late Sunday afternoon, after a dinner of Vietnamese comfort food at my favorite hole-in-the-wall restaurant in San Francisco, Le Cordon Bleu, Kass and I walked up California Street to the top of Nob Hill. there, we took a little detour into the courtyard of Grace Cathedral, as i wanted to show Kass the Labyrinth there. this is a circular pattern etched in the ground, along the paths of which pilgrims make a meditative walk towards the center of the circle, then back out. it's not easy to describe, and better seen... anyhow, as we left the cathedral, trudging down white marble steps, Kass commented rather nonchalantly to me ...you have an easy life. which started a train of thought that temporarily ends here, at this terminus. and so i stop now, to reflect on why that is true, and to put these thoughts into writing. because i couldn't really disagree with her... i have an easy life. and i don't see why everyone shouldn't have an easy path in life as well. so anyway, the two pictures i've chosen to put on this weblog entry are, aptly, 'reflections' images taken the last couple of days. this one here was taken somewhere along Cali St., with Kass, and the one below is in front of Tolman Hall, coming back to class with Littlehunter today.

to make a longish story short and webloggy, then... i shall do the weblog version of those images, and reflect on attachments -- the kind i don't have, as well as those i do. and why that works for me. i'm not prescribing an elixir here... a cure-all that works for anyone at any time. there are no bottled secrets of life i'm offering... all i'm saying is that what i've done with my life works fine for me, and this seems clear to anyone with eyes to see, ears to hear, and heart to feel.

first, i don't have an attachment to money. i don't make much, and i don't have much. which ironically makes it easier for me to give it away... mostly, these days, in the form of books or CDs of music to students, mentees, young nieces or nephews... or movies, or trips to the symphony, etc. However, as Tom Fletcher likes to say, I may never be a wealthy industrialist, but my job sure has nice perks. I couldn't agree more; particularly on the Mac hardware side of things ;-)

second, i don't have an attachment to a house or a car (which stems from non-attachment #1 above). (does this somehow make me, a first-generation immigrant, 'un-American'? lol) i did used to live full-time in Berkeley, in an apartment, with a wonderful library of several thousand books, gathered through my years here (i came to the Bay Area in 1982). i gave up the apartment, gave all my books away, kept the binders of slide photos and writings over the years. took on a nomadic lifestyle: half the time in Maui, half the time in Berkeley... and when I'm here, i live with my friend Jane up in the hills, or sublet an apartment near campus, during the summer session. not having a house of my own here makes it a lot easier for me to be, in fact, a wanderer.

because there ARE children i am attached to... fondly and fiercely so. some are already grown-up, in grad school or working in their own careers -- my earliest mentees, whom i met as junior high kids in the late 80s. some are still themselves in junior high right now -- students of mine, and potential mentees as well. and many kids in between the shoals of early adolescence and the deeps of adulthood. their stories and mine can be glimpsed at in the pages of this weblog. over the years, this group of young people and their families whom i have come to see as an extended 'family' of my own, has provided me with a rich and deep life experience, one that cannot be bought at any price.

so Fletcher asked me this evening, while chatting on IM as we discussed tomorrow's weblog essay, "so, where IS home, Lloyd?" and i responded as i usually do to that question... 'home is where the heart is, Tom. cliched as that might be... since it is, in fact, true.' Home is wherever my mom and dad are... these days, in Maui. Home is where Angel and I are, here in Berkeley in our sublet apartment at a Victorian in back of Soda Hall. this kid, whom i first met as a stripling of 13, many years ago, and is now a man of almost 20. my mentee, my brother, my friend.

and most of all, home is where you are... you who are reading these words now and who know me in some fashion. this odd, engaging cyberhome of ours, where "here" is not fixed in space, or even in time.

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