We'd walk in the canyons, and we'd often walk with Bethe, and Von Neumann, and Bacher. It was a great pleasure.

I recall when I was about nine picking up a tattered copy of Ebony magazine and I think — I mean, maybe journalists ought to know just how much power they actually have because here I was 10,000 miles away from America with this copy of Ebony magazine and it was describing the exploits of Jackie Robinson and how he broke into major league baseball. Now I didn’t know baseball from ping pong but what was so important for me, what made me grow inches was to know that a black guy had triumphed over all of the obstacles that were placed in his way and there he was now playing for something called Brooklyn Dodgers. Now I didn’t know Brooklyn Dodgers. I didn’t know Jackie, but it helped to exorcise what is the most awful consequence of racial injustice and it is the sense — this demon of self-hate when you have a very low self-esteem.

My great aunt was probably the greatest influence in my life. She was crippled. She never walked in her life. She crawled over the floor all her life. When my mother had to go out into the fields when we were smaller children, and then later go to California, she left us with my aunt, and my aunt could do everything except walk. She cooked the food for us, would bring everything to the stove. We had an old wood-burning stove. She cooked the food for us. She washed our clothes on this old washboard. We had to bring all the stuff there, the water, the soap, the washboard itself. She also disciplined us. So we had to break our own switch to get our punishment if we did something wrong. So we’d go out and break our own switch and come back and take our punishment.

she convinced me to use a Bolex. Then suddenly I got obsessed

I’m a binge writer.…I'm not an everyday writer.

And then I tired of waiting tables. It made me feel diminished and sad, but it was a great way to earn a living for a while.

And so it’s true; I think what I said on that post is that every day since my mom died, there hasn’t been a day that I haven’t thought about my own death. That’s true. And I don’t think about it in a morbid way, but I think of it in a way that I’m aware of not taking my life for granted and not taking your life for granted, or any of our lives for granted.

I also think that most of us get wisdom from a wide range of sources, from the people we know and love, from strangers on the street, from therapists and counselors, from teachers, from books, from podcasts, so I turn in all of those directions.

At Sunday school I was given this little book of lyric poems. It wasn’t even a book; more like a booklet. I remember reading the poems inside and not even knowing what this feeling was that I had; it was almost like ecstasy. I felt so pierced by those words.

Without question, the only legacy that really matters to me is the one I leave with my children. I want them to grow to be fully actualized people who can give to the world in ways creative and otherwise and who feel my love in their hearts and lives always, no matter what happens—whether I live to be really old or die young, I hope that my legacy lives in them.