Profile of Bill Sweeney: Acupuncture for the homeless, thru Glide Memorial Church's community clinic

by J.May Chew and William Murphy

There is a healing oasis, six floors above the streets of San Francisco’s Tenderloin District. Quiet jazz plays in a room with the lights set low and curtains partly closed.

One at a time, low-income or homeless patients take a turn sitting in front of acupuncturist Bill Sweeney. Many suffer from addiction or mental illness. He places acupuncture needles in points on their ears and scalp, points useful for treating their special problems, and then they go back to their chairs.

For the next forty-five minutes they will sit peacefully while the acupuncture does its work. This space has the feeling of meditation, sacred. No talking is allowed, to respect those who have gone into their quiet zone. Although one patient is obviously a junkie with eyes rolled back into his head, most of the half dozen people in this room have mental illness or serious pain-related problems. For one balding elderly woman, life has simply beaten her down. Yet a faint smile graces her face as she leans back and closes her eyes.

It’s a weekday morning at the community clinic at Glide Memorial Church, located in the heart of San Francisco’s rough Tenderloin district. Only blocks from the suits in the Financial District and the middle class tourists at Union Square, the Tenderloin is haven for homeless and addicts, or merely those who couldn’t catch a break from life – those who didn’t happen to chose the right parents.

Glide’s community service programs provide a ladder up, offering food, job training, and for those suffering from addiction or mental illness, Glide offers mental health care.

Westerners have come to know acupuncture as a medical treatment, but that is only the lowest of three purposes in old-school tradition. A second higher purpose was the general tune-up, especially at the change of seasons.

But the third and highest purpose of acupuncture was to raise spiritual awareness (techniques reserved for royalty and the religious classes). This turns out to be useful today for treating mental health and addiction issues.

This version ("auricular") uses areas on the ear called spirit points. Needles inserted at these points, says Sweeney, will help with addiction, cravings, depression, panic, insomnia, stress-related disorders, and even memory loss or foggy thinking.

"Keep it simple, keep it clear, keep it consistent," nothing fancy, says Sweeney, in describing how to organize a group treatment. The treatment is similar for most patients, although each has a personal medical file.

Simply getting the homeless patient to show up reliably is a challenge but Glide has a high return rate, according to Sweeney. The patients know they can expect treatment the same mornings each week, relaxing in a quiet, warm, clean place. Because the homeless tend to distrust authority figures, word-of-mouth publicity brings many patients - Glide’s reputation is good.

The 38-year-old San Franciscan earned his early experience in the mid-1990s as one of the first acupuncturists treating patients at then-new programs at Glide as well as the San Francisco County Jail, the latter environment one he calls "hellish."

Inmates’ problems with addiction and mental health mirror those of Glide’s outpatients. But because they are cut off from access to crack or heroin, inmates are actively suffering withdrawal symptoms. They report this triggers "drug dreams," a kind of nightmare non-addicts can hardly imagine, but inmates say that ear acupuncture lessens this symptom.

Despite the large size of the group (as many as 60), inmates got the only peace and quiet of their day during the treatments – a break from the loud, chaotic County Jail. "I run into guys from the jail around town," Sweeney says. "I can be walking around the Tenderloin and I hear ‘Hey acupuncture man!’"

Sweeney became interested in holistic medicine while a student at San Francisco State in the early 1990s, but believes he was fortunate to get into a tutorial program with Angela Wu, one of the first wave of licensees in California in the 1970s. A master can only teach a tutorial program after 25 years experience, and then only two students at a time. Wu, who has a successful practice on Clement Street, had been in a serious accident on the Bay Bridge and during recovery resolved to take on students in the traditional one-on-one tutorial capacity – Sweeney was one of the students she called. He credits the mentor relationship for the quality of his experience.

