A Beacon of Light

As I mentioned in yesterday’s blog post, I went for a walk in San Francisco on Monday. A long walk! It began with breakfast at Java Beach Café at 45th & Sloat. After a hearty bowl of oatmeal with dried cranberries, I ventured the few blocks down to the beach — to the Sunset Dunes…

“Love is the capacity to take care, to protect, and to nourish.”Thich Nhat Hanh The western side of San Francisco’s Sunset District, from Lincoln Way to Sloat Boulevard, has become a sacred space for me. It’s a place where, as Thich Nhat Hanh suggests in the quote above, I am able to take care of myself, protect my…

“I can live for two months on a good compliment.”  Mark Twain Do you recall how you felt the last time someone complimented you for something? I’m guessing you felt pretty good. Compliments can do that to us. They offer the same feeling of positivity to the person who gives the compliment. There are a variety of…

“San Francisco has only one drawback: ’tis hard to leave.” Rudyard Kipling Why would this British author and poet claim that The City is difficult to leave? Perhaps it’s because there is so much more to San Francisco than even natives and locals realize. In June, 2019, retired teacher Bob Siegel created the Crosstown Trail, a 17-mile diagonal…

“A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionate in love with language.” W. H. Auden I have no recollection of being exposed to poetry during my elementary school years. This is not to say that my class was never introduced to poetry. My lack of memory probably has more to do with my lack of interest in…

“Silent gratitude isn’t very muchuse to anyone.” Gertrude Stein I often stand at the checkout counter at the local grocery store watching the courtesy clerk bagging my groceries, a part-time job I had for a while during my high school years. When everything is packed into the brown paper bags and loaded into the shopping cart, I…

“Make each  day your  masterpiece.”  John Wooden When I reflect back on my life, I feel blessed to have vivid memories of dozens of wonderful experiences of enjoying breakfast, lunch, or dinner with friends or loved ones. Childhood memories include family dinners at the New Tivoli Restaurant in North Beach, The Spinnaker in Sausalito, the…

“Keeping up with  friends helps with  healthy aging.”   Jessica Stillman This past Sunday afternoon, I spent some time visiting with my new friend, Tony, the 101-year-old Stanford graduate I’d met outside Starbucks a few days earlier. He had mentioned to me that he goes to the coffee shop pretty much every day between 12:30 and…

“We may have different religions, different languages, different colored skin, but we all belong to one human race.” — Kofi Annan