Trek: Part I

                  1
The morning I leave Oakland I wake at 5 am, and spend four hours finishing loading my truck. I check the mailbox one last time, and there's a package.  A new book by my friend Christian McEwen, called World Enough and Time: On Creativity and Slowing Down. The perfect journey book for someone about to hurtle across a whole continent at 75 miles per hour..
I planned my departure so I could go to Rosh Hashana services at my beloved Kehilla Community. I will spend High Holy Days on the road, thinking, singing, experiencing the geography of the United States as I drive I-80 right across its middle.  I park my loaded truck at the hall we rent for big services and go in, o immerse myself in song, bathe in prayers, dance to Ma Gadlu, receive blessings like a shower of petals from people I've gathered with for years, and sip the Rosh Hashana wine.  Then I climb into my ten foot Budget truck and drive away.
By the time the last errand is done, fog has started to settle over the Bay and the hills, that breathtaking play of light and moisture that defines the Bay Area sky, sun pouring through, glazing the blue fog with gold, then more fog rolling in, a white cottony blanket on the water, and pouring down off the hills, dimming the sun to a shimmer, and smelling of eucalyptus and ocean.  I am wrenched with love for this place I am leaving. 

Read More