Yesterday I witnessed the graduation of two of my grandchildren, my heart going pitter patter with pride to think of them moving on in life and becoming the people they're meant to be.  Both of them were stepping through doorways into uncertainty, but they were doing it with conviction and a sly smile on the face.   There is loss here, I thought, loss of childhood with all its narcissism and blowing of bubbles in the chocolate milk, or pitching tantrums because your mother forgot to pack your favorite nightgown.  But this kind of loss doesn't really hurt that much ... it sort of quivers a bit in your chest as you shed a couple of tears, and  it reminds you of the relentless fact of impermanence.  There is hope here, there is openness to opportunities and adventures, and all who surround these young people feel celebratory.

And then there are different losses that come at us that are crushing.  A successful and visionary man named Anthony who seemed full of the love of life and food and adventure in foreign lands hanged himself in his French hotel room, shocking us all.  He and another celebrity in the fashion world, this woman named Kate who had likewise inspired many,  reminded us in their violent acts that people all around us are carrying unspeakable dark burdens and profound hopelessness.  And most of the time we don't see the pain, and thus we are appalled and shaken by the self destruction... There is much we don't understand about our fellow beings, it seems.  Sad.

Fear and trauma are being visited on immigrant children who travel to this country with their parents, as they are literally torn away from family at the border and put in sterile and unloving environments.  This scenario feels surreal-- it should not be occurring in a civilized country -- and it is terrifying-- we can feel feel the cold terror if we stop to look carefully -- and it is morally unacceptable.  How can this country which was founded on the vision that everyone has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, condone these cruel actions?   Children are losing parents, parents are losing children, our country is losing its humanity and moral authority.

I am losing a sharpness of memory which I am passing off as a sign of being part of the elder clan, and I'm trying not to fret.  There are a lot of things I have to be grateful for in this 73 year old life:  5 generations of family, beautiful four legged pets, music, meditation, travel, writing, books, and my own passion for discovery which is still happily with me.  This sense of possibility and hope should belong to all who live in this amazing country ... that same confidence and curiosity and zest that I saw yesterday in my grandchildren ... 

In the interests of shedding light into the darkness, let's all remember to speak our truth, to never presume we know what another person thinks and feels, and to work everyday to keep our beating hearts open, wide open.

I do some of my best thinking (or so it seems) in the early morning, sitting on a park bench high atop Russian Hill as I look to the west and the brilliant Golden Gate Bridge.  My dog Peaches tosses sticks in the air as happy to entertain herself as I am to sit and reflect...

I started out thinking about remembrance since this is Memorial Day, a day set aside for many to call back into their hearts loved ones now gone who were part of our armed forces, who served this country as patriots, or so many would call it that. I would use different words, like faithful and loyal and stalwart to describe their service.  In my lifetime I've noticed that men and women joined the military for a variety of reasons, not only for patriotic ones.  Back in 1944 a young man from New York with buck teeth and curly brown hair joined the Navy and became a pilot, and while stationed in Texas he met a stunning beauty of a woman who had left her affluent Long Island life to join the Waves.  They fell in love - it was still war time, after all, and everyone always looked so much more romantic when dressed in uniform!  They married against all parents' wishes and about a year later I was born.  Though my grandmother bragged incessantly across the bridge table to her cronies that her daughter was a "patriot," I eventually figured out that this was not the case.  My mother wanted excitement, escape from home, perhaps romance with a young man in uniform, and so it came to pass.  My father, having struggled at college, decided the best thing to do for his future was to join the Navy.  So many young men did the same thing, choosing a military in the hopes it would offer a constructive path forward.  At best, it would postpone having to make any career decisions for the time being.  I doubt whether most of them stopped to think about love of country.  This man and this woman, my father and mother, would come to believe deeply in this country later in life as they aged and became aware of the freedoms and advantages American citizens had compared with those who lived in other less prosperous or democratic countries.  Perhaps they saw it this way because they traveled internationally from time to time, and saw the plight of the poor and oppressed in European countries.  However this is just conjecture on my part...