In China, "Chairman Mao threw all this stuff out," says Sweeney, "and acupuncture got watered down. And the same thing with martial arts… Ironically, to study true Chinese arts today, you have to go to Taiwan, or New York, or San Francisco. Communist China is the last place you want to go."
Patient Lori Hampton visits the clinic several days a week for the treatment of pain from a broken neck, as well as hearing loss and diabetes. "I’ve been here about a year and a half," she says, "and people say I look younger, I look happy. This is clearing up major hearing problems I’ve had permanent since I was four, and I’m fifty." Hampton even has pain looking down stepping off a curb.

"This is the first year that music doesn’t hurt," she says, "so this is major stuff. There is room for humanity and creativity and all that, once the pain left. I was healed to be a woman again."

Sweeney doesn’t believe he has any special healing powers.

"People mention that I’m a healer, or whatever," Sweeney says, "but I always kind of shudder at that." Traditional Chinese Medicine is less mystical than people think, he suggests.

"Our job is to put the body into the best place possible where it can heal itself," he says. "Our job is to find where people’s general imbalance is and where it stems from." The idea is that symptoms arise in the greater relationship between the various parts of the body, or in the diet.

"Ultimately," Bill Sweeney says, "Traditional Chinese Medicine is about self-responsibility," a key factor in whether the homeless and addicted are able to leave the street and pull their futures together.

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Further information on Glide Memorial Church’s community clinic and service-related volunteer opportunities for the poor or homeless will be found at www.glide.org, or by calling (415) 674-6000. Glide is a very active church, and a schedule of worship and other experiences is on their web site.

For information about Bill Sweeney’s acupuncture practice, call (415) 203-4818 or visit www.billsweeneyacu.com, which also has information about traditional Chinese medicine. If you have questions or feedback for the author of this article, contact William Murphy at wcmurphy19@gmail.com or (650) 793-0770.

Ghosts in San Francisco's Haight Ashbury?

Tommy Netzband knows there are ghosts in San Francisco’s Haight Ashbury neighborhood. The eleven-year resident feels an affinity for other longtime residents.

Including the dead.

"After that wonderful Summer in 1967," says the president of the San Francisco Ghost Society, "this neighborhood began to house dark and sinister secrets. For years ‘The Haight’ became known as ‘The Hate,’ because of the endless tragedies that took place here. It was this violence and murder on its streets which make me believe it’s haunted today."

The 38 year old Chicago transplant is founder and tour guide of "Haunted Haight," a two-hour walking tour of Haight Ashbury. On a recent Sunday evening I took Tommy’s tour, which began at sunset. My friend and I were the only civilians on the tour, as the other guests were all Tommy's fellow ghost-hunters from the Sacramento Ghost Society attending the San Francisco group’s weekend lecture series.

We met at Coffee to the People at Masonic and Haight, at the east end of the famous street. Although one’s view down Haight is contemporary (retro ‘60s head shops, faux hippie clothing stores), Tommy’s tour often emphasizes a historical view. "Well," he says, "I feel ghosts and history go hand in hand."

This is the part I came to hear, because I live up the hill in an area called Ashbury Heights - I can look down into Golden Gate Park and the old Kezar Stadium located at the west end of Haight Street where it dead ends at the Park. I want to know more about the history of my home.

Long before the freaks came to party, this neighborhood was home to working class families. They rode the now-defunct Haight Street trolley to jobs in the commercial downtown or the waterfront, and lived in Italianate and San Francisco Stick-style houses dotting the area, including ones designed by architect Robert Dickie Cranston whose personal home we visited at 1777 Page Street. The carved decoration under his eaves is quite elaborate.

These working-class families had nearby (then new) Golden Gate Park as their weekend paradise, and a waterslide amusement in their neighborhood called The Chutes. Located improbably in the center of often cold and dreary San Francisco, the waterslide sat at Cole and Haight from 1895 to 1901. Tommy pointed out that he believes a child died at The Chutes, before it closed and moved across the Panhandle to the Inner Richmond.

