“No thanks. I’ve had a cumquat,” my student says. “Yes. But you haven’t had a cumquat today. You have to have one today if you’re going to write about it today.” “Do I have to eat the whole thing?” I nod and he shakes his head and does it. I bite into the cumquat. The burst of the dull, bitter rind; and the tart and then the sweet that follows. But I cheat and spit out the seeds. “Do you like cumquats?” he asks me. “Not exactly.” I enjoy the experience of cumquats. I enjoy sharing with others something they’ve never tried. I love to see someone’s face the first time a thought strikes them. I like to be the one to deliver a new idea like showing him the Metamorphosis and how “we’re all bugs.” And I rewatch Baraka and remember all the things that move me. I sweat on the treadmill and remember who I am in the sloughing off of what’s toxic to me. I can taste what’s good in me when I let go of what’s bad. It’s not exactly that Baraka is good. It’s that it makes me feel, it mak
I ski, teach, parent, write, read, swim, adventure. I get lost in my own mind, chewing on words and images. Sometimes something good comes out.