When I lived abroad as a young girl, I became quite anti-American, embarrassed and disdainful of the behavior of my fellow students who were from military or foreign service families. At the time they seemed self-absorbed and arrogant; I was quite young then, and never stopped to consider ignorance as a reason for their insensitive behavior.  I also fell in love with a Sicilian six years my senior, and in doing so also fell in love with everything Italian.  As it turned out, he and I couldn't make a go of our improbable romance, so different were our cultures and our ages.  I could not hurdle forward blindly knowing these things to be true.  This broke my heart, and it was around that time I first saw that being American was something I appreciated and loved.  I realized how encased in comfort most of my life had been, how free of worry or deprivation -- unlike my beau who came to America with no money, no education, and a bundle of dreams about living and becoming successful in New York.  The inexorable truth: we were both products of our respective  (then disparate) cultures.  

As I've become older, I've softened my critical stance happily and have been able to see the gifts of living as an American -- the kind of education that was available to me, the ethnic diversity I was always exposed to, the economic freedoms I was able to enjoy and the choices that came with them, the expansive generosity of America's spirit I came to know the more places in this country I visited ...  In many ways I love this country, but I'm not sure I call myself a patriot.  I will stand for the national anthem because I have no reason not to, but I don't usually feel filled with pride.  In high school I remember getting into trouble because I arrogantly refused to pledge allegiance to the flag --it all seemed false to me then, and I quite enjoyed the posturing, as I held my opinions tightly.  I rarely castigated those who sincerely pledged allegiance, who become teary at the anthem, or those who put flags out on their lawns on the 4th of July; I just didn't want to be identified with a rote behavior.  They have a relationship to these symbols that I simply didn't.  We simply had different allegiances.  The truth of it is that we are a country of great diversity, always have been.  Interestingly, I have discovered I admire John McCain, though he is often too conservative for my taste.  He is a man who has consistently spoken his own truth, he is authentic, and rightfully proud of his public service; he understands the principles this country was founded on.  He is a real and true patriot.  This is all good.   

I believe that patriotism looks different depending on who you observe -- it has many faces.  There are no criteria or qualifications you have to meet to consider yourself a faithful citizen of this country.  The painful mistake being made today is that a large contingent of right-leaning folks believe that patriotism and being a good American looks one particular way.  One of the required qualities is that you stand up for the national anthem.  And because those in power share this view, we have professional football players in the National Football league being punished for expressing their individuality and their deeply held views as they decline to stand for the anthem.  Those who have decided to castigate the athletes don't understand what being a good citizen or patriot means.  They don't get that there are many people throughout this country who,  like the football players, work in service to their country, give their lifeblood in many different ways, and yet decline to puff their chests out and place their hands on their hearts at public events.  I choose to believe in the general good will of American citizens. It's one of the things I think is characteristic of us as a people. We are a kind and generous nation, though our history has been colored by a great deal of greed, hatred, and loss.  Despite this dark legacy, many of us do love this country and hold its original values close.

When I saw the musical "Hamilton" I felt a swelling of joy, both in the creation of such an extraordinary play, but also in understanding the brave and relentless spirit that characterized those who formed our government.  Not only that, but I saw again how much of a melting pot the United States is... We are from many races and traditions, and as such we need to display the inclusiveness that is required so that we can live in peace and safety.  Pushing away immigrants who have a deep desire to raise families and contribute to this country, punishing athletes who dare to express a political opinion as they sacrifice their bodies for our entertainment, or excluding those men and women who don't fit the old "white-man" gender roles -- all these choices are forms of exclusion.  And they make us a crueler place, not a kinder one.

Love should never blind us to what is true and real, whether that's love of country or love of one another in this society.  Good patriotic Americans should speak their minds when they disagree with what is being decided because it is our world to shape and build; we have a responsibility to participate.  To disagree is not to deny, disrespect, or turn away from, but rather to come toward in the hopes of making a difference.  To claim that we must all do the same thing at the same time because that's what being a "good American" is all about is both Fascistic and false.  False because we are a diverse population, and as such must work together if this country is to be helped.  And as we come together with good intentions we are able to reconcile differences of opinion and realize that we all want the same thing:  safety, happiness, communion, wellbeing for all.