The child’s ghost now haunts a house on the site and behaves like a poltergeist moving or hiding objects, especially things that might indicate competition from other children like toys and photographs. CDs even turn up in the freezer. The current residents believe the ghost to be harmless, and even give it a doll for Christmas every year. A collection of dolls can be seen through the front window on the mantle of the drawing room.

Ghosts have an affinity for water sources, and Cole Street is located on the low spot of Cole Valley where nearby Mount Sutro sheds rain runoff. Interestingly, despite the size of the mountain and its watershed, the sand in central San Francisco sucked up the water and it couldn’t run as a surface creek. According to the Oakland Museum’s guide to Bay Area creeks, "The Richmond, Sunset, Western Addition, and Financial Districts of San Francisco were lacking in creeks. These areas were covered with sand dunes. Because of the permeable soils, rainwater soaked-in immediately. Yes, these areas are watersheds, but the water flows away in underground aquifers. Much of the western area feeds Lake Merced; other areas flow towards the Ocean, or SF Bay. Today, when heavy storms raise the water levels of these aquifers, they flood into many people’s basements."

We stopped at a stretch of Golden Gate Park’s Panhandle that is completely free of pigeons. Tommy has collected stories of its haunting by the ghost of 1970’s rock musician Buck Naked of the band The Bare Bottom Boys. The killer cared obsessively about feeding "his" pigeons; thousands of pounds of bird feed were found later by the police in his storage locker. The pigeon man shot the musician after his dog bothered the beloved flock. "Residents speak about hearing the sounds of a man calling his dog late at night in the Panhandle," said Tommy. The path where Buck Naked fled is the old carriage road from downtown to the weekend mansions of the rich, which were built along the north edge of the Panhandle on Fulton Street.

Tommy talked of gravestones lining the gutters and sidewalks edging Buena Vista Park, at the top of the hill behind the Haight. Several years after the Great Earthquake of 1906 the City Council outlawed cemeteries within city limits. Families were given 14 months to move their loved ones, and the City took thousands of leftover gravestones and used them as construction material, including this park. Most of the stones are turned downwards today so their legends aren’t visible but Tommy showed pictures of few that were placed facing upwards, showing the names of the dead.

Buena Vista Park has a history as a crash pad, a tradition that continues today to the annoyance of cops who cruise it with their searchlights after dark to annoy the freaks. I always thought it was silly that anyone would try to sleep in Buena Vista Park, as there isn’t an inch of level ground anywhere. Perhaps someday I’ll profile the visiting young people in a separate article, with photos of their unique styling to tell the story of kids who even to this day leave Middle America to hitch hike to Haight Ashbury…

We passed the home of the notorious People’s Temple leader Jim Jones, who led over 900 people (mostly San Francisco poor) to a mass suicide in the late 1970s at their commune in Guyana. Jones’ room is the tower window with the light on, pictured above.

Other historical sites on the tour included the homes of Charles Manson, Janis Joplin, and the Hell’s Angels Social Club across the street 710 Ashbury, the home of the Grateful Dead. The cover photograph gracing the back of their first album was posed on the steep front steps. The current owners have painted the building in purple tones, a sly wink to those who remember Purple Microdot, a popular version of LSD.

None of these buildings are known to be haunted, although the sidewalk in front of Joplin’s home was the site of a murder several years after her death. According to Tommy, that spot is the one on the tour that most often yields a frightened reaction from his patrons. Some report being tapped, nausea, the sound of running feet, or feeling pebbles hit them in the head (the victim was shot in the head while running away).

It’s not that Tommy uncritically believes every ghost story folks bring him – the founder of the San Francisco Ghost Society does background research to check out tips. "I do seek to document ghost phenom by using research and scientific equipment to validate them," he says. He credits the San Francisco library for helping chase down documentation that can tie a historical event to a ghost story. For one with a rich involvement with the paranormal, Tommy keeps to his own standards of evidence and corroboration.

Perhaps even ghost hunters have to watch their backs?

