Category: Life

Each moment is different. Here are some of mine.

Night, Fog, and One Hell of a Bang

IF I HAD KNOWN THAT our galleon would collide with a freighter, I would have worn a life jacket.

The time was February 1988. Through a curious series of circumstances, I had signed aboard the replica galleon Golden Hinde II a few months earlier as a deckhand and docent, sailing around the Bay Area and down the California coast giving tours of our fine ship. Our plan that night was to motor (yes, we had a small engine) from San Francisco to the Farallon Islands, then sail down to Half Moon Bay. We left San Francisco well after midnight in order to take advantage of the outgoing tide, and were soon past the Golden Gate Bridge and into the open sea.

A cold and foggy 3 a. m. found me atop the foredeck on bow-watch (front lookout) with a couple of other chilly souls. Continue reading “Night, Fog, and One Hell of a Bang”

Wee Little Me

NEAR THE TOP OF THE Beloved Things list are landscapes that make me feel small. Deserts, mountains, beaches, redwood forests, prairies — anything requiring a wide perspective with which to take it all in, and which likewise reminds me of my true place in the Universe.

Part of the reason is that I have lived in a valley of one sort or another for most of my life. Valleys can’t help but breed insularity; when you can see the borders of your world, you can get the idea that the world is a small one and that the people inside it are the only people there are. Continue reading “Wee Little Me”

Praying for Strength, and Other Sure Things

IS G?D GRANTING FAVORS, OR am I just fooling my brain into higher functioning?

That’s the question I ask myself every time I pray for either greater strength (read: endurance) or greater understanding. That’s about all I ever pray for[1], and either way, those prayers always get answered (so far). But the question is also a loaded one: as a Religious Agnostic, I am somewhat prejudiced against the idea of the nameless, genderless Man Upstairs (if It is a man, and if It is upstairs) making dreams come true for me when they have so tragically gone wrong for others (e.g., and canonically, the Six Million, but also any refugees/terminal patients/soldiers/etc anywhere/anywhen). That’s also an argument against Divine Intervention: that people who have “miraculously” survived illness and disaster must necessarily be more holy than those who didn’t. I don’t think that’s fair, or accurate.

But praying for something that expands you in some way — Continue reading “Praying for Strength, and Other Sure Things”

Adventures of a Lidded Yid

“ARE YOU A PRIEST?” ASKED the workman as I passed through a local condoplex.

“No, just a Jew,” I answered, smiling.

“That’s good,” he said, also smiling, and went back to his repairs.

He was not the first person who asked me about my yarmulke (in Hebrew, “kippa”), but he was one of the most affable. I have been wearing a small, knitted skullcap pretty much full-time since 2000, when my increasing religious observance (and a local anti-Semitic incident) seemed to call for it. It has sparked many conversations between myself and various onlookers, including a Muslim attorney interested in how kosher food differed from its halal counterpart; Continue reading “Adventures of a Lidded Yid”

(Shave and) a Haircut, 12 Bucks!

WE HAD LIVED IN SONOMA for a third of my lifetime before I visited Allen’s Hair House, about a half-block south of the Plaza. I had become fed up with being charged $20 for a chop job by my previous barber, who shall remain nameless, and I was frankly curious about the unassuming Broadway storefront with the classic spinning barber pole and the hand-stenciled sign: “HAIRCUTS – $12.”

I was greeted by the smell of jasmine rice, and by an older Vietnamese man with a thick accent and soft voice. He offered me one of the two empty barber’s chairs and, when I sat down, he tied the traditional paper strip around my neck before enveloping me in a smock decorated with an Egyptian theme. Continue reading “(Shave and) a Haircut, 12 Bucks!”

5 Thoughts: Religious Agnosticism

0. EVERYONE HAS BELIEFS/KNOWLEDGE about the nature of the (inner) world; while I don’t much like labels attached to such things it seems fitting to call mine “Religious Agnosticism.” Here’s a handful of relevant definitions (partly because a handful of anything is all we ever have): Continue reading “5 Thoughts: Religious Agnosticism”

Fie on Death, and the Pale Horse He Rode In On

He was a man. Take him for all in all. I shall not look upon his like again.
— William Shakespeare, Hamlet

John Wheeler, c. 1981
John Wheeler, c. 1981

WHEN I FIRST MOVED INTO an Oakland apartment in 1986 with John Woods “Wheels” “Spoonhead” “Calvin Biggins” Wheeler, our mutual friends were laying bets as to who would kill who first.

“We’re both so obnoxiously self-aggrandizing,” John told me. At that point in my life, I couldn’t argue with him. We were in our mid- to late-20s, after all, and such things are expected of young men. Continue reading “Fie on Death, and the Pale Horse He Rode In On”

Overheard in Sonoma

(For Leah Garchik’s back-page-of-the-San Francisco Chronicle feature.)

Ms. Garchik,

I was walking on the west side of Sonoma Plaza this morning when I passed a middle-aged touristy couple, just as the man was saying to his female companion, “Someday, she’ll know what beer is.” His words are a mystery to me, and I hope amusing to your readers.

Be well,

Neal

Vive La Difference

From Josee Wolff, The Torah: A Women’s Commentary:

“…The pessimist observes a situation, generalizes about the bad aspects, and interprets them as a permanent and constant feature. In contrast, the optimist observes the same situation and sees the bad aspects, but particularizes them and interprets them as a temporary obstacle that can be overcome.”

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