So, this Memorial Day I am going to spend time thinking about people in my life who have given back to their communities, who have loved well, who have gone to battle for this country, and I'm going to feel gratitude for these lives.  Though I have never been a football fan, I'm also going to hold the football players in my heart, those young men who dared to be authentic and were punished for that.  Maybe the more people I allow into my heart, the more expanded I'll feel, and yes, perhaps, more hopeful too.  I so want to believe in our capacity for change.  "Hatred never ceased by hatred, but by love alone ..." (thank you, Buddha)

The school shooting in Santa Fe, Texas, was the 16th mass shooting this month.  When I read those words yesterday, I felt numb in my body and heart.  Think of it:  numbness.  A  mysteriously un-human quality this ... It suggests that we've had this experience so many times this year and throughout the years since Columbine in 1999, that our senses don't know what to do with tragic, violent, untimely deaths anymore.  Have we really ceased to become shocked?  What do we feel exactly and how do we talk about it?  Why can't we protect our children?  

There are too many questions, I'm afraid, and an imperative to peel away some layers in order to understand why these tragic losses keep coming in this country, why we keep watching as young people in their schools -- supposedly places of safety and refuge -- are being gunned down by their peers.  

Human animals are strange indeed, and quite unlike our relations in the wild, for we seem to be turning on our young instead of protecting and nurturing them.  And while all the voices ring out and proclaim outrage at this senseless violence and waste of young lives, no moves are made to bring the violence to a halt.  There is a disconnect between what I see as the fundamental rules of rearing our young people and our political system that seems to be held in the grip of those who worship the 2nd Amendment and distort its original intent.  My heart is deeply saddened, I'm confused, and I have a hard time finding the words to communicate authentic thoughts and emotions.

I have plenty of questions that circulate through my brain:  why are we killing children?  why can't we have a society based on ethics and right action?  what parts of our society are failing our young people?  when did this all begin and why?  what will it take for this to cease?

Those questions seem to point to a psychotic dysfunction in a culture that has been colored profoundly by inequality and violence, and to the delusions of mind brought about by tehcnology's frightening speed. Sadly there are plenty of young people with guns that have little understanding of how real AND deadly the weapons really are, as though they were playing a part in some shoot-em-up movie.   I am old enough to remember a turning away from the light and a what we might think of as a civil society around the time John Kennedy was assassinated in 1963.  But of course we already had a legacy of violence in this country that erupted over decades in the South as the white population desperately tried to prevent the blacks from becoming empowered.  Our televisions brought into our comfortable living rooms the relentless cruel warfare waged on African Americans in the South and beyond as we watched with trepidation and discomfort.  This calculated use of force, as well as the assassinations of our leaders, set the groundwork for humans murdering their own kind in the decades that followed.  Greed, fear, and social inequality ... they all played a part.  We were (are) a fragmented society with our families spread apart, and after Martin Luther King was killed we seemed to lack a spiritual voice in America that would remind us that we're brothers, that working together and in community without violence, is the way to effect change for all our citizens.

When I step back and look at our world now, one of the forces I'm most aware of is fear. Too many are governed by fear, whether it's of not having enough to eat, not having enough wealth, or beauty and talent, or power and control.  The politicians play off that fear, and people vote for the candidates who promise to extricate people from their fearful lives.   And of course the promises are not fulfilled, and more fear is stirred up, particularly of races who are different from us -- different religions. languages, and different color skin.  In today's world as young students are being shot to death in schools, fear is everywhere:  on city streets, in schools, at the ballot box, reading the news of nuclear proliferation, in the workplace, behind the wheel of a car, sitting at the local pub trying to escape the horrible news, and so on and so on.  

