A few months ago, on a hot summer evening in Madrid, Spain, I attended a talk by the author of Anima Fatua, Anna Lidia Vega Serova and the translator of her novel from Spanish to English, Robin Munby. A member of the audience asked Vega how much of her own story was reflected in that... Continue Reading →
I’m old now. It’s been many years since I first realized I was not like other people. That realization was rather shocking since we are raised to believe that everyone is pretty much the same, we’re cut from the same cloth, and we see the world in pretty much the...
Her first experience was a penetrating itch. This sensation was layered on top of blistering pain shooting from her right head into her eye. It was not the kind of feeling diminished by vigorous scratching, as is the case following a bug bite. Hers was a jaw-clenching urgency to...
Each week for one hour I tutor a third grader who is struggling with her reading comprehension. I do this through a volunteer program managed by the San Francisco public library system, called FOG Readers. I took a ten hour class to qualify, and was quickly paired up with a...
This short meander is long on time. It is about serendipity, or parallel thinking, or the patterns we will ourselves into by simply living with our individual predilections that often appear to be simultaneous elsewhere. These are the random coincidences that tend to stun us when they occur, because they...
When the order came to report to my draft physical in early spring of 1972, it was no surprise. With my low number (seven) in the lottery for young men born in 1952, I’d purposely not renewed my student deferment, so it was only a matter of time. The year...
Something happened on the trip through the 21st century. Self-centeredness became the default in relationships, at work, on crowded subways, in coach on domestic flights. A jostle became a push, then a shove. A disagreement became a bloody brawl, then a murder. Our intentions ceased to be noble. e claimed...
Imagine the world closing in, the walls far too close for comfort. The feeling of claustrophobia in one’s own life weighing down upon your shoulders. Your heart beats hard enough to hurt, and you swear you might have a heart attack soon. You’re trembling, sweating, and barely able to hold...
There are many types of cancer, some rarer than others. However, they all share the same basic features. One’s own cells are reproducing without halt. Furthermore, these cells do not die via the typical apoptosis process. Fibromyalgia is a chronic pain condition that results in neuropathic pain, chronic fatigue, tenderness...
I’ve been through unemployment three times in my working life, but it wasn’t until the third go ‘round that I was able to define the above stages. Because the second and third stints were so close together -- only one year apart -- it was almost as if I had taken a...