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For further information about the Haunted Haight tour, call (415) 863-1416 or visit www.hauntedhaight.com. For information about the San Francisco Ghost Society call (415) 336-6945 or visit www.sfghostsociety.org. If you have questions or feedback for the author of this article, contact William Murphy at wcmurphy19@gmail.com or (650)793-0770.

Profile of John Calloway, professional Latin jazz musician by night, dedicated teacher at one of San Francisco's low-income schools by day

San Francisco native John Calloway is a nationally recognized jazz flutist, Latin percussionist and music arranger. He has bachelors and masters degrees in music, and is currently working on a PH.D in education from the University of San Francisco. In June he released his new CD, "The Code," a sparkling collection of original Afro-Cuban and salsa jazz featuring the hottest Latin players in the Bay Area, many of whom Calloway has gigged with for decades.

He copes with the tough economics of today’s professional jazz musician by teaching music in the City’s elementary schools, and at San Francisco State. His elementary students are among San Francisco’s poorest, and he sees the reality of a system in which they will try to function, and perhaps fail.

BM: In the liner notes to your new CD you say "I dedicate this to the children of Daniel Webster Elementary School. Your perseverance and dignity inspires us all."

JC: Yeah, that’s one of my schools. Daniel Webster is a school that’s on that hill over there – Potrero Hill. It is pretty much an all-black school, with some Hispanic bilingual and Asian bilingual, and no white kids. In a neighborhood that’s predominantly white. It’s one of the better neighborhoods in San Francisco - the public school at the center of two-million-dollar homes. Everybody who has kids there either sends them to a private school called Live Oak or they put ‘em on a bus to an alternative school, an open enrollment school somewhere in the district. Well, why aren’t the African-American parents doing that?

BM: You mean the private schools?

JC: No, the better public schools. Most of them could probably walk into any of the schools on the eastern side of town, based on previous formulas of getting a racial balance. The African-American students live in the projects over there [on the south side of Potrero Hill], but a lot of them choose not to do it because the parents themselves aren’t educated. There’s issues with not buying into the system.

There’s an area outside the fence with a bus zone for the kids going to the better schools. I used to be appalled that the parents of those kids would just look the other way, they wouldn’t even look through the fence. I mean, this is apartheid.

BM: How does knowing what you know affect you?

JC: I’ve been there sixteen years and I just realized - my stance is: I’m not leaving. It just hit me. There’s two or three other teachers who have been there that long.

We don’t seem to understand how other people feel. For me that school is a symbol of us not wanting to wake up that there’s a whole other world and that there’s another generation of children that’s essentially lost.

BM: What’s your role at the school?

JC: I’m just a straight music teacher – I teach grades three, four, and five. I teach beginning woodwinds, and I teach general music.

BM: You do other teaching, for example at San Francisco State?

JC: Yeah, I teach a class at State, sometimes two, Latin ensemble. We kick butt. And I taught at Laney in Oakland for awhile, that was a sweet gig. I do workshops here and there, like JazzSchool or Stanford Workshop.

But I’m pretty much burned… I’m busy from early morning ‘til late at night, every day.

BM: Do you need the teaching jobs to make ends meet, and supplement the music gigs? I would think the teaching gives you health insurance, for example.

JC: The teaching gigs get you much more money… I kid you not, I make about two thirds less playing music.

BM: How do you balance the teaching with playing in your music sandbox?

JC: They kind of go hand-in-hand, and I don’t think I could be just one or the other. I think I’d be really stifled being just a teacher without any other outlet – a lot of music teachers will tell you that. By the same token, there’s also that sense of community doing gigs. That’s why I like Jazz Camp, I mean it’s only once a year but it has a sense of community.

That’s one of things I try to show at Daniel Webster, that I’m not the kind to just walk in and walk out. We’re not really vested in that community.

BM: It’s surprising how little community we really have nowadays - how alienating the basic physical structures of our society are, the way the suburbs are spread out, how few people get together anymore.

JC: That’s what I think is great about small towns, that they have a sense of community. What we’ve seen more and more since the end of the war is gated communities, communities with fences...

BM: …and invisible barriers of the dollar signs. You have to have the money for a car to even get to a gated community, and now with the gentrification of San Francisco you can’t be here if you’re poor.

JC: The sense of community of teaching, and being part of seeing kids grow up, being more than a teacher… We don’t have enough people of color who are teachers, but that could make a difference. It becomes more of an issue of community.

BM: The community garden across the street from your apartment has a nice vibe, like sacred space. You quote Luis Rodriguez in your liner notes: "Art opens up a sacred space." Have you been into spirituality and has it affected your music?

JC: Not really, I kind of just went from being a Catholic to pretty much being an agnostic or atheist. But I think what music does is open up a way for me to share some kind of deeper connection with people. Because for somebody who can’t really make a leap of faith, that’s the closest I can get.

BM: The liner notes call your title tune ["The Code"] a comment on the brotherhood and humanity shared by musicians. What is it like to be at the center of that?

JC: I was really struggling with what that CD is all about, and I’m still struggling. You know, I’ve seen a lot of my friends pass on. I mean you’ve been playing with these guys for thirty years… and what could be bigger than self-expression? Music brings out all this emotion in us. What else can bring out emotion like that? That’s why they used to think it was the language of the gods.

* * * * *

John Calloway appears Sunday July 29th with the John Santos Quintet at the North Beach Jazz Festival, and Saturday August 11th at 3pm with his own band at the San Jose Jazz Festival. More information about John Calloway’s bio, recordings and performances can be found at www.johncalloway.com.

Photography: fascination with people

I specialize in photographs of people, especially candids... frankly, I don't understand why anyone would waste time photographing nature when humanity is so beautiful.

A note of sincere gratitude goes out to my photojournalism professor at San Francisco State, the amazing Acey Harper... and to the wonderful masters of this art form: Sebastiao Salgado, Lois Greenfield, W. Eugene Smith, and of course the father, Henri Cartier-Bresson.

Enjoy!

Children at the Chandi Mandir in Chandigarh, India

Individual time trials on Telegraph Hill, San Francisco, for the 2007 Amgen Tour of California

Neil and Maria, a portait of happiness

Skimboarding at sunset at the Marin Headlands, fall 2006

Peter Pan and Wendy

The sacred muse

Center of interest

First turn in Sausalito, 2007 Amgen Tour of California

Portait shot of Eric Delore

Profile of Bay Nature magazine: Serving the Bay Area's very-serious outdoorsfolk

Bay Nature magazine was launched five years ago by publisher David Loeb and co-founder Malcolm Margolin. Their genuine passion for the natural history of the nine Bay Area counties shows clearly on every page.

The bimonthly magazine combines beautiful photography with freelance and reader-generated articles and departments. Bay Nature shares news and natural history with the local hiking, bird watching, amateur geology and natural history aficionado. Most of these readers are middleclass to upper middleclass, and though geographically constrained to this region are quite loyal with solid subscription renewal rates.

Although the magazine offers an attractive web site that shares its non-advertising content, the look and feel of the hard copy communicates tangible delight. Like the best magazines, every page (including the advertisements) shares something that the avid Bay Area outdoors person can find genuinely fascinating.

A typical issue carries articles by readers and interested freelancers on topics such "Wheelchair Hikes Around the Bay Area," "Carquinez Breakthrough: Where Bay and Valley Meet," and "Speak of the Devil: The Unexpected Landscapes of Mount Diablo."

Among the regular departments are "Conservation in Action," "First Person," and "The Bay Nature Library," a review of recent books on local topics. Several other new departments recently created to enhance reader appeal are noted below.

Headquartered in Berkeley, Bay Nature magazine is structured as a nonprofit 501c3, which allows grants and donations to play a key role in the revenue structure of the operation. And because the magazine is not set up as a for-profit, Loeb has been able to build a web of relationships with regional open space districts and other governmental partners, as well as many other non-profits.