Currency of the realm seems to be fear, and I am wondering if our young people who have been neglected or abused, have some mental dysfunction, don't fit into their own culture and are terrified of not belonging, if these kids are picking up guns in order to avoid feeling so afraid.  This is just one observation by a bystander (myself) who feels confused by all the deaths in the schools...  Yes, we do have mentally ill people who have slipped through the cracks and not received help -- in other words, we have a mental health system that needs to be reinvented.  Yes, there is entirely too much access to weapons.  And yes, we have politicians operating out of ignorance and fear.

Healing is needed.  The teachings of the Buddha point the way to choosing a life of non-harming.  So my next complicated question is:  how can we bring this wisdom to those responsible for change, whether it be mental health workers, politicians, the military, financial institutions, and the technological corporations?  This world's problems are complicated and change will be a convoluted process.  But transformation is possible - we can see this when we look back at our history...  It may start with changing the climate inside ourselves.  The Dalai Lama once said that peace starts with the individual.  Examining the spiraling array of questions that haunt me about gun violence and children doesn't feel like it's bringing me peace at this moment, but I have a hunch that offering these thoughts up to my fellow beings for their reflection is a peaceful act.  I wish the best for all humans no matter what landscape they inhabit, and I'm convinced that speaking my truth is one important step to take to help bring about change.  Please join me: think on these painful subjects -- they are very real and deserve our attention -- and at the same time let your heart soften and remind you that love, not guns, is the most powerful tool we have.

We humans need each other in more ways than we'd like to admit, and last week I had a chance to experience "community" amongst my fellow humans in a couple of ways. And it felt good.

Last week I also attended my first district meeting of Sister District in San Francisco.  This organization, started by two women lawyers following the last (shocking) election, is dedicated to changing the face of our congress by starting at the very local level:  the state races.  This grass roots organization is composed of teams of volunteers across the country, and a campaign of reaching out with informed opinion is in full swing.  Listen to the name:  Sister District.  Conjures up a friendly, helpful feeling, right?  The women of this country, no matter the color of their skin, their habits, beliefs and traditions, are sisters on this life journey, and so why not come together to bring about constructive, humane change in our dysfunctional political system?  The issues are vast in number --  education, health care, human rights and immigration, infrastructure, and stopping the tide of gun violence, just to name a few. I sat in a cozy San Francisco living room, sipped a drink aptly entitled the "blue wave,"and listened to 8 or so women talk about how they could be of service in working for change.  There was this distinct sense of hungering to make a difference in our sad world...  And there was solidarity and even joy in the air.  We feel better when we come together and share our thoughts, our vision.  We all need our tribe, don't we?  And, as the Women's March in 2017 showed us over a year ago, women are formidable when they organize themselves and speak out.

Yesterday I attended the monthly meeting of a Buddhist community I have belonged to for ten years now.  On the first Sunday of the month we meet, sit in meditation, and then spend some hours reflecting on many aspects of Buddhist teaching.  We talk about cultivating kindness, toward self and others, about letting go of that which we can't control, about facing the impermanent nature of our lives, about the challenges of being truly present in this life, and the difficulties of integrating a contemplative practice in daily non-monastic life.  We eat good food together, we laugh, we cry ... we experience the intimacy of a community where everything we say to each other is heard with respect, where we are held by shared understanding and love, and the belief that we can rely on the Buddha's wise teachings to pursue lives of non-harming and compassion.  Sadly it is rare to have this kind of refuge in life, since most of us live in a technologically driven world where our manic electronic devices, as well as distrust and fear, drive us ever forward, and there is little time to pause, reflect, and understand. 

My time spent traveling in Africa on safari taught me a few profound truths. The most important of these is that human animals -- and we are indeed animals -- need one another to thrive, to take care of ourselves and our children, to experience safety and a sense of wellbeing.  The herds of wildebeest, elephants, zebras, giraffes, and the family communities of the mountain gorillas all work together for the benefit of the whole.  What emerges is a group intelligence, a collective game plan, that will enable all to benefit.  Some of the creatures pursue lonelier paths, the lions, cheetahs, leopards -- all those magnificent and independent wild cats!  Lions don't live in herds exactly, but they have their "pride," (what a great name for an organized group!) their family unit that dictates all that they do.  The truth is:  we are social creatures, most likely not meant to trek through life alone.   Because humans are infinitesimal in the epic scheme of things, another truth I learned in the African landscape, we must come together to help each other survive with dignity and happiness.  

I've been journeying alone much of the time in the last ten years, and today I see light being shone on our fractured and unhappy conditions by many grass roots efforts and small communities of worker bees;  resources and visions for the larger good are pooled and people are listening carefully to one another.  A moral imperative has surfaced.  I want to walk in that light now, I want to make a difference in our human herd.  It's about time... 

Eating alone is meditative and it is lonely and it can be immensely satisfying, as you come to witness and savor slices of a golden pear, shiny silver sardines on dark crackers, or the perfect cup of muddy brown espresso.  You get very close, you inhale the perfume and suggestions of food.

I grew up believing that eating - or "dining" as some people describe it - was something done primarily with others, an occasion where you clinked glasses, forked your steaming pasta, and talked on into the night, conversing about the particulars of your day.  In my childhood, TV and reading were forbidden at the dinner table -- there was just the food, soft cloth napkins, candles, and lively conversation.

As a young girl I spent a lot of time listening to my mother and stepfather talk during our evening meal.  I rarely spoke.  As I eventually shepherded my own little family through the sixties and seventies, I tried to uphold this standard of "civilized" dining, much to everyone's frustration.  There was the intrusion of television, of course, and then the unavoidable fact that my attempts at interesting conversation were often ignored.  As I became an elder and it was time to sit down at the table to eat alone, I felt it was very familiar.  I knew this aloneness with food.  I always had an intimate relationship to the food I consumed, whether it was a beautifully poached egg, artichokes with melted butter, or a beautiful salad.  As a single old woman, I have always chosen to go to the effort of making beautiful meals even though it was for an audience of one.  It mattered that it was interesting to look at and taste.  It is also an invitation to mindfulness.   I often watch an old classic movie when I have my meal and imagine that the marvelous actors on screen are joining me for dinner.  In the morning, I keep it simple, not much ceremony:  fruit, some toasted bread and honey perhaps, and always good green tea.  It feels that this is what my body desires at the beginning of the day.  I read the NY Times, sip tea, and look out the window for the wild birds.  And I feel grateful for another day.  Most of the time I eat out in the city I am alone, surrounded by eager customers in groups of two or four or six.  I love to eavesdrop as I pretend to concentrate on my New Yorker magazine or latest book.   Only occasionally does my self-contained universe feel touched by aching aloneness, a feeling of being alien.   These unwelcome lonely moments are hard, but the good news is that they eventually float away.  That disappearing into space is what our feelings do...  It is their nature.

This ritual of eating alone is an opportunity to be inside our bodies, sensing how pasta carbonara laced with rich egg and bacon and cheese feels as you chew, savor, and swallow.  It is a moment where you can pause to feel gratitude for your life.  You can remember a time when you first learned how to cook from a young Italian peasant woman.  You can discover a new subtle flavor in your chicken curry.  You can give thanks to all those responsible for the food on your table.  You can feel your own body's response to being nourished.

I guess I could say that I've been practicing eating alone for a very long time.  Growing up an only child in an adult world where grownups were indifferent, I was eating alone even though I sat at the same table and ate the same food.  Encased in this solitary bubble, I saw myself as someone apart -- definitely not part of the herd -- a hard road to travel when as children we want to belong to our community of peers.  The great gift of this unnatural condition, which I came to understand at a much later age, was that I learned to love and respect food.  Because there was such intimacy with experience, I learned (alone) to find joy and honor things like:  a perfectly ripe avocado, a juicy lemon, creamy Brie that oozes over the plate, purple artichokes, sour French bread, dark red raspberries that melt on your tongue, and dark green olive oil drizzled on beautiful lettuces... 

This is a romance I'm talking about, where there are beginnings and endings: a joy felt at the very first bite and in the end acceptance that the whole experience is impermanent.   That first bite will quickly be behind you, and you will be left with just the memory of how that perfect dark chocolate (or blackberry or toasted almond or bright green pea) felt in your mouth.    The more present you are as you take that bite, the richer the memory will be.

Where did we travel from?  We all came from somewhere else to America, and before too long we felt we were entitled, we assumed we belonged.  The indigenous peoples of this land knew they belonged – it was in their bodies and their connection to this land.  We, on the other hand, assumed.

When I travel to different cultures I often think about how we are connected, how we’re all humans on the earth just trying to survive.  Our skin color is different, but path is the same.  I like this sense of fluidity.  And I feel sad that many cannot see this.

My family’s ancestors came from England, Ireland, and France, and they settled in the Eastern part of this country, establishing communities of righteousness.  They had a hunger for freedom from the tyranny of the British, and then … They became those who tyrannized others.

My grandmother’s ancestors lived in South Carolina, one of the most important states of the Confederacy.  Slavery became the backbone of their society economically, and a horrific war was fought because there were two opposing views about how to have a Union, and how to treat the issue of slavery.  I can’t imagine a life where others are enslaved, treated and cruelly mistreated as property.  If I were to talk to Grandmother now, I’d imagine she would say it is morally wrong to own slaves, that she couldn’t in good conscience condone this, even though she came from a landscape where this was the norm.  I believe she was aware that this was perpetrated by many in her ancestors, and that her great great great grandfather, Christopher Gadsden, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, was a slave owner.  Most Southern men of privilege were.  Does this mean they were to be condemned for being immoral and cruel?  Does playing one’s part in the social structure (owning slaves if you’re well off) change your character as a human?   Thomas Jefferson, an advanced thinker, humanitarian and politician of his time, had slaves.  And he penned the lyrical and courageous document called the Declaration of Independence.

Can you reconcile the social/political choices a person makes from who he or she is in his heart and mind?  I talked about this with a fellow writer recently – she said she couldn’t enjoy the art of Pablo Picasso because he was such a misogynist, because he demeaned women all his life.  That he was an extraordinary painter who transformed minds and hearts throughout his career made no matter to her, because he had succumbed to chauvinism.   Should you conclude that Jefferson’s contributions to our early history should be discounted because he had slaves?  And should I feel uncomfortable because this long ago ancestor of my grandmother’s was a slave owner and also a patriot?  This is an interesting, disturbing question.  I confess that I never allowed myself to accept the brilliance of Hemingway as a writer because I was repelled by how he treated and characterized women.  What I took for a certain immorality took precedence over any notion of learning from his extraordinary craft.

Immigration ...  I return to this again, haunted by the poetic book Exit West by Moshin Hamid, a writer from Pakistan who is also preoccupied with the concept of humans in transit.    We all have come from somewhere, we are all immigrating through different territories of our lives, and like mosaics, in a way, we carry a mix of ethnicity, personality, and vision.   Though we are mosaic-like, we reflect the culture where we live and work.  When we move on, if we do, we leave something(s) behind, as though shedding part of our skin. Is this now dead to us?

How much did my grandmother think about her ancestor as a slave-owner, and how would that have made her feel? While Christopher did not migrate away from his native South, she did, and in doing so she was able to leave behind that which was too hard to carry. She may have known the truth of her past, but she was able to break free, so she could continue to grow into a complex and different woman.

When I think of the Civil War and its dark inhumanity, I realize we may not be as far away from that divisive thinking as we’d like to believe.  These times we inhabit at the outset of the 21st century are terribly fractured and polarized, and they are colored by an escalation of emotions that is scary.  It occurs to me that I may not see the resolution of this rift in our culture or the discovery of a shared humanity, and all I can do with the despair and frustration is continue to reflect on this phenomenon of migration and the truth of our human sameness.  This reassures me somehow, and reminds me to continue to hold some hope for my future ancestors, and for all beings.