Remembering a Grandma

Not long before she passed away six years ago, my younger kids and I visited her in Michigan. A few photos from that visit showed up suddenly today, slipping out of one of the giant piles I maintain, but seldom peruse.

Forgive me. I cried. These were tears of mixed emotions. I'm sad that my kids do not have their Grandma to visit, talk to, write to, text with, Tweet about, or befriend on Facebook. But I also am so happy and grateful we made that trip, which was the last time I saw my Mom until she was lying on her death bed, a little over a month later.

The photos are a reminder that we are only here for a heartbeat. We all have to remember to enjoy it while we can.

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The Killers Among Us

Tonight, at my bathroom sink, a mosquito attacked me. I tried to kill it, repeatedly, but it eluded my slaps. It will no doubt suck my blood as I sleep later tonight, and in the process it will inject whatever diseases it is carrying into my old body, so that my immune system will have to respond, best that it can.

Nothing about being alive is easy, actually. There are always forces trying to end our time here. Mosquitoes and other parasites tried their best to quiet me in 1971, when I lay dying in India with what doctors later decided was some toxic combination of typhoid fever and salmonella.

But in 1971 I was young and strong, and no disease was going to snuff out my voice, so in the end I won that battle and didn't die -- and that is why I am writing these words tonight. One of these days or nights, however, I will encounter a natural enemy that will get the best of me.

We all know this to be true. We cannot be here forever. But while we are here, we can speak, even if no one seems to be listening. I think this is why blogs have exploded in the past decade.

Have you explored the world of blogs? There are bloggers posting about every imaginable topic in the human experience, from every perspective imaginable. Collectively, we are like an army of circadias, chirping our songs into an endless night, who knows why?

Maybe just because we can (for now).

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Here's What the Problem Is

At its 1,445th posting, this blog is having an identity crisis. What is it and why does it exist?

Lately, blogger.com, the Google-owned service that hosts my blog, has been a bit unreliable, as has the email client gmail. Both seem a bit unstable, relatively speaking, which reminds me of the author of this blog.

I've always known this was going to be a virtual memoir, a sort of journal about my life and the lives of those I love. But there are all kinds of problems pulling it off. First, very importantly, are privacy concerns. I don't want to violate anyone's privacy, least of all those closest to me.

So, I tend to hold back on telling details that might be used by someone with nefarious intentions. No one needs to know exactly where somebody else lives, what their precise daily routines are, when their house might be unoccupied, how much money they have, who their BFF is, what their likely passwords could be, or any other proprietary information.

It might surprise you, but as a journalist, one quite practiced in locating people, interviewing them, and acquiring access to their thoughts and feelings, I do not enjoy ever compromising another person's privacy.

Rather, I consider it a sacred right, privacy. Each of us needs to feel safe enough to function in whatever way we feel is appropriate for us, in the moment, and over time.

In this context, I do worry about young people. My students at Stanford introduced me to Facebook soon after it launched. One of them created a page for me, many of them linked to my page. I looked at their pages and saw photos of them that I knew would not be useful, shall we say, in a professional context in the years to come.

These were, by and large, party pix, young people drinking and linking and generally having a good time, which is always a good thing in my book.

Over the years, as they age, people tend to try and clean up their past, which is natural. At one stage of life, showing off is fun and natural. At another, it is a problem.

By my stage, there really is nothing to show off about. I'm just an old man, writing about the past, the present, and the future (if there is one.)

I am therefore trying to find the right balance in all of this, knowing that these blog posts live on and on in a way that a private journal never did in the past. At best, a family member had custody of it; at worst, it crumbled into dust.

See -- I am a sharer. Why? Because I suspect that this may turn out to matter, in ways I cannot comprehend while I'm still here. Maybe it will have mattered that people tried to tell their truths?

If not, hopefully no one got hurt in the process...

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All Along the Waterfront

Summer and Winter alternate here in August. After several cold days, today is a 85 degree, windless entry.



It's very quiet on the Bay today.



A rare day for San Francisco. Cy Young Award winner Tim Lincecum is pitching for the Giants against the Dodgers. No score in the 3rd.

UPDATE: The Giants won this one, 4-2 in 10 innings.

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Amazing Flower

Now and then, all of a sudden, I see something or someone so beautiful that it, or she, takes my breath away.

I'm a natural window shopper.

Eye candy.

Pretty girls turn my heads. So do flowers, hummingbirds, and certain trees.

I'm all eyes in some ways.

Isn't this flower lovely? Almost makes you believe in God, eh?

Not me. It makes me believe in evolution. This flower clearly has evolved a strategy based on the same protective coloration other species employ to either repell enemies or invite pollinators.

I'm no scientist, but in this case, I suspect the second strategy is at work. Who wouldn't want to pollinate someone/something this beautiful? (Answer: no one with a working stinger.)

I just wonder if she's single.

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Remembering Nagasaki & Hiroshima

(64 years ago this weekend)



At Sunset last night, we floated paper lanterns at Aquatic Park in Berkeley.



This tradition took root with the story of Sadako Sasaki, who was two when the first atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. She was later diagnosed with leukemia.



An old legend in Japanese culture held that the person who folds 1,000 "paper cranes" of the sort in these photos will have her wish granted.



Over time she came to give up her first wish (to survive) and changed it to a new wish -- that this type of horrible violence never happen again. Sadako made it to 664 lanterns before she passed away in 1955, a decade after the bomb was dropped.



Her friends and family folded the remaining 356 to bury with her.



There is a monument to her at Hiroshima. It reads: "This is our prayer. This is our cry. Peace in the world."

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