Author Archives: cyrein

Thinking about the world and me, my place in it, and my responsibility to it — these are topics for a book, not an essay! However, I will compress my thoughts into an essay. Gratitude, wonder, awe, and something else, something beautifully conveyed in Cavafy’s poem, Ithaka, destiny perhaps, are among my responses to ourContinue reading “The World and Me”

Recently, a friend who attends our Quaker Meeting intermittently with her two children announced that she was considering running for county sheriff. Although I liked her very much and we always enjoyed having her children present, I must admit that I felt some confusion. As a non-Quaker friend said to me, “I’m not sure I’veContinue reading “A Quaker Sheriff?”

My newest community consists of EV chargers, that is, people who are charging (or waiting to charge) their electric vehicles with me. This is a completely new community, as I’ve only experienced it three times; however, those three times have all occurred during the past month. Yesterday (August 11, 2022), it happened during my returnContinue reading “EV Charging and Community”

There’s nothing special about today. As usual, I woke up beside my dear husband, with a couple of errands on my schedule and a doctor’s appointment in mid-afternoon. Another task that awaits my attention, time-sensitive, though not critical for today, is to begin the organization of tasks needed to serve my court sentence. That is,Continue reading “An Ordinary Day”

During an unexpected conversation among four people who were meeting for the first time, I was presented with multiple reactions to the pronoun dilemma that now confronts us. We were each attending a Harvard North Shore alumni lunch and were at one end of the picnic-style table. I include here the genders and approximate agesContinue reading “Pronouns and Gender”

It was 1981, I was 34 and had just completed my bachelor’s degree in physics and math, graduating with honors, feeling quite invincible. I had not often, if ever, been knowingly rejected and was not aware that it was in my immediate future. I looked with delight at all the help-wanted ads, each one launchingContinue reading “Rejection”

We meet. So much time has passed and who is time? She was my friend, mostly because we worked together. We began working on the same day, me 59 and she, about half my age. She was the one who seemed to me to be the most together of all the new teachers. We taughtContinue reading “Who is Time?”

Among the many amazing cities that I have had the privilege of visiting is Bangkok, Thailand’s capital. During a month in spring of 2001, traveling alone In Thailand without an agenda, I was in Bangkok three times: my first few days, my last two nights, and two nights in the middle of that month. MyContinue reading “One City — Bangkok”

If I were the Creator, could I have imagined a sky so blue with clouds so complex: some plump portions deeply white, some darkened and threatening rain, all in slow motion from the wind, some tiny wisps of white blown invisible into the vibrant blue? If I were the creator, could I have imagined treesContinue reading “If I Were the Creator”

Occasionally, when someone influences us, we know immediately, for example, watching someone on the news doing something spectacular, like rescuing a person from a burning building, or standing up against authority, like Malala Yousafzai. More often, we are not aware of the influence until decades later, as often happens with the influence of parents. Sometimes,Continue reading “Threads of One Person’s Influence”