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Essays, Memoirs & True Stories
In Search of Zen Judaism
“With all due respect, Rabbi,” I said, “you are wrong. If I understand the term correctly, a megalomaniac thinks he is God. I, on the other hand, know I am God.”
April 1998Protection
It took a long time, but, by the following summer, I could get in and out of my car without hyperventilating. I could walk calmly down main streets in the daytime, although I still avoided parking lots and alleys, and rarely went out alone at night.
April 1998On The Sorrow Of Receiving A Teaching Award
I approached the microphone to deliver my acceptance speech, but the dean held me back while the awards for “scholarship” and “service” were presented. As it turned out, I never was allowed to say anything. So this, without further ado, is my acceptance speech.
March 1998Where Silence Starts
Imagining motherhood is like imagining old age: there are no reliable forecasts. I assumed I would know more. While pregnant, I supposed that mothers’ intuition was a hard, certain thing, a perpetually replenished reservoir of basic instinct.
March 1998The Parental Fallacy
The acorn theory suggests a primitive solution. It says: Your daimon selected both the egg and the sperm, as it selected their carriers, called “parents.” Their union results from your necessity — and not the other way around.
March 1998Letters To My Friends
Every time I take a book out of the library and the librarian consults the computer to determine my past crimes, I expect her to discover the Gary Snyder book I lost two months ago. But it never appears on the screen.
March 1998Moving Scott’s Car
The other day, my brother Scott asked me if I’d be willing to move his car on street-cleaning days, if he ever became too sick to do it. “I can’t drive a stick shift,” I said, relieved to have the excuse of ineptitude.
February 1998Damaged Hearts
Two summers ago, a relieved airline stewardess handed over a wheelchair containing my mother-in-law. Her nightgown peeped from under her skirt. Her wig sat too far back on her bald head. Below her bare knees, two identical onion-shaped knots kept her mended nylon stockings from sliding down her useless legs. Her eyes lit up when she saw me.
February 1998What’s For Lunch?
Hazel Mitchell died last summer while I was out of town. She had a massive heart attack as she sat in her recliner watching an afternoon Braves game on TV. The last words she heard, after eighty years of life, were probably “High and inside to left-handed batter Fred McGriff. Need a cool, refreshing break? Tap the Rockies: Coors Light.”
February 1998A Buddhist On Death Row
When the cell doors slammed shut behind me, I found myself inside the first tier of the security housing unit. I didn’t know what to expect. I knew only that I had been relocated to what was considered the “crazy tier” by some, and the worst place in San Quentin by everyone. I was among the worst of the worst.
February 1998
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