by Kim Magowan Sanath Kumar Our son’s Quaker school marks the end of every school year by insisting all students and faculty walk from the school building to Lindley Meadow in Golden Gate Park. The tradition is either famous or notorious, depending on audience. When Henry was five, my sister Eileen maintained it was shocking that kindergarteners were expected to walk three and a half miles. Prone to hyperbole, Eileen used the phrase “borderline child abuse.” Personally, I lov

by Kim Magowan the blowup/Unsplash Walking home tonight, I think about how early this morning, the garbage truck lumbered up our hill, making, as usual, all kinds of beeps and bangs. Somehow I find those early Wednesday mornings comforting: sitting at the kitchen island, drinking my coffee, outside still dark, everyone in the house asleep, despite that loud garbage truck. All our neighbors, I note, have already put away their three cans — the blue one for recycling, the green

by Kim Magowan Jon Tyson Since quarantine, I’ve been taking long walks—they help me shake off the feeling of having my life suddenly compressed to 700 square feet. It’s been necessary to see birds in the sky, or even a green weed, and persuade myself that life does and will go on. The outside world is an unfurling vision board. And it was on one of these walks yesterday that I encountered Marjorie, a friend I had greatly wronged, and had not seen for nearly fifteen years. My