On Saturday I sat in the backseat of a car with a moon roof. I stared up at the sky and noticed a rainbow hidden in the clouds. I lowered my sunglasses because usually, that helps me see colors better but, in this case, I was surprised. Leaving my sunglasses on helped me more clearly [...]
October 2022
I enrolled in a novel writing class and I confessed to a fellow writer that I feel a lot of pressure to put into practice everything I’m learning. I want my dialogue to conceal and reveal. I want to keep the reader guessing but not withhold too much. I want the plot to be engaging [...]
I keep thinking about the cycle of luck. If you take a snapshot of an event, it might initially seem like bad luck. But if you widen your lens, so to speak, that unlucky event can become lucky. There’s a story about a Chinese farmer who used a stallion to till his fields. One day [...]
October is a strange month in the Bay Area. I know in many parts of the U.S. the temperature is dipping, leaves are changing color, and people are eating soup for dinner. But in the Bay Area, October is a liminal month, straddling the line between summer and fall. Earlier this week I wore a [...]
As we’re finishing the Jewish High Holidays, I think it’s only fitting to share a concept I learned about recently. In Jewish mysticism, there’s an idea that in every generation 36 people hold up the world. These lamed-vavniks do not themselves know they are one of the 36 and no one else does either. What [...]