The end of school June 29, 2022

As excited as I was to take on a teaching job in the fall, I’m now that bummed that the job no longer exits. I was delighted to be offered an opportunity to work half-time teaching advanced biology at a private high school in San Francisco this year. Though the experience had its issues, for the most part it was pretty wonderful. It checked all my boxes: community, intellectual challenge, purpose, and structure. I had a feeling I would also fall in love with the kids, and this I did, in spades.

Perhaps, I thought, after all this struggling and questing and COVID, I had actually found a path that would sustain me for the foreseeable future. I was ready to repeat for at least a second year. After all, they say the first year of teaching is the most challenging, especially when one has to develop the entire curriculum. But that was not to be. The administration decided to replace me with a full-time teacher.

I found out that I would not be renewed on the last day of school. I have a lot to say about this experience, the highs and the lows. But for now, I’ll focus on two things:

First, what an incredible opportunity to delve more deeply into a topic that underlies all of life: evolution. Indeed, I invoked evolution as the lens for the entire year. I guided the students through elements in the periodic table, through water and small organic molecules, through amino acids, lipids, carbohydrates, and DNA. We went from spontaneously formed lipid layers with bits of RNA in hot vents in the deep sea, to extremophiles on our planet and the search for astrobiology on others. We considered how the remarkable advent of photosynthesis led to increase oxygenation in the atmosphere and the consequent burst in more complicated life forms dependent on mitochondrial respiration. We went through Darwin’s (and Wallace’s) argument for evolution, from the geological observations that preceded them through selective breeding of domesticated plants and animals. We discussed how science and creation stories rooted in religion should not be co-mingled. We looked at protein structure and gene structure and how the two-fold process of gene duplication and mutation gives rise to the vast repertoire of RNA and protein molecules and ultimately to the diversity of life on earth. We watched the evolution of the coronavirus in real time. We learned about human genetics and diversity through our own experience and analysis.

Second, the students themselves were amazing. I had juniors and seniors who had lost 1/3 of their high school experience to COVID. They were behind on their social development, some desperate to be with others, some afraid to. They were behind in their academic benchmarks from a year of zoom and a general droop in learning goals. As days turned to weeks and weeks to months, we got to know each other and to trust one another. They learned that I had a pretty high bar, but also that with some effort they could clearly surpass it. They built up not just knowledge, but learning skills and confidence. As masks came off in the spring, I saw smiles on even the most withdrawn students. We had undergone our own little evolution together.

Which makes it so much tougher to let go, to accept it as just one experience in a lifetime of many.

Like Picasso and Braque June 27, 2022

I met my puzzle partner Mike while singing with Marin Oratorio when I first retired, now nine years ago. In any chorus, I try to sidle up to the basses, who often sit adjacent to the sopranos, so that I can bask in our counterpoint. This cross-fertilization was a habit I developed in high school, when my buddy John Beck and I harmonized together in the back row, occasionally getting a stern look from Mr. O’Neill, our director, for perhaps harmonizing a bit too much.

During Oratorio practice, my black music folder routinely secreted a New York Times crossword puzzle in its left-hand pocket and a Pilot Precise V7 black-ink pen in its handy holder, both waiting for employment during any lull in the musical action. Mike started to look over my shoulder, curious about what was going on, and eventually he whispered a word or two for a clue that had escaped me. Ink out, solution in. Repeat.

It turns out Mike that was also a puzzler, with a wider practice than mere crosswords. He started bringing in other daily word puzzles he had saved up for me, as well as other types of brainteasers. I came to look forward to our puzzle exchange almost as much as singing. By the winter of 2015-16, we attempted – and completed – our magnum opus: solution to the GCHQ Puzzle, which I recounted in a contemporaneous post.

With time I had to end my tenure with Marin Oratorio to devote myself to architecture school, and my puzzling drifted into new dimensions. I moved on to cryptic crosswords, somehow latching onto those constructed by Joshua Kosman and Henri Picciotto in The Nation. I remained solo in this weekly endeavor, until Josh and Henri, abandoned by The Nation, portaged their puzzles to Patreon in 2020, just at the start of COVID isolation. I lured Mike into them at around this point. After all, what better way to endure a pandemic lockdown? 

My sister had also introduced me to the Saturday Variety Puzzle in the Wall Street Journal (which, despite its disturbing right-wing conviction, has some great free puzzles) and I then roped Mike into that, too. Mike quickly reciprocated with another weekly WSJ adventure – killer Sudoku – a Sudoku variant in which sums are provided for small pockets of squares rather than the numbers themselves.

Soon we craved even harder puzzles and discovered the National Puzzle League cryptics, many of which have some particular theme, pattern, or “meta” that must be conjured up, and some of which simply could not be completed by either one of us independently. Take the one written for a Boston convention, in which the trick was to discover that all the “T’s” had to be thrown overboard (but only in certain quadrants), or the one where an extra unused letter in some clues gave rise to phrase which then spelled out the title of a work, which can then be used to answer the clues themselves!

Lately, Mike became enamored of another puzzle that uses this meta strategy, the WSJ Friday “contest” crossword, though he confesses that his real motivation is the puzzler’s grail: a mug awarded to a randomly selected solver. The crossword itself is very straightforward, but the “answer” often requires several additional levels of calculus – literally each level is a derivative of the preceding one. My initial attempt at the contest was a failure, and like the  discouraged child, I threw down my metaphorical crayon in frustration. But recently I gave the contest crossword a second chance, and now that I’ve had a little success, I’m hooked, too.

These two types of meta puzzles have a certain quality that really benefits from a pair of solvers. For each level, at least one of us needs to have an insight, and then we can continue on until another insight is required. 

And now, at last, I come to relevance of the title for this post. Many years ago I grudgingly read a tome on Picasso, but there was a nugget in there I loved: At the end of each day, after working individually, Picasso and Braque had the habit of visiting each other’s studio to see what progress had been made. In this way, they developed cubism, and perhaps neither would have done it without the other. Picasso said, and I paraphrase, “We were like a pair of mountain climbers, each one talking the lead alternately, and that way, together, we reached the mountaintop.”

Carmina Burana April 24, 2022

I had already made the decision to forego my choir’s spring production of the Brahms Requiem. I had sung it in both German and English many times, and the choir had rehearsed most of it in spring 2021 before having to abort for COVID. Besides, as lovely as it is, the work is about death, and two years into the pandemic, I had had it. 

Up popped a different opportunity – singing Carmina Burana with the Marin Symphony Chorus. Carmina was not a work that I had ever aspired to sing. It is relentlessly blaring, tonal, and bawdy, not my usual cup of tea. But this year I needed something completely different. I needed the rhythmic jolt of singing my guts out!

I contacted my friend Abigail who sings with the Chorus and she encouraged me to audition. So I did, I was accepted, and we’re off. In a surprisingly small number of masked rehearsals, we learned the music, which was pretty easy, and the words, which were not. As our performances drew near, the masks came off and we joined the orchestra on the stage of the Marin County Civic Center Complex, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

O Fortuna! In this spin of the wheel, how lucky am I!

The Holiday Echo January 20, 2022

We all know the feeling of the holiday whoosh, from the fourth week of November to the first week in January, that predictable tsunami of celebrations from Thanksgiving to Hanukkah, Christmas to Kwanza, and then the New Year. 

Now we are on the heels of the holiday season, digesting calories and conversations. As we take down our greenery and candles, carefully replacing decorations in their boxes for another year, I gather up all the lovely cards and notes I’ve been sent with best wishes for the season and the year upcoming. I pause to look at them each again. I think about the friend or relative who has taken the time to write to me. Many share photos of their family, printed into a holiday background from Shutterfly, Minted, or Snapfish. And while selfies may seem self-absorbed, I enjoy them so much that for the past 10 years or so, I have done the same. I love seeing shots of a growing family, or an aging one, of happy times - a graduation perhaps, a new home, an engagement, or a college acceptance. Sometimes the annual note bears news of life struggles – the loss of a parent or a pet, perhaps an illness. It is a reminder of the ups and downs we all face, sooner or later. If last year was rough, the next may be much better, and if it was a good year, a reminder to never take it for granted.

