I hit the road on Monday by 8 am. First, to deposit Aussie with friends who will take care of her while I’m gone. I told her to please restrain her fascist tendencies and behave, otherwise nobody will want her anymore.

I continued driving to the airport. I am going to Jerusalem to see my sister and brother. I try to see them every six months because I love and miss them. When there is distance involved, and as you get older, it’s easy to let time pass. Some months ago, I made a commitment to myself to find the time, energy, and money to see them every half year. My resolve was strengthened after my brother’s medical emergency some 6 months ago.

I didn’t feel like going to Israel. I told them: “I want to see you, but next time, can we meet elsewhere?” Right now I miss the people, not the land.

On Sunday, the Green River Zen Center hosted the Enchantivists, who did a fundraiser to benefit the immigrant community. You can hear them on videos in YouTube. I spoke a little bit, as did Jimena Pareja. I described how I began raising support for immigrants in the very early days of Covid, almost exactly 5 years ago. Who would have thought it would go on so successfully, with help of so many of you, and that now we are raising bail money for a man facing deportation, nabbed by ICE agents in an immigration courtroom in front of his wife and children even as his case is still open?

The Enchantivists comprise John Genyo Sprague and Claire Dacey, each of whom plays multiple instruments (including voice). They performed a few of their own compositions and some others, gorgeous melodies, and Claire especially had such a strong, crystal-clear voice that filled the hall of the old Montague Farm where we had settled some 23 years ago. How wonderful to be back there again.

When I left Monday morning a heavy mist had settled in the Valley, interrupted by bursts of rain. I’ve always loved the mist, fingers searching in the car for fog lights to find my way. I think I know where I’m going, I think it’s the right direction, but who really knows? Who knows the real destination? I think I’ve gotten somewhere, only to discover that that wasn’t it at all. But up goes the garage door, I back out of the house and start off.

What will open my eyes this time? Will the couple sitting next to me on the plane say something I’d never heard before, or perhaps something familiar but in words that make it all sound new? Instead, the man in the seat in front of me jerked his seat back suddenly, sending my bottle of water all over my lap and onto the floor.

“Sorry,” he said curtly, adjusting his earphones and turning back to his movie.

I gently nudged his shoulder.

“What? I said I’m sorry.”

“Did you mean it?” I asked.

He gave a small smile. “I am really sorry,” he said, then went back to his film.

On Sunday night, having finished packing, I read this by James Baldwin: “The longer I live, the more deeply I learn that love—whether we call it friendship or family or romance—is the work of mirroring and magnifying each other’s light.”

I closed my eyes and thought back to the end of 1984. I was writing at the Ragdale Foundation in Lake Forest, a suburb of Chicago, and took a day off to see the city. Toured the Loop, went into the Art Institute, and was battered by winds off Lake Michigan. Finally, I made my way to Lincoln Park. It started raining and I opened my umbrella, saw a bookstore ahead of me, all lit up behind the rain-stained glass, a crowd inside. I squinted through the wet window and instantly recognized the man sitting at a table and autographing books.

How could you not know that gamin face? I don’t know how old Baldwin was at that time, only that he looked like a wise child through the rainy storefront. Lots of people waited patiently to get an autograph and exchange a word with him, and I thought of joining them. But I liked where I stood in the rain, under an umbrella, watching the man who wrote Giovanni’s Room and Another Country. In later years I would read his essays and marvel at the insights he gave words to, and take to heart the pain he endured that earned those insights.

Who knows what is the final destination? I thought I’d flown to Illinois to write, but perhaps it was to catch a glimpse of James Baldwin with his funny face and deep-set eyes through windows streaked with rain. And this time? Who and what will I run into? There is mist even in the bright sun of Jerusalem.