The school itself is newly built. It’s tall, white and beautiful, with a rounded bank of windows in the second floor library. There’s windows everywhere and a magnificent flight of stairs up to the front courtyard where everyone sits for morning meetings. There are around 200 students, from kindergarten to grade twelve.

It’s a curious thing to have a student old enough to be a headmaster. I watched Pintso discuss school issues with the teachers, run meetings, and discipline students. At dinner, he and I talked about religion — Buddhism, Christianity and Judaism. He talked about what it feels like to be from two worlds, two cultures, to be half Sikkimese and half American.

When I first met Pintso, he was fourteen years old and in my Humanities class at the Waring School. He went by the name Peter back then and never mentioned Sikkim. We were reading The Odyssey and some of the students (not Pintso) told me they thought Homer was boring. I was horrified and decided we had to put on a full scale play, telling the story so everyone could understand it. But we needed an Odysseus. An ordinary audition did not seem right, and so we came up with a three pronged test: you had to solve a riddle, win a race and jump the highest. There was a three-way tie: Pintso and two others. What should we do? We decided to have three Odysseuses. Each student would would play a different stage of Odysseus’ life. We came up with an elaborate ceremony that featured a red handkerchief to show the audience that a new Odysseus was taking over.

When I was in Sikkim, I found myself looking for Pintso’s red handkerchief. I remember he wore it knotted around his neck and around his forehead.

Then, a Sikkimese friend sent me pictures of our visit. Here I am in the Himalayas reading a poem. I wrote for the school. Here are the students writing during my visit. If you look closely, you can see my son. Here is my friend Chris talking to the third grade teacher. Here are two monks during a Puja, or prayer meeting. Here are students, greeting me and my son, and the flower offerings that the monks made for the Puja. The last picture, the child with the hula hoop, seems most foreign of all. Were we really there? Were we really in such a peaceful world?

A cousin of one of the students I met had gone to L.A. and been killed in a carjacking. “Don’t worry,” I said, “America is not that violent.” Those words of mine keep ringing in my ears.

Here are the two Passover cakes I made yesterday night. Note how flat and unappetizing they look. But then, no Israelite would have had time to press walnuts onto the date cake, let alone grind almonds.

When I wrote my book on Anne Bradstreet I noticed that seventeenth-century Puritans were always talking about “preparation”: “The Lord prepareth a path for the faithful,” or “Let us prepare for our journey.” They meant it practically speaking, of course, as in “to get ready,” but as with most things Puritan there was a profound religious connotation: to prepare meant to ready one’s soul, examine one’s conscience, pray and repent, etc. But it also meant making sure that there were enough barrels of ale and heads of cheese on the ships to America.

I think I need to look to my soul and to my suitcase.

This is a picture of the view from my office on the first day of spring in New England. 

A friend of mine sent me a link to Ira Glass talking about storytelling on YouTube. He says that it takes way longer to find a good story than you might think. At This American Life, they spend most of their week looking for stories and they “kill” at least half of the ones they come up with.

I reassure myself that I’ve been doing a lot of killing over the last few years. Whenever it’s dawned on me that I might actually finish the book I’m working on now, I panic. What next? I’ve ranged all over the map and all over history. Fortunately, I do find myself returning over and over again to the same set of ideas. I checked my journals from a few years ago — and there they are. The same feelings. The same images. The same people. This seems like a good sign.

So, I was delighted to hear them on the radio, although now that my son is fifteen I don’t worry so much about when he sleeps (well, just a little). Now, the struggles are the typical teenage ones — homework, practicing, electronics. The Kabat-Zinns gave some practical examples about how to set limits, but largely they emphasized their favorite theme: open hearted, mindful parenting. Instantly, I felt guilty. I had just shrieked at my son for texting the day before while I was trying to talk to him and so I was determined to turn over a new leaf and be openhearted and mindful just like the Kabat-Zinns.

It was early in the morning and so while my son slept, I started making pancakes (which was openhearted of me) and when I heard him waking up, I rushed in and sat next to his bed, prepared to be mindful. But already he was on his phone, checking football stats? 9th grade drama? Instantly, I was annoyed. I tried to use that nice yoga instructor voice that the Kabat-Zinns employ, but this annoyed my son. We had a huge battle and when my closed heart and I returned to the kitchen I discovered the pancakes had burned. So I yelled at my son. So much for mindfulness. But then, the thing I love about them, the Kabat-Zinns, is that they say you always have another moment, another chance.

To make crepes a la Pierre:
– Carefully pour lots of flour into a huge American bowl (after the owner of the bowl grabs it and washes the grime that has accumulated in it from months of no use)
– Separate a bunch of eggs.
– Mix egg yolks with huge amounts of butter and pour into a hole that you have made in the flour. Add splashes of milk; I can’t remember when, and some sugar — I have no idea how much.
– Slowly whisk flour and egg/butter stuff together. This is very hard work. (Do not complain and smile while your American hostess takes pictures of you).
– Refrigerate.
– Right before serving, whip the egg whites and fold them into the flour mixture and then fuss with the pan (which is inadequate and not like what you have at home) for a very long time until it is the right heat and has just the right amount of butter.
– Make a ton of crepes for everyone but yourself. When everyone is stuffed, make some butter and sugar crepes and top with ice cream; these are for you.

Then turn on Marie Atoinette and admire Coppola’s techniques, the sophistication of the film’s mise-en-scene and use this term with accuracy, as it was once used in the famous Cahier de Cinema when the French New Wave sought to revolutionize movie making, when what mattered most was how you made a film, how you placed your actors and objects, how you captured movements, a moment, a look.