She ate variations of potato dishes, stood in line for a loaf of bread, carried heavy blocks of ice during the hot summer days, played hide-and-seek with the children in the building, and thought that life was wonderful. Her nonconformist parents, however, talked of a world beyond the Iron Curtain and planned to escape to a place where they thought they would find freedom.

My Life As a Nomad recounts Mary’s peregrinations through five countries on three continents that began in 1964. What started as an adventure full of promises, evolved as a perennial search for a “home” amid the customs and traditions of an unfamiliar world.

“Adam was but human – this explains it all. He did not want the apple for the apple’s sake, he wanted it only because it was forbidden. The mistake was in not forbidding the serpent; then he would have eaten the serpent.”

Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain

“The quality of mercy... is twice bless'd;

It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes; ’Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes the throned monarch better than his crown.”

The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare