Have been doing a lot of thinking ...

about a critical of period of great change that drew me out of the suburbs and back into the city in the early Seventies. Trying to deal with that before taking on the writing of history of my participation in the Black Revolution poses some problems -- is not easy to do. It's a matter of organizing my thoughts a bit more, I suppose. Those were such important eras in both my own life and the lives of the entire country. We, together, underwent such earth-shaking social, cultural, and political change... .

To do it justice, I'm trying to plow through files and notebooks, carbon copies of letters written and received from others, pouring over old photographs, newsletters and announcements. Each invites remembrances that both pain and elate. One thing is certain, my life was "well-peopled," as it continues to be. Over all the years there have been Avatars (guides) and close companions who've softened the hard places and enriched even the most rewarding experiences for savoring later (in these years).

Having Dorian return to live with me means that I'm having to make space and discard a lot of items that had been difficult to part with before now. That means that I must examine the contents of all those boxes that I've carefully hauled from place-to-place in my last moves -- something I've purposely neglected to do because I feared looking back... now I must do just that. There are just so many under-the-bed and top-of-the-closet storage devices available, and the square footage of this small condo can accommodate just so much memorabilia, and Dorrie comes with her own brand of "must saves."

Just ran across a newspaper article that might serve as a place to begin. Maybe I can start with that and work my way back through what brought me to that point, just a thought. There are other clippings of my years as a small merchant in our family business in Berkeley. Those years seem so far in the distant past now. Those were the years of becoming?

Perhaps one of the sure signs of aging is that we begin to think of ourselves as fully formed, with not much time left in which to continue the shaping of a life. Though I must say that I've not yet lost the sense that I experience a pattern of major change with each succeeding decade, a kind of reincarnation without leaving the world. I'm still more aware of beginnings than I am of endings, and wake each morning with all senses open to any signs of newness in the air. Perhaps that's the last thing to go ... maybe.

Photo: Lost in thought at a meeting at the home of Archdeacon John Weaver of the Northern California Episcopal Diocese in San Mateo, California. These were the early "Bill Soskin" years when we were deeply involved in the Vallombrosa Conference that served as a think tank for the Diocese under Bishop J. Kilmer "Kim" Myer.