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This is for my daughter to who took a Lyft to the ferry - and the ferry to San Francisco and walked 15 minutes in the cold morning air to get to her job in the city today. For the way I just wrote out the word San Francisco, instead of SF - like I have done for the...

The man with the teeth coming out of his cheek scared me. So did the man with knobs for hands who sat cross legged on the ground, bobbing back and forth, chanting, balancing a cup of tea between his knobs. The burned man too, he scared me, the layers of exposed flesh,...

I travel to forget where I am and to lose track of the days. To wake up to the sounds of dogs and doves, the conch shell at dawn, the chanting of monks coming from the monastery down the block. I travel for bells and incense, to watch the sun rise above an ancient...

A few weeks before the trip to Oaxaca that my creative partner, Andrea Scher and I had planned, I realized I was nervous. The group would be small - seven of us in total - much smaller than the groups of 17 that Andrea and I usually travel to Mexico. We’d kept it...

Photo Credit: Sonya Lea Mostly it’s the time I’m after. The slower mornings, the lingering cup of coffee, pajamas sometimes until 10 am. It’s waking up and trying to remember what day it is. It’s paying attention to my stomach - where the anxiety lives. It’s noticing...

A few years ago I found myself running alone down a trail in the Himalayas, Nine Inch Nails playing on my headphones, rain lightly falling around me. I’d left my friend Sunny and our Sherpa, Raja, on the trail behind me. We’d been hiking for five days on a route that...

“It’s important to stay busy.” That’s what I said to my 24-year-old daughter the other day, and as the words were leaving my mouth, a wave of sadness swept through me – as though I was giving her very old, very crusty survival tips – pretty much my lifetime...

A couple of weeks ago we had a party at our house for our dear friend Garner, who had just turned 70. Garner made it happen, handled all the invites and the food, the set up and the cleanup. All I had to do was open my front door. He even left me with house cleaning...

“It’s hard, it’s hard, it’s hard. Work harder, work harder, work harder!” That’s me chanting to my friend Jen in the car the other day after a delightful lunch of pea shoots and hummus at Standard Fare, in Berkeley. I was explaining what running on the treadmill was...