My mailbox filled with artists’ renderings of persimmons and pomegranates, or cardinals in the snow. There were pretty cards from various organizations I support – an old photo of KQED headquarters, a sunny snowman from the California State Parks, a sheep from West Marin, a snazzy hot-pink design from Docomomo. Some cards are handmade – a watercolor, a woodland photograph, a lino block print – and all the more cherished.

The season is over now and I will have to wait another year to hear from some friends. Yet it will be as though no time has gone by at all.

The Daily Reflection January 10, 2022

I spent the first year of the pandemic in a mental bunker, just trying to survive without sinking into a major depression by filling my otherwise isolated life with art projects, word puzzles, books, and hikes. It was very lonely. 

The second year, post-vaccination, was a bit perkier. I started to teach high school. The opera and the symphony, restaurants and art museums - all have come back to life. Even our choir is singing in person.

And yet, I’m not fully “there” (who is?). I have a system in place, but I fritter away vast expanses of time in the effort to simply keep calm and hold depression at bay. “Just do something to get through this,” I say to myself, anesthetizing myself with the expansiveness of cryptic crosswords or the abyss of the internet.

Now, as we approach Covid’s second anniversary, I’m thinking it is time to get back on track, to make myself accountable on a daily basis. My friend Carl once told me that when he has a goal in mind, he asks himself everyday what he might do on that very day, however small, to move the plot forward. It strikes me as a noble practice, if one can develop the discipline to do it. 

Some goals may have a defined end-point, like knitting a sweater, while others may simply be to not lose ground, like exercising to keep the body in working order. And so I have been thinking about what is important to me and what would be the ingredients of a good day.

What have I done today to move the planet forward? This is my very strong Athena Goddess poking at my heels with her spear. Have I done something today that supports the greater good, like teaching, or writing about science, or making a financial contribution?

What have I done today to bask in nature? There is wonder and sustenance in Mother Earth. The moon, sun, smell of grass, ocean, rain – what have I done today to appreciate our amazing planet?

What have I done today that increased my joy? Did I laugh? Did I have a nice conversation? Did I see artwork? Did I make artwork? Did I eat something delicious? Did I listen to music? Did I dance? 

What have I done today to advance my own skills? Golfing? Tennis? Artwork? Singing? Writing? The list goes on and on.

What have I done today to increase my connection? Call a friend, write a letter, meet someone for coffee. 

This is aspirational. And by tomorrow, I fear, I will have forgotten I ever made these intentions.

The Fortieth Anniversary October 15, 2021

It has now been four decades since I first set foot in San Francisco. I moved here from Cambridge with my first husband who embarked on a fellowship at UCSF. I had no job and no prospects. That quickly changed when I landed a post-doc at the fledgling company Genentech. But that is another story for another day. 

The city seemed fresh and exciting with so many hills to climb and so many cheap restaurants to try. Even Chez Panisse was affordable for a special occasion. One of my first stops was San Francisco Opera. Birgit Nielsen was singing in Die Walkure. I spent what seemed to me a fortune, $35, on an orchestra ticket. Cars stopped for pedestrians. With a little perseverance, I could find a free parking spot almost anywhere. And then there was the Bridge – ah, what an experience! 

My plan was to get in and to get out before a big earthquake, but my husband and I both had succeeded in our work and were offered faculty jobs in the Bay Area in 1985.  Even then San Francisco was known for its exorbitant housing prices, but my Genentech stock had escalated and we could roll that into a down payment. We decided to stay. 

In the 36 years since then, I’ve retraced so many steps. I’ve owned three houses and five cars. I’ve been divorced, remarried, and widowed. I’ve adopted one child and three cats. I’ve worked my way from the lowliest assistant professor to professor emeritus. I’ve received two additional degrees, sung with a dozen different musical groups, and completed most of the Bay Area Ridge Trail. I’ve lost both parents and almost lost my daughter. And I’ve seen almost every production at the Opera house in all of these years. 

I can’t ever be a native, but so much of me is woven into San Francisco, and California in general. As long as I might live in the US, this will be my home.