Category Archives: Retirement

“May I share the bench with you?” It was a young woman pushing a stroller with a sleeping baby. “Of course,” I answered, smiling, and waved my hand at the empty space.  She nodded at me, her wide-brimmed hat and sunglasses blocking much of her face.  She sat down carefully, brushing leaves off the benchContinue reading “Epiphany”

I don’t think I’ve ever felt so alive. The Grand Bazaar in Tehran is a labyrinth of a thousand stalls huddled under arched ceilings reaching up to dusky skylights. The noise hit me first when we entered; a cacophony of merchants hawking their wares, shoppers haggling over prices, porters loudly clearing the way for theirContinue reading “Mystical Bargains”

Destiny and hardship are twins of the soul. Sometimes we only move forward because the path backwards is clogged by rockfall. I went to Germany on a “Junior Year Abroad” program from Humboldt State College in the hinterlands of Northern California. I was 19, escaping from my home in Eureka, a small logging town thatContinue reading “Perseverance”

                                                           Published in the San Jose Mercury News, May 3, 1999 Mon., Feb. 22:      Cannot remember how I got assigned to direct this year’s  6th grade school play. I have this enormous memory gap. I’m fairly sure I didn’t volunteer, but that too is fuzzy. Must schedule a doctor’s appointment for memory loss. However, have resolvedContinue reading “The Directing of a 6th Grade Play – A Journal”

Winner, South Bay Writing Contest, 2007 My first delivery was longish and hard. By the 16th hour, I no longer had any sense of time, or of myself as a person, other than in pain. The nurse pulled me back, her hand on my forehead, pushing my hair back, forcing my eyes open. “You canContinue reading “A Place I Hardly Knew”

Winner of the Palo Alto Short Story Contest for 2005 “Banu,” he whispered, kneeling on the fringed cushion by his daughter’s bedside. The lids flickered, opened. For a moment, the dark eyes flashed pain and anger, then recognition. The lips moved, managing a weak smile and a single word. “Abu.” Father. Amal’s stomach clenched, andContinue reading “Flight from Egypt”

Written 2023 Life is a slow river whose ripples push against one another, intersecting watery paths of love, pain, joy and growth.  The river’s progress – though slow – is dogged, and on its banks it leaves behind tiny, fragmented bits of memory. The detritus of a long life. I spent my childhood learning myContinue reading “My Legacy”

Spring 2023 Childhood can be a stressful time, in any society. I have 65-year-old memory that is as vivid as yesterday’s dentist appointment, and twice as painful. It was fourth grade. Timed tests in math –  100 problems in 3 minutes. I remember forlornly clenching my pencil, defeated once more by the times tables asContinue reading “The Evolution of a Math Teacher Part I – California to Berlin”

Fall 2024 In the beginning, there was nothing. Well, almost nothing. There was one very small something, but it was so small it hardly counted – it was maybe the size of a basketball. Such a tiny ball – infinitely dense, scientifically speaking – and chock full of energy, heat and intelligence. This being aContinue reading “Believing in Stardust”

2024, in response to the prompt “Describe a memorable birthday” My two most memorable birthdays – one dismal and one joyful – lie only 12 months apart. My 60th and my 61st birthdays. In the spring of  2010, a few months before I would turn 60, I went to the doctor because of a lumpContinue reading “Two B­­­irthdays and the Meaning of Life”