Oakland, California Warm and Sunny September, 2019 How to Stay Sane in the Age of Destruction I recently returned from a family reunion in Rocky Mountain National Park where the breathtaking mountain vistas were laced with patches of snow. What inspired me most was watching the rosy fingers of dawn first lighting the mountains and […]
Oakland, California July 8, 2019 Warm and sunny A Giraffe’s Eye View On the morning of July 4, I was standing on a corner in Piedmont, watching the yearly ritual of the Fourth of July parade go by. The beautifully restored, old cars were just turning onto the main street, when a small, antique Volkswagon
Open Windows: Living with Energy, Meaning and Purpose Oakland, California Cool and Sunny, November 29, 2017 The way we live opens windows and calls in a secret voice to anything still missing.” Too Many Habits? “I have too many habits!” said my friend as we drove to a practice group meeting for people learning to
Yesterday at noon, as I was walking to Trader Joe’s to buy groceries, I noticed that the oxalis was blooming in the apartment buildings’ front gardens. Their bright yellow faces were standing straight up on their tender, green stalks. Later in the afternoon, when I was again walking down the street, I noticed that they
“Someone discovered the giraffe hums at a harmonic rate of 92 Hertz, voice thrumming the tower of spine and trachea once thought to be silent….” ”Ode to This Small Joy”- Maria Calabretta Cancio-Bello After reviewing almost 1000 hours of sound recordings in three European zoos, Angela Stöger at the University of Vienna, Austria… picked up a weird
This morning I set out to try a new coffee shop five blocks away from my apartment at the intersection of a freeway entrance and a main thoroughfare. The coffee was good. The constant din of speeding cars and accelerating engines was not! To feel Silence, we have to subtract what is not silence from
Two weeks ago I went to the Oakland Zoo with my son and granddaughter. Oakland has done its best to make the animals feel at home. After taking the train through the prairies where buffalo were roaming and past the miniature jungle where the lonely tiger stalked, we stopped at the giraffes’ enclosure. The three
“Judge not lest ye be judged”. What does this mean? Who is the judge? Yesterday I was walking along Lakeshore Avenue in Oakland, my neighborhood shopping area, when I met Robert, a man in his seventies, limping along with a huge, built-up shoe for his club foot and weighted to one side by a heavy
To my dear Readers: I apologize for this long hiatus between issues of Open Windows. This period of rest and recovery is coming to an end, and I am feeling the spur to get back to writing. A few weeks ago, I was driving with my son, Jerry, across Marin County, on the opposite side
Open Windows Oakland Heights Rehabilitation June 2018 Sunny, but cool Yesterday evening a small, wiry Hispanic gentleman came to my hospital room to take a blood sample. He may have been small, but he walked with an energetic step and his eyes flashed with enthusiasm. “I love my work”, he said, as he readied my