Filling in the Blanks

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It was uncomfortably intimate, almost like a striptease. I was a member of a team of volunteers doing covid testing in central Washington. Our focus was on two groups: the Yakima Nation tribe, and migrant fruit pickers, both of whom had a high prevalence of covid-19. Though I’d worked with my teammates for almost a week, I didn’t really know what any of them looked like. This was because during testing we were swathed in PPE—hats, masks, face shields, gloves, gowns. Even at the motel where we were staying (in separate rooms, of course), we always wore masks. Meals were ordered in, and delivered to the meeting room. Then we grabbed our bag, and scurried off to our rooms to eat.

Thus, despite working closely with this group, I’d only seen glimpses of the top thirds of their faces. But on this day that changed. Our morning testing site was in the reservation town of White Swan, and our afternoon site wasn’t too far from there. So it didn’t make sense to go all the way back to our motel for lunch. We looked for the taco truck we’d seen in the nearby town of Wapato the previous day, but it wasn’t there. So we had no choice but to eat at the only restaurant that was open.

It felt strange to walk into a restaurant–the first one I’d set foot in in many months–and stranger still to sit at a table so close to other people. Instinctively, we spread out as far as possible. The polite, properly masked server passed out menus, and we ordered through our N-95s. Conversation was attenuated as we waited for our food. Eventually our meals arrived, and slowly my teammates took off their masks. To my utter surprise, the intimacy of this reveal made me feel quite uneasy; it was hard to look anyone straight in the eye. I think I was the last person to un-mask.

Everyone’s face seemed so large, and so bare. But what struck me most was how different my teammates looked than I’d imagined. Carmen’s chin was much sharper, and her mouth smaller. George, it turned out, was Japanese! With his mask, hat, and face shield in place, I had barely been able to see his face at all. And to my surprise, Roscoe had a beard, and a nose that was more prominent than the one I’d placed beneath his mask. I ate my burrito while stealing glances at these exposed, foreign faces, marveling at how different these people looked than the ones I’d been working with all week.



The Wapato restaurant reveal was unsettling. It made me realize that when we interact with others we’re engaged in a constant process of filling in the blanks. I’m not just talking about just filling in the physical blanks–though we certainly may be surprised at the beach when we see a friend or a relative in a bathing suit for the first time! What I mean is this: When we meet someone new, I think that we almost immediately begin to make inferences about them. Even before they open their mouths, we study how they’re dressed, their hairstyle, their presumed ethnicity, and even the way they move. Based on an unconscious integration of all these observations, we make assumptions about their nationality, religion, politics, and education. And after we hear them speak, we make additional conjectures based on their accent and vocabulary. For example, after only a few minutes of interaction with a stranger we may unconsciously peg her as a not particularly well-educated Southerner. This leads to a guess that she probably works in a menial job, and is politically conservative. Then, after a bit more conversation, aren’t we surprised to learn that she’s an engineer for Westinghouse, and a strong supporter of Black Lives Matter! Or, if our initial impression leads us to believe that someone we’ve just met is urban, educated, and well-travelled we may conclude that if he has any spiritual aspirations, he’s a Unitarian at best. But on further conversation, it turns out that he’s a deacon in his Southern Baptist congregation. Only when more of who they really are is revealed do we realize that we had presumptuously—and erroneously–filled in the blanks.

Like watching Bob Ross paint a picture, this fill-in-the-blanks process is dynamic. Sometimes we correctly predict where his trees will go, and that there will be an idyllic stream flowing towards us at the bottom of the painting. But just as often we’re wrong—the trees were on the other side of the mountain, and where we thought a stream would be was simply a valley floor, bursting with lovely spring flowers. So maybe it’s better just to watch Bob paint, and not anticipate what he’s going to put where.

So after the sobering experience of the restaurant reveal, when I meet someone new, I pledge to avoid prematurely filling in the blanks. Rather, I’ll try to keep an open mind, and expect to learn more as I get to know them. I won’t make Carmen’s chin round before I know that it’s actually sharp, or decide whether Roscoe is clean shaven or has a beard. I’ll try just to be sensitive and curious, and with time hope to learn more about who they really are.

Life’s Detritus

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I finally acceded to Annie’s gentle but insistent requests to clear out our rat’s nest of a garage. It had been sinking into a state of increasing dissolution for years—what was the hurry? But to honor her, I grudgingly agreed.

Among the first atrocities to surface was a black plastic bag containing something substantial. With apprehension, I undid the red ties. Oh no! It was brim full of boxes of 35 mm slide carousels. We’d recently finished the painful process of reviewing about two thousand slides, and the last thing I wanted was a reprise. It had been easy to chuck those that were out of focus, the beautiful but entirely generic flowers, and images of vacation sunsets and beach houses lacking any human beings. Harder was deciding what to do with the many unmemorable slides of people we knew but weren’t particularly close to: With some ambivalence, into the wastebasket went my great uncle holding an unidentified kid in some sort of stranglehold, our sweet neighbor and her blurry pet bunny, and the kids down the street self-consciously posing with those maple seed “helicopters” stuck to their noses. Hardest of all was dealing with the precious but long-gone pets, gala holiday dinners, and shots of family, many of which were ill-composed, unflattering, or redundant. We faced endless fraught decisions as to which images should be irrevocably destroyed, and which should be tediously labeled, packed up, and sent off for digitization.

I thought we were finally done with that grueling process. But now I was confronted with a bag bulging with—count ‘em–eight more carousels. Even if these were the 80-slide models rather than the super-sized 140-slide versions, we were facing the possibility of over 600 more images to sort through! My heart sank. And I felt cross with Annie for goading me to clean up the garage in the first place.

Gingerly, I opened the first box. Yahoo—the carousel was empty! That was at least one tray of slides I wouldn’t have to deal with. Then came the next box—bingo! It too contained an empty carousel. I took a breath, and then opened the third. Same thing: empty. Then with increasing confidence, I opened the rest of the boxes. Every carousel in every box was completely devoid of slides; hallelujah!

But after the 35 mm dust settled, I thought about it: Why was I so pleased that there were no further beautiful images, or family photos, or travel snapshots, each of which could evoke precious memories? Wouldn’t it have been a gift to unexpectedly have yet more photographs to review and reminisce over? And then digitize the most meaningful ones for posterity?

Well, maybe. But on the other hand, I thought, even if there had been slides in the carousels, it would have been tempting to avoid the pain of dealing with these filmy little devils by chucking them directly into the trash. Tempting, but somehow criminal. I would surely have felt an obligation to review and process any new slides that turned up. But to take another step back, maybe I should have binned the entire bag without even opening it. I couldn’t have felt a sense of loss if I didn’t know what I was losing.


While writing this post and thinking about what to do with accumulated stuff that I didn’t want to deal with, I heard a gentle but nagging growl coming from the bookcase in my office. It emanated from a thick stack of yellow, crumbling newspapers that sat on the bottom shelf. I’ve been collecting them for over half a century. To test my recent musings, I toyed with the idea of tossing them all, sight unseen, as my family has more than twice suggested. But rather than doing the sensible thing, I irresistibly started flipping through the ancient stack. I knew that I had saved a Washington Post from the day Kennedy was assassinated, but had no idea what else was there.

What a revelation it turned out to be! After going through the whole pile, I didn’t find that precious Kennedy assassination headline that perhaps I only imagined I’d saved. What I did find was quite a mixture: “JAPS BOMB U.S.” was the blaring (and cringeworthy) headline from the Greensboro, N.C. Daily News from December 7, 1941. That was even before my time—I have no idea how it made its journey from Greensboro to the bottom shelf of one of my office bookcases. Then was “Mr. Nixon resigns as President” from The London Times (“price six pence”) from August 9, 1974, followed by “Carter Winner,” from the Nov 3, 1976 Oregonian, which preceded “Regan sweeps vote,” from November 5, 1980. Here comes “Eruption decapitates St Helens; at least 9 die,” from the May 19th, 1980 Oregonian. There were historic headlines from the Raleigh News and Observer, about the space shuttle explosion and the demise of the Soviet Union. Then I came to the April 3, 1987 Washington Post: “$87.5 Billion Highway Bill Enacted over Regan’s Veto.” Huh? How did that get in the pile? Or, for that matter, the Nov 29, 1999 issue of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, “WTO is peaceful, even polite.” I guess at the time this must have been big news, but was it worth saving for posterity? Or maybe some of these papers were meant to be recycled, but were accidently diverted to the bottom shelf, where they’ve moldered for decades.

Now, once again, I find myself faced with a slide-like decision: I can cheerfully recycle most of them, and ruefully shake my head that I’d kept them to yellow and rot and take up space in my bookcase for so many years. But what about the really historic ones, like the attack on Pearl Harbor? Or the Mt St Helens eruption? Well, I took a deep breath, and chucked them all into oblivion. (If you’d like any of them, please let me know right away, before I put the recycle bin out in the driveway.) Yahoo, I did it–there’s now a lovely empty space on my bookcase shelf! Long may it remain bare.

With that unexpected and cathartic newspaper cleanout, I return to thoughts of slides. I realize that the newspaper and slide situations are a bit different—though each is historic, the newspapers document public events known to all, whereas the slides are of interest only for me and my family. Online I can easily find newspaper headlines about WWII, but not photographs of my father’s 80th birthday party.

So I’m back to thinking that maybe it’s not unreasonable to curate family slides, no matter how painful. But where does that lead? Say we carefully sort through them, chuck most, and have the survivors digitized. Then I store the files on my hard drive under “photos/family.” Excellent. But then what? Well, maybe when the pandemic is over, and our daughters and their families come over we’ll have a slide show. Some memories will be resurrected and discussed, probably with disagreements about who else was there, or what we ate at that special dinner at the beach. Then someone’s cell phone rings, and someone grabs a magazine and starts reading an article. And things sort of break up before all 476 slides were projected. Then what?

The next time everyone is over, after lunch I weakly suggest that we watch the rest of the slides. There’s a notable lack of enthusiasm, though the polite son-in-law manages to mumble, “sounds great!” But the grandkids have run outside to throw a football, Annie and one of the daughters are doing the dishes, and someone else’s cell rings again. Any slide momentum is thus lost, and we never get around to seeing them.

Then the digitized photographs lie fallow in the hard drive for years, until the computer tells us that we’re running out of disk space. It advises the removal of unimportant files. Or until we pass on and our kids–or maybe grandkids–have to deal with gigabytes of slides, scanned diaries, and other life detritus. But at least the electronic clutter doesn’t take up any space in the garage, doesn’t get dusty, and is quite easily ignored. Or can be simply deleted, without anyone looking to see the contents.

Uniform Authority

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The official gave me a pen from the “clean pens” container, which sat right next to the one labelled “used pens.” Then he took a clipboard that had just been handed to him by another patron, slapped a form on it, and offered it to me. That got my back up. “Excuse me,” I said, less gently than I’d intended, “why do you sanitize the pens, but give me a clipboard that was just touched by someone else?” He looked surprised and said, “They’re different.” “Really?” I said, “Why would a pen be a fomite, but not a clipboard? If anything, the clipboard has more surface area for virus transmission.” “I don’t want to go there!” he said defensively, “but if you insist…” he roughly rubbed down the clipboard with a sanitizing wipe, put the form back on it, and shoved it my way.

Since I do a lot of covid testing, I was recently classified as “1A,” and invited to receive the Moderna vaccine. That’s why I was checking in at my local vaccination center. The man at the desk had a fancy ID badge and wore a bright vest that said Community Emergency Response Team, or something like that. He looked very official. And yet, he didn’t seem to understand basic principles of virus transmission. Still, he seemed offended that I had the temerity to challenge him. I wonder if he was actually trained for his function, beyond how to hand out and collect the forms. Perhaps unfairly, I decided that he probably didn’t even know what a “fomite” was.

The authority and competence conferred by a uniform is striking. Even if they weren’t carrying a gun, most of us wouldn’t think of disobeying–or even questioning–a person wearing a police officer’s uniform. TSA officials, fire fighters, security guards, and even flight attendants gain automatic credibility because of what they’re wearing.

The sense of authority is not only experienced by “the public,” but redounds to the uniform wearers themselves. I certainly feel it when I do covid testing. How could I look any more authoritative than when I’m swathed in PPE—gown, gloves, N95 mask, and face shield? (see photo). When I motion a driver to maneuver her car to my spot in the testing area, I expect her to promptly comply. When I tell a passenger to roll down his window, I feel fully entitled to ask him all sorts of questions before administering the test. And then for him to happily let me poke a long swab up his nose. If I told him to, he’d probably get out of his car, stand on his head, and yodel. I have to say, enclosed in my elaborate PPE uniform, more than once I’ve been tempted to give a definitive answer to a question without actually being sure I was right.

And, of course, when I’m wearing a white coat and have a stethoscope around my neck, a complete stranger will readily disrobe at my request. It’s not simply that the encounter occurs in a hospital or a medical office. Imagine how a patient would react if the receptionist or a member of the cleaning crew came into the exam room and told the patient they were going to do a rectal exam. No, it’s the uniform, not the location, that matters.

One time when my resident was busy with an emergency, I was called to start a subclavian IV line. In my scrubs and white coat, I introduced myself to the patient and told him what I was about to do: anesthetize the skin halfway between the shoulder and the neck, then insert a large-bore needle just below the collar bone. Then I’d thread a long IV tube through the needle until its tip sat just above the entrance to the heart. He shrugged and said, “Fine, doctor.” With my hand slightly shaking, just before starting the procedure I said, “Oh, by the way, I’ve never done this before.” He laughed at my joke, and we both felt more relaxed. Everything went fine. I can’t recall if I ever told him that I had actually been telling the truth.



After a short wait, the official at the check-in desk motioned me to go to one of the vaccine stations. The vaccinator was wearing a fancy vest and a Medical Reserve Corps badge. She looked very official, and thus very competent. I noticed that after her name on the badge it said, MD. Hmm. “Hi,” I said, “I’m a doctor too. I think the last time I gave a shot was in medical school. How about you?” “Well,” she said, with a faint smile, “that’s pretty much true for me as well. A nurse gave me a little refresher course this morning.” “So am I your first patient?” I asked. “No. You’re about the ninth” The shot was OK, but certainly not as slick as if a nurse had given it.

Since like my vaccinator I’m part of the Medical Reserve Corps, I may be called up to start giving vaccinations when Phase 1B kicks in and the number of people needing shots dramatically increases. If so, I’ll certainly look at some YouTube videos, and get instruction from my wife, who, as a nurse has given far more shots than I ever will. When I set up my station, all gussied up in my official vest and MRC badge, I hope the first recipient will assume I know how to give a good shot. I probably won’t volunteer that the last one I gave was almost 50 years ago.

During my break, I’ll have to see if that same official guy is manning the check-in desk. If so, I’ll have to resist the temptation to introduce myself, puff out my vest-swathed and badge-decorated chest, and explain to him what a fomite is.

The Queen Mary

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About four years ago I went to Long Beach, CA to give a talk. But of more interest to me than the conference was that Long Beach was home to the Queen Mary. After taking passengers across the Atlantic for 31 years, this ocean liner was permanently docked at Long Beach and converted into a floating hotel. I was drawn to the Queen Mary because, when I was two years old, my mother took me to Europe aboard this ship. The purpose of the voyage was to rendezvous with my father, who had gone to Berlin to work in the lab of a famous German scientist. I wrote about this trip in a recent blog post.

I vividly remember standing on the deck in mid-ocean, looking up at one of the huge smokestacks. It suddenly belched black smoke and emitted a terrifying, bone-shaking blast. Well, I say I vividly remember this experience, but in fact I probably don’t. Psychologists believe that kids rarely retain memories from such an early age. It’s more likely that my memory was induced by several iconic photographs my mother took on the ship, as well as stories she told me over the years. But real or induced, I’ve held that image of standing at the base of the belching, blasting smokestack for almost 70 years. So being in Long Beach was an irresistible opportunity to retrace my footsteps on the venerable decks of this famous ocean liner, to which I had a special relationship.

Since I’d arrived the day before the conference began, there was plenty of time. A long waterfront walk from my hotel took me to the Queen Mary. Signs led me to an outdoor elevator that went up several stories to the main deck. As soon as I stepped onto the ship, I saw them: three enormous orange and black smokestacks (which I soon learned were actually called “funnels”) looming above me. An unexpected shiver ran through my body. Walking to the base of the middle funnel, I looked up at its immense height. For a two-year-old, it must have seemed even taller! Was I standing in this exact spot when it smoked and hooted so many years ago?

I strolled all along the deck, touching and then standing beneath each of the other two funnels to be sure I had the right one. I took many selfies. And, very uncharacteristically, I approached another tourist and asked him to take some photos with my phone. Not only that, I also realized I needed to share how momentous this occasion was, so I told him about being on this ship as a small child, clearly long before he was even born. He smiled indulgently.

Then, for the next several hours I walked up and down the many levels of the ship. At some point, I figured, I’d pass the cabin where my mother and I stayed during our Atlantic crossing. I think I was hoping for a sort of dowsing-rod effect, so that I’d experience a special tingling when I came upon the door to that very cabin. But though I felt no particular prickles after my extended promenade, it was deeply moving to be on the same ship, walk the same decks, and see the same funnels that I had so long ago. As I almost compulsively touched the many railings, doorknobs, and furniture all over the ship, I felt transported back to that time. Memories–or perhaps, pseudo-memories– welled up. No matter which, I felt much more connected to my long-gone mother than I normally did, and to our time together on that voyage. My talk at the conference the next day went fine.


Recently I joined an ancestry website that offered links to all sort of historical data. As a result, I’ve been digging into my past. Naturally, one of the things I was particularly eager to find was concrete evidence of my European trip as a toddler. After considerable searching, I found it: a ship’s log documenting that Joyce Klein, age 33 and Kenneth Klein, age 2, departed New York City for Cherbourg on 16 February 1951. But wait–the ship was The Queen Elizabeth! How could that be, since I distinctly recalled that we had travelled on the Queen Mary? Then it occurred to me that maybe we went out on the Queen Elizabeth, and returned on the Queen Mary. After all, my “memory” of the voyage consisted of a single image beneath a huge orange and black funnel–the memory must have been from the homeward journey. I searched further. Bingo! I found the ship’s log for the return voyage: Joyce Klein, 34 (her birthday occurred during our time abroad), and Kenneth Klein, 2, left Southampton for New York on 29 March 1951. And the ship? Inexplicably, it was again the Queen Elizabeth! I was stunned.

Almost in a panic, I Googled these two ocean liners. It turned out they were sister ships, both constructed in Scotland for the Cunard Line. The Queen Mary was built first, beginning trans-Atlantic sailings in 1936. The Queen Elizabeth was completed two years later. It was closely modeled after the Queen Mary, but with an improved design that utilized just 12 boilers, rather than the Queen Mary’s 24, and only two funnels, to the Queen Mary’s three. Comparing photographs online, the funnels looked quite similar—huge, orange and black, and slightly tilted toward the stern of the ship.

I “knew” that we had sailed on the Queen Mary, but undeniably our trips were both on its sister ship. Had my mother mistakenly told me the Queen Mary? I highly doubt it. Apparently, at some point during the intervening decades—possibly even just before I went to Long Beach—the Queen Elizabeth had somehow morphed into the Queen Mary.

The Queen Elizabeth and the Queen Mary indeed looked similar. Thus it’s not surprising that my quite possibly bogus funnel memory was reinforced by seeing the Queen Mary’s funnels. But the fact remains that those weren’t the right funnels, the right decks, or the right railings that had all moved me so much. In retrospect, I felt foolish for having taken all those selfies with funnels I’d never been beneath. And breathlessly telling the fellow tourist that I took a trans-Atlantic voyage on a ship that I’d never even seen before.

This was a case of doubly mistaken recollections: First, I almost certainly didn’t have a real memory of being under the funnel of the ship that took me across the Atlantic. It was most likely implanted by photographs and family lore. Second, I associated the counterfeit memory with the wrong ship. If I’d remembered that our voyage was actually aboard the Queen Elizabeth, it’s unlikely that I would have bothered to visit the Queen Mary at all. I could have spent my free afternoon in Long Beach taking a long walk, or catching up on my reading rather than ambling around a random ship.

A question lingers: since I had no connection with that ship, where did my powerful feelings aboard the Queen Mary come from? Why did I feel so moved? I don’t know. Perhaps it’s simply that when vivid “memories”–accurate or faulty–are triggered, they activate circuits in our brain that powerfully connect us with our past. This helps us gain access to latent emotions. The veracity of the trigger certainly has little to do with the validity of the feelings it gives rise to. I emotionally resonated with something important in my life, even though the feelings had been switched on by a case of mistaken identity. Such an intense response seems just as genuine, and just as significant, as those arising from “true” memories. The main downside seems to be a little collateral embarrassment when the mistake comes to light.

I haven’t deleted the many photographs of me standing beneath the Queen Mary’s funnels, nor do I plan to do so.

7 Greenough Ave

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Back in the day, when I was in college, I started a commune. Well, with some grandiosity, that’s what I called it (this was the ‘60’s). The building I found to commune in was a big, rambling three-story house at 7 Greenough Avenue in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The landlord was Mr. Fogelman. As far as I could tell, he was a classical shyster lawyer, but still a charming guy. I used to have long philosophical discussions with him when he dropped by to collect the rent. As an aspiring doctor, I naturally felt superior to him. “The main difference between lawyers and doctors,” I smugly stated, “is that the essence of the law is confrontation–the lawyer advocates for his client, and works to discredit the opposing party.” Mr. Fogelman grunted. “Whereas in medicine,” I continued, “the doctor is united with the whole medical system in supporting the patient. The only opponent is the illness or injury which everyone is determined to defeat.” He grunted again and said, “Well, there’s actually just as much confrontation and opposition in medicine as in the law. You’ll see.” I’m not sure I ever did see, but perhaps he had a point.

I proposed the idea of a commune to Susan, a friend and classmate. She immediately signed on, and we began recruiting fellow communards with an ad in the local free newspaper. (Extraordinarily, in those days the internet had not yet been invented!) Our first respondent was a guy called Sumner Silverman. I can’t remember what he said in his letter, but we found him intriguing. Rather than coming to Greenough Ave, he suggested that we meet him in his apartment in North Boston. That seemed a bit odd, but we agreed.

Sumner was short and solidly built, with graying hair and a regulation ‘60’s beard. His diction was somehow formal and old-fashioned. He invited us to sit down on a brown velvet sofa in his dark, spacious living room. The walls were hung with Navajo tribal blankets and colorful bedspreads from India. A vague smell of nag champa hung in the air. After a bit of small talk he excused himself and went into his kitchen. He soon emerged carrying an aluminum tray, bowed slightly, and presented the contents: The tray was paved with thin slices of freshly cut blood oranges. He explained that they were drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with ground white pepper. “These are really good,” he said, “I’m sure you’ll like them. Now shall we take off our clothes and dig in?” Susan looked at me with popping-out eyes. I’m sure mine popped out just as far. I can’t remember just how we wriggled out of that invitation, but no doubt there was a lot of awkward stammering, followed by excuses that made no logical sense. But somehow, we managed to hightail it out of Sumner’s apartment with all our clothes on. I can’t remember if we even tried those orange slices. I wrote Sumner the next day with some sort of lame excuse: though Susan and I liked him very much, we felt that he just wouldn’t be a good fit for 7 Greenough Ave.

After that inauspicious start, we eventually recruited an interesting crew of about eight people. I say “about” because the number of residents fluctuated unpredictably. We were mostly students, but some residents had real jobs, while others just sort of hung around. Barbara was a graduate student in clinical psychology. One summer afternoon, she came limping into the house after taking a walk along the nearby railroad tracks. She had somehow twisted her foot between the track and a tie, and felt a soft crack. An x-ray showed that she had broken a bone which, since I hadn’t yet started medical school, I was unable to name. Her foot was casted. For some weeks after that Barbara hobbled around the house on crutches, sometimes, for some reason, without a shirt. I found this rather odd. But this was the ‘60s. Years later, perhaps inspired by 7 Greenough Ave, she established a women’s collective farm and ranch in New Mexico.

Danny was another psychology grad student. He had recently come back from a long stay at an ashram in India, where he had learned meditation and eastern spirituality under Neem Karoli Baba, known better as Maharaj-ji. Danny had heard about the ashram from another student of Maharaj-ji called Ram Dass. Ram Dass, formerly known as Richard Alpert, had been one of Danny’s psychology professors at Harvard. Alpert and his colleague, Timothy Leary, did experiments involving psychedelics, most notably LSD, and aggressively advocated their use. As a result they were both kicked out of the university. Then Leary began travelling around the country advising everyone to “turn on, tune in, and drop out.” Alpert travelled farther afield, going to India to study with Maharaj-ji. There he changed his name to Ram Dass, and brought his guru’s teachings back to the US. Be Here Now, based on what he learned at the ashram, was Ram Dass’ first best seller. Years later, Danny himself wrote a best-seller, Emotional Intelligence.

Another commune-mate was Meredith, a musician and a poet. She was tall, and seemed even taller since she was topped with a generous head of springy brown hair. Her father was a well-known developmental biologist. I had a special affection for Meredith, since she was one of the few people ever to write a poem about me.

Then there was Jon, who, like Susan was a classmate of mine, and Susan’s younger sister, Phyllis, who became my girlfriend. A sweet but somewhat shadowy guy called David lived there too, though I was never quite sure what he did. Andrew, a book designer and artist who I’d known since junior high school, hung around a lot. There were other Greenough groupies as well.

We took turns cooking, and ate our meals together. Sometimes they were quite intense. In the midst of some lively dinner conversation one evening, just as I was bringing a glass of water to my mouth Susan asked what the time was. I reflexively turned my arm to look at my watch, thereby dumping the full contents of the glass onto my lap. Everyone got a good laugh out of that, including me.

In the spring Danny imported a guru from India to give some lectures at Harvard. On his visit to Greenough Ave the guru offered to dispense free mantras, with which we could mediate. When my turn came he sat cross-legged on the pillow at the head of my narrow bed, while I faced him cross-legged at the foot. He intently examined me, or perhaps my aura, and after a bit of meditation solemnly presented me with my mantra. I remember it, and when I very occasionally meditate these days, I still use it. “It is very important,” the guru said, “to never say your mantra out loud, or to share it with anyone.” I treasure it, and have kept that promise.

After my mantra was bestowed, I began meditating for 20 minutes every day. In the balmy Massachusetts summer I would climb out through the third-floor hall window, cushion in hand, to the old rusty fire escape. I sat cross-legged on the fire escape platform, closed my eyes, and silently recited my mantra, over and over. It was sublime. Occasionally some passing kids looked up and noticed me. They would yell to get my attention, but I kept still, eyes closed, focusing on my mantra. One time, out of the corner of my consciousness I heard a kid say, “Hey, he’s not moving. Do you think he’s dead?” Another answered, “I don’t know; let’s find out.” So they began throwing a tennis ball at me. I steadfastly leaned into my mantra, and tried to erase the irritating kids from my awareness. But the repeated flights of the tennis ball were hard to completely ignore. Fortunately, the fire escape’s elaborate ironwork prevented any direct hits, and the kids eventually lost interest. I guess they thought I really might have been dead.

As psychology students, Danny and Barbara were reflective, and “self-aware.” At one point they both began advocating not just mindfulness, but avoidance of a focus on the self. Thus, they took down all the mirrors in the house, telling us that we shouldn’t be looking at ourselves so much— “look inward, not outward,” or something like that (this was the ‘60’s). Ha, I thought, easy for them to say! They were both not only self-aware, but self-confident and very good looking. What about the rest of us, I fretted, who were much less secure, and needed to make sure our hair was combed and that we didn’t have any bits of lettuce between our teeth before we went to class? I was pleased that before too long the mirrors went back up.

One momentous day Ram Dass paid us a visit, or more accurately paid Danny a visit. Recently back from India, he had a long, grayish beard, and was sheathed in white robes. A string of sandalwood beads hung from his neck. He sat on a stool in the kitchen, placidly drinking the tea that Danny had prepared for him. Those of us lucky enough to be home when he arrived clustered expectantly around him. Ram Dass told us a few stories about life in Mahara-ji’s ashram, but mostly talked about how it felt to be back in the United States, particularly how annoying certain things were. What I remember best is his complaint about his white Jaguar, which had apparently been given to him by an acolyte. “It drives really well,” Ram Dass allowed, “but it’s not very reliable. The damn thing is always in the shop.” This somewhat lessened my awe of him. But maybe he was trying to demonstrate that even while living a deeply spiritual life one mustn’t lose sight of the practical side of things.

During our time together at Greenough we did some moderately weird things—this was the 60’s. One Saturday evening, for example, “we had an idea of mine for dinner,” as I put it later. This is what dinner was like: I lined 28 small paper bags with 28 plastic ones and filled each with bite-sized portions of a different food. Thus, one bag contained chunks of avocado, another cookies, and another, oysters. There were bags of carrots, walnuts, cucumbers, dates stuffed with cream cheese, cubes of bread, banana slices, figs, swiss cheese, and eggs, to name a few more. All my housemates were there, and we invited lots of others, including my cousin Carole. Each person got their own bag. Next, we closed the curtains, turned some music on and the lights off. Then the fun began.

Like dust motes in a shaft of sunlight, in the pitch darkness people began randomly circulating around the room. When two came into contact, without saying a word each was to grab a piece of their bag’s contents, then find the mouth of the other person and feed it to them. So, I might suddenly find a prune in my mouth, while I would feel for the mouth of the prune-bearer and feed it a brussels sprout. When a pair had exchanged bites, they separated, and the Brownian motion continued. The result was that at the end of the evening we had each experienced an unpredictable juxtaposition of textures, smells, and tastes. And of course each person’s order of ingestion was quite different. Some found dinner rather horrifying, while others discovered unique and surprisingly tasty combinations. Subsequently, some of these unusual fusions showed up in Greenough Ave meals.

Just a few weeks ago I came across the poem that Meredith had written way back then. That inspired me to track her down. With the magic of the internet, I found her within five minutes. I learned that she had become a published poet and a composer. Her email address popped up too. I wrote her: “Hi, Meredith, this is Ken Klein. As you recall, long ago we lived together with a bunch of other people on Greenough Avenue in Cambridge…” Then, to jog her memory, I mentioned her poem. Here was her response: “Dear Ken, I did live in a group house with Dan Goleman and others in Cambridge—is that what you’re referring to?” Obviously, she had no memory of me, despite my poetic prompt. Deflated, but undeterred I wrote back and reminded her that I had started the commune with Susan. Then I briefly told her about my family and where I was now living. Her reply made it clear that she still didn’t remember me. Nevertheless, she told me about her work teaching children with learning disabilities via Zoom, and that her youngest daughter had gone to art school in Seattle. She concluded, “I have been a certified teacher of Transcendental Meditation technique since 1971—inspired by meeting Dan Goleman so long ago! Thanks for organizing that home, that shifted my life’s trajectory in a wonderful way.” Though she didn’t remember me, I at least had a role in shifting her life’s trajectory. I guess that’s no small thing.

Significance or Coincidence?

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A few days ago, I accidently dropped my vitamin D pill on the kitchen counter. It bounced a few times, rolled, and came to rest on its edge rather than on its side! Incredible, I thought. What were the chances of that?

My wife, Annie, says that when she looks at a digital clock, she’s surprised how often the time is 11:11. Very perplexing—why should this special time come up more frequently than other times?

We recently bought a box of Maldon Sea Salt. According to the manufacturer, this special salt is composed of “soft crunchy flakes”. It’s been made in Maldon, a tiny town on the Blackwater estuary in Essex, England, for four generations. Shortly after buying the salt, I got a birthday card from a good friend who lives in Portland. The card featured a lovely painting of the very same Maldon! Entitled “The Promenade,” it included a church, and a glimpse of the waterfront where the boats that collect the salty estuary water that’s turned into those soft, crunchy flakes are moored. When Diane called to wish me happy birthday, she told me she bought the card many years ago during a trip to the UK. For some reason, she felt impressed to choose it for my birthday this year. Amazing that she had held on to it for all those years, and finally sent it just after we bought some Maldon salt! How likely was that?

In 1995 Lena Paahlsson lost her wedding band, which was studded with seven small diamonds. She had taken off the ring to do some Christmas baking in her kitchen in Mora, a little town in central Sweden. (By the way, coincidently—or maybe not—Mora and Maldon not only both begin with an “M,” but have almost exactly the same population.) Alas, the ring disappeared from the work surface. Lena and her husband, Ola, searched everywhere. They even pulled up the kitchen floor tiles during a subsequent remodel to look for it, but no luck. Then, sixteen years later, while harvesting vegetables in her garden the ring turned up, encircling a freshly picked carrot! Lena and Ola speculated that the ring had been swept up from the counter along with fruit and vegetable peelings, found its way first to the compost pile, and then into the garden. Perhaps just as miraculous as the ring’s recovery was that the article reporting this story failed to attempt any puns referring to the weight of the diamonds on Lena’s ring as gaining a carrot.

These four disparate stories are linked by the fact that each was quite unlikely. Does this mean that they represent four miracles? Or at least supernatural phenomena? Hmm, let’s think about it…

How many times have I dropped a pill, or a coin, or another asymmetrical object that bounced and landed, as expected, on its side rather than anomalously on its edge? Probably about a zillion. But I certainly don’t recall such droppings—they quickly fade from memory as “normal,” and not particularly interesting. But when the pill landed on its edge, it got my attention. In fact, it was so unusual that I even mentioned it to Annie. And I’ve remembered it.

And how often in the course of the day do we look at the time? I suspect that we do so quite frequently, and mostly unconsciously. (More than once I’ve had the experience of checking the time. Seconds later when Annie asked me what time it was, I couldn’t remember, and had to look again.) Thus, we don’t tend to remember when the clock says 7:34 or 12:49. But when it comes up all ones, that’s notable. In real life I’m pretty certain that we see 11:11 no more often than any other time of day. It’s just that such times stand out, and we remember their occurrence.

As for the Maldon card, its arrival might also have seemed remarkable if we’d just visited an old church, or just talked about the first snow of winter, or just got an email from friends with news about their sailboat, or just booked a flight to the UK. Any of these would have made an “amazing” connection with the card. A huge number of things present themselves to us in the course of a day. Thus, there are many potential opportunities for linking, and therefore generating significance, to two independent occurrences.

Finally, how many thousands of rings have been lost that were never plucked from a garden circled around a carrot? Or found anywhere else. I doubt that even a thorough Google search would turn up many astounding stories of lost wedding rings that were never recovered. Or of rings that somehow ended up in the garden soil where a growing vegetable nudged the ring, but pushed it aside rather than growing through it. In other words, the very unusual occurrence makes the news, but we never hear about the denominator: all the sad, lost rings that never turn up, on a carrot or otherwise.

This is in no way to diminish the delight of such stories. The pill-on-edge might not be a miracle, 11:11 may not appear more often than other times, some supernatural power may not have induced Diane to send that card (but even I can’t say for certain that this was not the case), and there might not have been a special reason why the carrot was directed to grow through Lena Paahlsson’s ring. Nevertheless, all these occurrences are sources of enchantment and mystery. Not only are they magical, they make us more conscious of the world around us, and are to be savored. More prosaically, they even provoke learning. For example, due to the Maldon juxtaposition, I was prompted to read about Maldon salt, and then salt in general. Now, I’m tickled to be able to tell people that the Maldon salt flakes are “soft and crunchy” because the water collected from the Blackwater estuary is processed in a special way so that the salt crystallizes out in pyramidal structures. And get this: there’s at least one person in the world, Mark Bitterman, who is so obsessed with salt that he considers himself a “selmelier.” He has a shop in New York City that sells 130 varieties of the stuff, including, of course, Maldon sea salt. Thank you, Diane, for sending me that wonderful Maldon birthday card—without it I would have known none of these salty facts.

At least for a few days now I’ll be more conscious of when I look at the clock. The landing of my humble vitamin D pill provoked me to calculate the chances of various other outcomes, such as flipping a penny and coming up with five heads in a row. And reading the carrot article makes me think fondly of Lena Paahlsson, who is hopefully still wearing her carroted ring as she bakes and, together with Ola, picks vegetables from her garden. Don’t take that ring off again, Lena!

The Problem of Induction

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When I was courting my wife, one night at dinner her 5-year-old daughter asked, “Mama, why do Jewish men always stick out their pinky when they drink tea?” I immediately put down my cup. “Why do you ask, sweetie?” Annie said to Hillary, who answered, “Well, Kenny just did it, and our other Jewish friend, Alan, does it too.”

Hillary had made a generalization based on two observations. Annie and I were amused, but skeptical that a larger sample of tea-drinking Jewish men would support her inference. (By the way, I’m still not convinced that I raise my pinky when I drink tea, but who knows, maybe I do. I’ll have to remember to ask Hillary.)

We’re all guilty of faulty inductive reasoning. Recently I was in Yakima, Washington doing covid testing. Our team’s main focus was the Yakama (curiously, spelled differently than the city) Nation since they had been particularly hard-hit by the virus. With the cooperation of tribal elders, we visited several Yakama housing developments and went door-to-door asking residents if they were interested in being tested. The little houses in the first development were old, with peeling paint and an occasional broken window. The yards were rocky and weedy, and there was broken glass by the sides of the roads. Despite the sad surroundings, the residents were upbeat, and thanked us for our work. The next two developments were similar. That was enough for me to conclude that all Yakama tribal housing was poor and run down. I wondered if this “truth” extended to other Washington tribes, and perhaps even beyond the state.

Then toward the end of the week we went to another housing development on the reservation. It was totally different. The entrance was protected by a remote-controlled gate. The roads were clean and well-paved. The houses, beautifully constructed with a combination of wood and stone, were carefully cared for. And the yards had nicely mown lawns. So much for my impression of Yakama Nation Housing! I realized that based on just a few cases I’d made an unfounded inference, perhaps unconsciously invoking a pernicious stereotype of Native American reservations.

Since the time of the Greeks, philosophers have addressed “the problem of induction.” A typical formulation goes like this: I believe that the sun will rise tomorrow, since it’s risen every day in memory. Moreover, there are no counterexamples of the sun not rising. Thus, I conclude that the sun will continue to rise every day. So far, so good. But among other issues, the question is how many instances do we need to be secure in the belief that the sun will indeed rise every morning—or that all Jewish men hoist their pinkies aloft while drinking tea, or that all Yakama reservation housing is run-down?

Bertrand Russell makes the point that a chicken who’s fed every day expects this pattern to continue, ad infinitum. But then one day, instead of feeding it, the farmer wrings its neck and has it for dinner. So much for the predictive value of chicken induction. But I have to say, in this case Russell’s hen was much happier with her unwarranted conclusion than she would have been had she acknowledged the uncertainties of inductive reasoning. That is, being secure in the false belief that she would be always be fed daily seems a much better state of mind than waking up worrying about whether or not some grain would appear, or considering that her neck might be wrung.

Usually, when we employ inductive reasoning we’re not trying to shield ourselves from the possibility of a grim outcome. Rather, we think we’re deriving a truth, thereby increasing our understanding of the world. But we need to use induction with great care. It’s all too easy to generalize from limited, and possibly misleading, information. This can lead to erroneous and damaging conclusions. If we’re to properly use inference we need to observe carefully, make tentative hypotheses that are subject to further testing, and avoid coming to premature conclusions. In other words, keep an open mind. I think I’ll meditate on that over a cup of tea.

Room Service

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“There was a tear in the shower curtain, a picture was hanging crooked in a cheap frame, the baseboard and trim didn’t meet the wall or corners, and the electrical sockets were installed crookedly. Service was fine, and everything seemed clean enough.” So said a recent online review of the Seattle Hilton. All in all, it sounded like the reviewer had a pretty miserable experience–he rated the room a 4 out of 10.