This strategy creates both a pipeline for quality content free to the magazine, and a funding source where the organizations pay for special sections. A recent example of this synergy is editorial content on drought resistant plants for use in home and business landscapes - content that was both authored and paid for by regional water agencies.

Although the relationships took years to build, this synergy is a core business asset of Bay Nature magazine.

The print run of a typical bimonthly issue is 8,500 to 10,000, of which 7,600 are earmarked for subscriptions and single copy sales. The recession of 2001 happened at a critical time after a two-year launch period, and caused a drop in subscription and single copy sales from 8,500 shortly after launch to a low of 6,700. Though it has recovered somewhat, Bay Nature is not back to its pre-recession level. Loeb credits the magazine’s fundraising efforts for serving as a cushion against a worse downturn.

A typical issue is 40 or 56 pages long, with 8 to 10 pages of paid advertising.

The paid staff of three full-time and four part-time employees at Bay Nature today is not much different than it was at launch in 2001, as most of the layout, writing and photo work are handled by freelancers. Because of this, a major job for Loeb is managing a far-flung constellation of what are in-effect temps.

In this sense, Bay Nature a classic "virtual" Silicon Valley business: Home office provides vision, intellectual property, funding and marketing, but it oversees production performed by outsiders.

Loeb sends out a "quarterly call" email to approximately 150 freelance photographers – telling them the topics to be featured in upcoming issues, which are planned approximately one year ahead. Approximately one third of the photographers are professionals, but two thirds are interested amateurs. The photographers typically license their work to the magazine for one "use," and copyrights revert to them afterwards. There are no photographers on the payroll.

Another critical (and time-consuming) responsibility Loeb bears is fundraising, given Bay Nature’s 501c3 status and reality that its 6,000 paid subscriptions and 1,600 retail single-copy sales are not enough to cover the cost of the operation.

But since the magazine is structured as a nonprofit it only has to cover its costs, not general profit to investors. A recent fundraising win was a grant from Dean Witter, which allowed the magazine to add the new departments "Families Afield" and "Signs of the Season," and to expand its "On the Trail" column as well as bring back its "Ask the Naturalist" column.

The outlook for Bay Nature is solid, given its acceptance by a very committed nature enthusiast community and its relationships with governmental and non-governmental organizations. If there is a risk to the health of Bay Nature, it is in the high percentage of overall revenue from grants, which creates a continuing pressure to seek new funding sources. Grants and donations account for 45% of revenue, while advertising, subscriptions and single copy sales account for 15%, 30% and 10% respectively.

On the other hand, fundraising could increase, as recent changes in Congress may generate more money for environmental organizations (Bay Nature is not overtly political, although it takes a "show, don’t tell" approach to advocacy).

Another factor on the plus side is Loeb’s sense that at the current time there are no serious local competitors, as California Wild has stopped publication.

Further out on the horizon is production of more Bay Nature TV episodes, beyond the five that have been made to date. These are short-length films covering Bay Area natural history topics, and are used as filler by KCRB-TV in Rohnert Park. KCSM-TV in San Mateo is discussing adding Bay Nature TV to their broadcast schedule.

The publishers will continue to develop more special insert sections like the recent profile of South Bay salt flats written and funded by the Nature Conservancy.

* * * * *

A personal note to close: I was quite gratified to learn about the magazine, and bought a two-year subscription for the house. You can find out more about the magazine, including ordering, at http://www.baynature.com/. Their website itself is quite beautiful and evocative of its subject, and I know you will enjoy it.

Old friends, reconnecting after 33 years

The first of November I am blessed with the company of a rare soul I know, as we walk around Golden Gate Park at night in the fall rain.
She buys me dinner of vegetables at Pluto’s after my class at State, then we stroll the blocks to the Park by the Inner Sunset. The feeling this night is of the first moments of winter, with a gentle cushion of rain. Chewie has her wool hat but I let the rain wet my gray curly hair, enjoying it.

