The other day I dusted all the books in the tall bookcase in my bedroom, as well as the top of it, where I had stacks of magazines. When I noticed that the dust seemed to be irritating my throat, I threw open both windows for ventilation, but within a few hours my...

I dreamed Earl and I walked down to the edge of a cliff, then leaned over a short railing to peer down at the surf below. The breakers were huge, like nothing we’d ever seen before. “Wow!” Earl exclaimed, awed, which pleased me—I was delighted he was enjoying himself....

For the last couple of monthly meditations, we’ve met in a larger room downstairs in Mandana House, since more people have started to come again. But the room smells of mildew, and people passing on the walkway outside keep sticking their heads in curiously even after...

This morning I woke up before dawn, let my mind churn for an hour, then had some hot milk and tried to go back to sleep. My feet were cold, but, too tired to get up again and give them a hot soak in the tub, I tucked one, then the other, in the crook of the opposite...

“Earl had a good death,” I said to Bonny on the phone one evening. “That’s one of the things that makes it easier for me to accept. He died the way he would have wanted to.” “He died the way we all want to!” she exclaimed. “He used to say,” his sister had commented,...

Driving back from Earl’s house the other night, I saw radiant cumulous clouds towering above the Berkeley hills, so staggeringly lofty they took my breath away. “Oh, Earl,” I thought, “If only you could see this!”