Reading this review brought to mind several of my lodging experiences in other countries:

Chiang Rai: While living in Thailand years ago I took a trip to Chaing Rai, which was then a dusty little town in the far north of the country. I asked a local to recommend a hotel; he led me to what he said was “the best hotel in Chaing Rai.” It was a small, modest building with peeling paint. I asked the owner to see a room. He took me to what he proudly called “our very finest room.” With a flourish, he flung open the door. “See!”, he said. What I saw was an enormous rat scurrying up the far wall. It disappeared into the rafters of the open ceiling. Did I take the room? Of course—this was the finest room in the best hotel in Chaing Rai.

A tiny town in western Nepal: I flew out of Kathmandu on a small plane that landed on a dirt road two-thirds of the way to Pokhara. The bus to Pokhara didn’t leave until the next morning, so I looked for lodging. That was easy since there was only one hotel. It had about three rooms. The one I was assigned had just a single piece of furniture: a narrow, unmade bed with no pillow. There were no windows and no plumbing. The only electricity was a dim lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. When I straightened out the tea-colored sheet that had once been white, I saw that it was covered with numerous dots of blood. This was my first introduction to bed bugs.

The Himalayan foothills above Pokhara: I trekked up from Pokhara through steep terraced fields (see the photograph I took that’s associated with this blog). Soon I was in the foothills, with the jagged white Himalayas towering far above me. Late in the day I started looking for food. I came to a rickety building by the side of the path, where a sign said that they served dinner. The menu was simple: the sole offering was a large bowl of dal bhat—lentils over rice—for about 50 cents. A nice touch was that dinner came with a free bed for the night. So rather than bed and breakfast, with breakfast included, it was dinner and bed, with the bed included. My particular bed was a creaky wooden frame attached to an outside wall on the side of the building. The frame was topped with a thin lumpy pallet, with straw and dirt poking out through rips in the worn fabric. I think the Hilton reviewer would have liked this place since there was no torn shower curtain, crookedly hanging pictures, misaligned baseboards, or off-center electric sockets.

A small village in India, between Lucknow and New Delhi: My room was essentially a stall in a row of stalls. The door was a cloth curtain, and the floor was packed dirt. The walls were made of rough boards which went from the floors to a height of about six feet. At that point coarse black netting was attached to the boards and extended up to the bamboo ceiling. There was of course no air conditioning, but it stayed fairly cool since a breeze blew through the spaces between the boards and across the netting. Not surprisingly, the night was pretty noisy. But I didn’t expect to be irreversibly awakened at 5:00 a.m. That’s when my next-stall neighbor arose for what was apparently an extended upper airway cleansing ritual. This consisted of half an hour’s worth of very vigorous snorts, hacks, nose blows, throat clearings, and spitting. I hoped that he had some sort of spittoon to sequester the output.

Pader, Uganda: As part of a volunteer medical team, I had just arrived in Pader, in Northern Uganda, to provide care for the large refugee camps in the area. Our local contact was helping me settle in a room in what was optimistically called The Pader Hotel. I put down my rucksack and sat on the bed. He laughed and pointed to a one-foot hole in the ceiling. “Ha!”, he said, “don’t you see that you need to move your bed?” “Why is that?” I asked naively. “Because of the scorpions.” He said that scorpions liked to live in the walls and ceilings of buildings in this part of Uganda, and at night they often drop down from the ceiling, especially if they sense there might be something interesting directly below. I moved the bed tight against the opposite wall. The next morning I carefully checked everything out. Fortunately, I found no scorpions. But there were three rubbery little frogs in my rucksack, and two in my left boot.

Another review of the same Hilton was mixed: “Love this place and location. Beds were soft and comfortable. Room was clean, except I found a dental floss pick on top of the shelves near the coffee maker.” The reviewer gave it a moderate rating.

I reflect on my hotel experiences. Just as the worst US hotel I ever stayed in was far better than any of the ones I mention, so all of those were far better than not having a place to sleep at all. In each case, I had a bed. I wasn’t homeless, nor in a flood, nor an earthquake, nor a war zone. I didn’t feel unsafe, and in most cases I even had a roof over my head. And despite the threat of rats, bedbugs, scorpions, and frogs I got at least some sleep every night.

I think it may be a good practice to appreciate what we have rather than to obsess about how it could be better. Instead of “x out of 10”, perhaps hotel ratings should scaled: grateful, very grateful, and extremely grateful.

Note to my readers: I very much appreciate your interest and comments–please keep ’em coming!

Two Toddlers Go Out to Sea

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Dated October 25, 1883, an item in the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania’s “Weekly Notes of Cases” announces a divorce petition. It was filed by Marcus Heilbron, who wished to leave his wife, Rosa. Marcus states that Rosa “hath offered such indignities to the person of your petitioner as to render his condition intolerable and his life burdensome, and thereby forced him to expend several hundred dollars, as she, the said Rosa, demanded a trip to Europe and was bound to see her parents in Europe and other relatives, and left your petitioner alone at Homestead, in Pennsylvania, and your petitioner was forced to give up his home and break up housekeeping, and thus rendered the condition of your petitioner intolerable and his life miserable and burdensome, and the fact that she remained away and became the scandal and talk of the neighborhood of Homestead, Pennsylvania.”

The unhappy couple were my paternal great grandparents. What isn’t mentioned in Marcus’ petition is that when Rosa fled to Germany, she brought along my grandmother, Rena. I have a copy of the ship’s log of The Aller, documenting their return trip to the US from Germany. Rosa’s age is listed as 37, and little Rena was 2. They arrived in New York on February 23, 1892. The Weekly Notes says that Marcus initiated divorce proceedings on April 11, just six weeks after Rosa and Rena returned home.

Apparently, the time apart didn’t cool the passions on either side. In the petition Marcus goes on to complain that after she came back from Germany, his wife displayed “many outbursts of temper, not confined to bad language and threats, but accompanied by acts of great violence, and are scarcely denied by the respondent herself.” Marcus further states that “She admits that she broke a glass door in his store, and interfered with his customers; that she broke dishes and threw them down the stairs, threw hot coffee on the girl, and on two occasions, when her stepsons complained of the dinner, she brought in slop and threw it on the table.” It certainly appears that my great grandmother had a fiery temper, no doubt provoked by Marcus’ abuse. I’m sure he made it clear to one and all how much he loathed his wife, and wished to leave her, and thus Rena as well.

I also have a copy of a ship’s log for a voyage taken almost exactly 59 years after Rosa and Rena returned from Germany. Joyce Klein, age 33, and her son Kenneth, age 2, are listed as traveling in tourist class on the Queen Elizabeth. It sailed from New York on February 16, 1951. My mother was taking me to Germany so we could meet up with my father, who had left home some weeks previously to do research in the laboratory of a German scientist in Berlin. This was less than six years after the conclusion of WWII, in which my father had fought the Germans for five years. My father had lost relatives in the camps on both Rena’s side and his father’s side of the family.

