What a beginning of the week it has been!  A great advertisement for why not to go into computer science.   I was too busy and too angry to write earlier, but I have calmed down some.  And the break has given me a chance to see what others might write.

Day 1: Post with discussions of your positive memories, writings, thoughts, and images that you have come across in your life. It could be a place, it could be a photo, it could be a film, and it could be anything.

I was at a loss to pick one thing.  Let me give you glimpses of several. 

A Place: New Orleans. 
Which surprises me in a way.  When I was young, my family never vacationed the way that you see Chevy Chase do in the movies.  I suspect that we couldn’t afford it.  I went to college and listened to friends’ accounts with jealousy.  I’ve been trying to make up for that lack of frantic trips to Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, etc. ever since.  (Hah!)  So, I’ve been to San Francisco (twice!), Los Angeles (twice!), the Grand Canyon, Boston (twice!), New York (three times, at least), Orlando, London, Paris, Morocco, and Israel (a Federation tour).  I love them all.  Each one is a favorite for differing reasons. 

But when I return to New Orleans and the airplane makes its curtsey to that brown goddess of a river, I am always home.  Even with all its problems.  Even with its aggravations.  I want to return to Israel and Africa.  Those were the first places that I went where “whiteness” was not the default.  Heavens, I was the only Black person in our particular tour group in Israel and Israelis occasionally spoke to me in Hebrew—assuming that I was the native.  I want to go back when I am not being dragged from one significant place to another.  But, for now, New Orleans is home.  When on its best behavior, it is a place where people wholly adopt other cultures mores, dances, and food without homogenization.

A book or two: “Was” by Geoff Ryman and “God was in this Place, and I, I did not know it” by Lawrence Kushner.
I re-read both of them every few years. 
“Was” perfectly illustrates the tension between fiction and non-fiction and how they test and strengthen each other.
Kushner’s book.  Ah.  Well if nothing else, for a writer, it illustrates how one story can be told and retold, or interpreted and reinterpreted, layered and enriched by every person and generation that touches it.

An image:
I will try to paste in a few that I’ve taken.  The first is from New Orleans.



Beach in Morocco



the open road