Listening to my grandchildren during their "chat" sessions on Zoom school calls -- when kids can bring up whatever they wish to talk about -- it is fascinating to hear how often California kids want to talk about cataclysmic events -- earthquakes and fires.
This puts their teachers in a difficult position. The teachers, meanwhile, who are primarily young women, often tell about their memories of relatively big earthquakes, of which there have been few in the past few decades, or fire zones they have witnessed.
As an older person, I can hear the youthfulness in their voices. They are in their twenties, when the human voice still vibrates in a youthful kind of way.
They are sincere, trying to allay the fears of their students, to reassure them, and fulfill their responsibility as important adults in the children's lives. But I can sense their relief when it is time for that part of the lesson to end. "It's time to turn off 'chat' now, everybody."
***
My lifestyle at present, partly out of necessity, partly out of choice, is somewhat itinerant. I hope it becomes more so in the future. Over recent weeks and months, I have slept in San Jose, San Francisco, and El Cerrito; these are all communities that border different parts of San Francisco Bay.
Although the differences in these communities are subtle, they appeal to me. That is the differences. When I am present, typically I am on the only one in the household who is up at 3 a.m.
That's because I wake up around that time, filled with ideas about what I want to write. It's become apparent over recent years that no matter how hard I might try to go back to sleep, that effort is pointless unless I first set the words yearning to be spoken down on paper, or rather on screen.
As this reality, what some people would call a problem but I call a blessing, became obvious over the past few years, various friends have recommended that I take melatonin, which is described as a natural sleep medication.
Last year, in one hospital, the doctors actually prescribed a clinical dose of melatonin to help me go to sleep at night. Their theory was if I went to sleep earlier, I might wake up later, or at least better-rested.
The medication failed to have any impact.
At this point, you couldn't force me to take it. When I get up in the dark, alone, blinking to see without light, a warm feeling comes over me. "Silence, my old friend..."
In the house where I am staying, I become the night watchman. Looking out the windows, I might see wild turkeys or deer, or the fog drifting, or sometimes the smoke from distant fires. There are no birdsongs at that hour. And no coffee brewing in the kitchen.
I can't play some music; I can't go out for a walk.
But I *can* write.
After all, it's always 3 a.m. somewhere.
***
* I Won’t Be Used as a Guinea Pig for White People’ -- Mistrust of vaccines runs deep in African-American communities. (NYT)
* The CDC says it did not consider Vice President Mike Pence a “close contact” of Trump so he could safely participate in Wednesday’s vice presidential debate. (HuffPost)
* Coronavirus dominates campaign as Trump struggles to regain ground -- The president and Democrat Joe Biden promoted their very different approaches to battling the virus — and handling the presidency. (WashPo)
* Nobel Prize in Physics Awarded to 3 Scientists for Work on Black Holes -- The prize was awarded half to Roger Penrose for showing how black holes could form and half to Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez for discovering a supermassive object at the Milky Way’s center. (NYT)
* Face Masks Don't Work Very Well in the Rain (HuffPost)
* Amy Coney Barrett served as a ‘handmaid’ in Christian group People of Praise (WashPo)
* Trump Took $70,000 in Tax Deductions for Hair Care. Experts Say That’s Illegal. -- It’s a small but telling detail in The Times’s exposé on the president’s taxes. (NYT) That's more than most people's income. -- DW
* Oscar Grant: California officials reopen inquiry into 2009 police killing (The Guardian)
* Retired Gen. Michael Hayden, former director of the CIA under President George W. Bush, is warning about the toll of four more years of Trump. “If there is another term for President Trump, I don’t know what will happen to America,” Hayden said in a video released by Republican Voters Against Trump. (HuffPost)
***
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"The work requires a deep understanding of how winds would spread flames down a particular hillside or when lighting a fire in a forest would foster the growth of certain plants, and that knowledge has been passed down through ceremony and practice. But until recently, it has been mostly dismissed as unscientific. |
"Now, as more Americans are being forced to confront the realities of climate change, firefighting experts and policymakers are increasingly turning to fundamental ecological principles that have long guided Indigenous communities." -- NYT -- -30- |
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