Perhaps even more remarkable than that my father chose to work in Germany so soon after the war was that by going there he left my brother, who had been born just months previously. More amazing still is that my mother too left her infant son; when she and I boarded the Queen Elizabeth, Doug was a mere four months old. Years later, after I became a parent, I asked my father how he could possibly have left Doug at such an early age. He blithely replied, “He was so young, he didn’t know the difference.” And how could my mother do so? “Your mother was very strong-willed. She really wanted to come to Europe while I was there.” And who took care of my brother while the rest of the family were in Europe? “We found a lady from the Salvation Army.”

The recent discoveries of Marcus’s divorce petition and the ships’ logs has created an even deeper bond between me and my grandmother. At the age of two, our mothers took each of us across the ocean to Germany. Both voyages were triggered by our fathers: Rena’s mother was fleeing from her abusive father, while my mother was taking me in tow to reunite with my father. But even though the motives for each trip were different, Rena and I both must have felt apprehension, confusion, and fear.

My grandmother was no doubt a front-row witness to the tense and violent relationship between her parents. From the divorce petition we know only Marcus’ side. But family lore has it that he deserved everything my great-grandmother served him—broken dishes, slop, and all. And though my mother was taking me to–not away from–my father, I must have been very aware that my baby brother had been left behind. He was abandoned first by my father, and now by my mother. Though she chose to take me along this time, what guarantee was there that it wouldn’t be Kenny who would be left with the Salvation Army lady on the next trip?

So as my grandmother walked the decks of The Aller in 1892, and I walked the decks of the Queen Elizabeth 59 years later, I doubt that we were carefree children enjoying our ocean voyages. More likely, we were each anxious about the family dynamics, and worried about what we would find on our return home.

I don’t remember being consciously aware of my parents’ abandonment of my brother. And I wouldn’t be surprised that after the divorce my grandmother repressed her awareness of her parents’ mutually abusive behavior. But she couldn’t ignore her father’s absence; after the divorce he left, and cut all communication with his family.

When she was about ten, in an act of tremendous courage my grandmother found out where Marcus was living and went to his house. He refused to talk to her, or even acknowledge her presence. Thus, repressed or not, her early childhood memories of rejection were resurrected and reinforced. And when, just before I turned fifteen, my mother died of cancer, her death reverberated as the ultimate abandonment of not only my brother, but of me.

Tension and Pressure

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The wooden pole in the storage room was sagging under the weight of the rarely used clothes we’d hung on it. So I drilled a hole in the ceiling and popped in a sturdy molly bolt, to which I tied a nylon cord. Then I wound the other end around the middle of the pole. Finally, I cinched up the cord and tied it tight, which straightened out the bend. The pole felt much sturdier, and the clothes hung better.

This was a satisfying fix, but as I put away my tools I felt a little uneasy. It took me a while to figure out why, but I finally did: I was acutely aware of the newly created tension in the cord. It was stretched so tight that when I strummed it, it vibrated like the C string of a cello. The entire pole was under the influence of this tension. And so was the drywall in the ceiling, resisting the downward pressure of the wings of the molly bolt. I could feel it! Disturbingly, I realized that this considerable force would remain active for as long as the cord stayed in place. That could well be years. Perhaps many years.

I’ve been doing a lot of other home projects lately. Almost all of them produce tension or pressure. Every time I screw two panels of a bookcase together, I’ve created pressure. Every time I hang a door, or earthquake-proof a bookcase by strapping it to a wall, there’s tension. Every time I bolt a mower blade in place, couple two electric wires together with a wire nut, or replace a board on the deck, pressure.

Tension and pressure are everywhere. My house, for example, stays together because of them—I become a little giddy when I think of all the joists and studs and beams being held in place by a vast army of screws, nails, and bolts. Layer after layer of balanced forces are keeping everything stable: the roof, the walls, the floors, the stove and fridge, the bed on which I sleep.

When I drive my car I’m conscious of being surrounded by a complex array of forces: the pressure I create by sitting on my seat, that of my seat against the chassis, the chassis against the wheels, and the wheels against the road. To say nothing of the incredible force being generated by the explosions within the cylinders when I step on the gas. Sometimes it’s hard to fathom why the car doesn’t simply blow apart as I drive down the interstate.

Omnipresent pressure and tension aren’t of course limited to things made by humans. When a storm blows up from the northeast, the big Doug fir in our yard sways ominously. At times I can sense the stress of the branches as they push back against the wind, and the pressure on the base of the trunk as it’s stabilized by the roots clutching frantically at the soil to keep the tree upright. But even on a beautiful day, when there’s no wind and the bay is smooth as glass, all is not really placid. Superficially in equipoise, competing forces are everywhere trying to get the upper hand: in the bay, the weight of the water is pushing down on the seabed below, while on the shore the soil and sand are pressing heavily on the bedrock. These components of the crust are mashing down on the molten outer core, which in turn is squeezing down on the solid inner core.

While my mind is subterranean, I can’t help but think of the upward force of that molten core, liable to increase to the point of volcanic activity, so common in this part of the world. To say nothing of the tectonic plates of the Cascadia Subduction zone. They’re constantly butting heads with incredible energy, gearing up to produce the inevitable Big One. (Good thing I bolted the bookcase to the wall!).

And when you think about it, tension and pressure are ubiquitous within our bodies too. The pressure exerted by our beating hearts sends blood coursing through a complex maze of arteries and veins, nourishing our tissues. As we’re all too aware, if the blood pressure is too high, it can cause great mischief in our hearts and brains and blood vessels. The forces that are intermittently generated within our bladder and intestines allow us to eliminate waste. Muscle tension, even at rest, keeps our bones stable, and the tension in our ligaments and fascia keep our muscles and organs tidily in place. Tension across an ear drum allows it to vibrate (sort of like the cord holding up the clothes pole), enabling us to hear. And on and on. Sometimes, lying quietly in bed, I’m very aware of this symphony of forces at play in my body. Although I know that they all work together to promote normal functioning, this doesn’t necessarily enhance my relaxation.

So how can we peacefully live our lives when we’re conscious of the sometimes-extreme pressure and tension in the things we build, in the natural world, and even within our own bodies? Well first of all, we can be happy that these forces are there—otherwise we wouldn’t be. If gravity and friction were somehow repealed, our houses, our machines, our entire world, and us, would just disperse into space. So celebrate all the pressure and tension, usually in benign equilibrium, that allow our world—including that cord which is so patiently holding up our spare clothes–to exist. Be prudent when messing with those forces. And most of the time, just ignore them.