Unlike other walks we’d taken recently, tonight we loll, not the pushing-pushing conversations that had matched our faster walking. We talk of so many things! Of this year’s sudden tragic loss of her precious Freddo… in their sixteen years they must have spent hundreds of hours hoofing it around the Park and the City. In love, in turmoil, in love again. Her thoughts are of him, and much that happens these days triggers the deepest feelings.

How horrible the stark hole, to lose the person at the center of the home, one’s connection, spirit of the nest, the shared bed… one’s core.

For the first time I understand what really happened when my father died when I was eight:

The person in our own little family with the most personality, the one who colored our space every moment, was gone suddenly, brutally. This realization starts the process, finally after 42 years, of grieving for my own precious person. As I sit typing I break down into horrible sobbing, can’t catch my breath, "My dad is gone, my dad is gone, Dad, Dad, Dad, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy is gone…" I can’t catch my breath, it’s all sobs and heaving chest.

Oh, oh, oh.

For her, Freddo is both gone and present, floating somewhere nearby wherever she is… she talks to him, asks him questions, sends wishes for his well-being, asks for permission, "Is it alright if he comes in, Fred?" "He says yes, it’s OK (but he’s very jealous)."

In the rain she calls Fred "my oak tree," and walks over to a tree, hugs it for a long time. Not wanting to let go. The plaque at the foot of the tree says it was grown from another in the capitol that is two hundred years old. She asks me to hug the tree too and I do, for a long, quiet minute. I close my eyes, hide a sniffle.

Chewie dances away in the middle of our conversation, walks a few feet away in circles, head down, head up, responds to some thought that beckons to her. She knows if she stays "on-task" in our talk some momentary perception (during this pivotal time in her life) will disappear, like a dream forgotten in the seconds after awakening. Maybe this wee whisper is an important insight, must listen to it, stop, here now hear, the rainy night helps her hear.

She doesn’t do this all the time - sometimes she dances away because she just feels shy, self-conscious. Or needs a moment by herself. She is determined to be present for everything during this awful year, and refuses to medicate herself or otherwise run away from the truth of what is happening to her.

I wait, glad to wait, the night and rain teaching me to stop talking and enjoy silence.

Then the talk restarts. She asks me to sing some songs I’d written.

Our subjects jump from one to another with a kind of relaxed hunger – I don’t feel like we can cover enough quickly enough, and feel an old starvation being fed. I keep asking her, "What were we just talking about?" I know, but don’t remember… keep forgetting, keep walking.

At the end we sit on the edge of the band shell, quietly witnessing the first minutes of another sad delicious San Francisco winter. Running out of talk, feeling a skittering noise of curled yellow leaves and a calm wind.

When I get home after driving down the Peninsula in a blistering rainstorm there is an email checking that I arrived all right. In the lines I can hear Chewie’s voice, calm in her unique listening-talking way, standing under a trumpet flower plant talking about meditation.

"Bizzy Bee~

Thank you for the upliftment and rain dance of together solitude open space with bippity booboo deedah yeah!

Sorry, the Brussels sprouts were too al dente, but the conversation was circuitously good. Oh, the sweet scraping of sycamore leaves on rain wet sand (the cheap stuff).

And perfume umbrella of angel trumpets and more guru dojo talk. Sigh. Happiness is just like that.

Thank you, Kris Kringle!

Chew"

Happiness IS just like that. What else is there?

* * * *

Chewie grew up in East Palo Alto, the last of five children of first-generation Chinese immigrants, and currently works as a bartender, studies traditional Chinese medicine and volunteers for healing charities.

She attended high school with the author in the early 1970s, and they resumed their acquaintance in late 2006 following a 33 year hiatus. Her life partner Fred Carver was killed in early 2006 in their car "Snow Pony," as he waited to turn into a hardware store parking lot in the Castro.