Looking on the bright side may not be my natural forté, but too bad, because when push comes to existential shove…despair can be fatal. So, for anyone planning to stick around, the direction is forward. Though as the lesbian wine maven at my local market just told me this morning, not straight forward. It is difficult not to feel the full impact of political decisions on one's very being. Vicki, the wine maven, and I were speaking across the correct social distance because we were Read more [...]

Only yesterday I was musing, that is to say blogging, heavily over this matter of the canyon behind my birthplace. Regretting that I never hiked up there. And having always wondered what it was like to be up there. The latter is the sort of musing that can propel a life. Take my word for it. A road led northwest from the town of Banning and, in a single switchback, climbed to the top of the San Gorgonio River Canyon cliffs and kept going. It ended a couple of miles beyond, giving an overlook Read more [...]

The post office? I have to worry about the post office? Indeed I do. Which may be what draws me to the most useless and retrospective of pursuits, the imaginal reconstruction of hikes I never took. Why now? I haven't been capable of hiking for 52 years. The answer must have something to do with being an astonishing 73. Am I finally maturing? Coming to grips with things? If so, what things? Okay, let us start, not to mention end, at my childhood home. Who would name a town Banning? That's what Read more [...]

The rumblings began to break through my sleep at about 4:30 AM. Part of my mind was evaluating them even before I fully woke. Loud firecrackers seem to go off year-round in our San Francisco neighborhood. Why I don't know. Perhaps it's something of a tradition. Our Chinese roots may be showing here. I don't know. Anyway, we are accustomed to night explosions. But these were different. More rumblings than bangs. "Are you awake? Did you hear that?" This from Jane round about 4:45 AM. "Did you Read more [...]

Like old stuff? Well here's my current fave: "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds." So inscribed the architect of New York's main post office. And, not really all that long ago, 1914…unless you include the Herodotus from which it is adapted…a reminder that civilizations do come and go.  These stirring words of our Postal Service are hardly fighting words. Unless you happen to be in the middle of a Read more [...]

"Could I take this test on a pass/fail basis?" This gets a laugh. I need a laugh. It is 1993, a year of marital and psychological disintegration, and things are not exactly lighthearted. In fact, they have not been so for quite a while. The last time I had a good laugh with a physical therapist was roundabout 1973, and he was a physiotherapist at Britain's spinal cord injury center in Buckinghamshire. In the earlier instance, I can't recall why we were laughing. But in the UK laughing, that is Read more [...]