The journey from my neighborhood of San Francisco to Berkeley is hardly a long one. And it is also a very familiar run. I have friends in Berkeley. The Berkeley Repertory Theater is in, you guessed it, Berkeley…and Jane and I have been going for years. So what feels so terribly different, not to mention foreign, on the particular day that I set out to meet my cousin Gregg at a Thai restaurant on University Avenue? I know this route. I have been making this run for essentially 50 years. I once lived in San Francisco’s Noe Valley and worked at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. And I rode BART daily. I even endured BART when it wasn’t working very well. So what is so different about today’s trip to see my cousin?

I don’t know. But everything feels different. Yes, the pandemic has much to do with it. But the other part is my increasing sense of fragility. The body is waning, time’s winged chariot is running out of whatever drives chariots. Never mind. I have gotten used to all this. Onward, and if not upward, outward. Anyway, Gregg and I are sitting outside, this being the only safe place to be for lunch these days. I am enjoying a bowl of hot Thai soup with noodles. The weather is perfect. And the temporary sidewalk dining shelter that has become permanent throughout urban America, gives us a feeling of safety. It also blurs certain long-established lines. There used to be a designation of unfortunate, unhoused individuals called “street people.” But the term has termed out. We are all street people now. 

Gregg and I have a fine discussion of California’s future utilities. How solar power will demand a complete transformation of the electrical grid. Why do I discuss this? Because I have roped him into giving a presentation before the Climate Action Committee of my Jewish congregation. Understanding what Gregg is saying, while not conceptually difficult in any particular part, adds up to an enormously complex picture that is impossible to hold in my brain. Never mind. He has agreed, younger people with better minds will hear what he has to say, and all will be well.

Meanwhile, where else to head now but Trader Joe’s? The chain of offbeat grocery shops has stuff one cannot find anywhere else. And we are only about 200 meters from the nearest outpost. So who can resist? Actually, there is nothing there that I really have to buy. But it doesn’t matter. Fish gotta swim, and so on.

Gregg, obliged to get back to work, carries on shopping for his wife, while I complete my mission for mine. And there is great pride in the latter. OK, there isn’t much practical stuff I do. But there is this. And now I am bouncing down streets in Berkeley that I half know. The other half having been obliterated by waning memory, time and COVID-19. I used to hobble to lunch at Au Coquelet, now boarded up on University Avenue. Never mind. For as I descend the BART elevator, damned if a train for my station isn’t pulling in. I roll aboard, satisfied as can be. There is a mass of German genetics inside me that urges efficiency, the non-wasting of time, and productive use of existence, whatever that means.

Having a fairly large bag of groceries on my lap does complicate things. No doubt about it. But at least the ride will be relatively short. With one hand, manipulating a book is particularly complex. I would rather not risk dropping a paperback on the BART floor. So I just endure the rumbling ride. Besides, something about BART makes me go to sleep. Which I do, only to wake up and find that we aren’t moving.

The train is in the eight-mile tunnel under San Francisco Bay. Occasionally, the driver tells us what he knows about the delay. He doesn’t know anything. The minutes creep on. 20 minutes. 35 minutes. Something about the presence of thousands of tons of Bay water above us is not reassuring. I would rather be out of this tunnel. This is no place to wait. Gradually news emerges from the public address system. The driver is telling us that there is a problem at Powell Street station. In fact, we are going to move, but not stop at Powell Street. Sure enough, we roll forward for 30 seconds then stop again. Another five minutes pass. We roll another few seconds. Finally, we are actually moving. And, no, we are not bypassing Powell Street, we are stopping altogether. The train empties at Montgomery Street.

Trains aren’t running. No one knows why. But I can see one extremely unpleasant reality. The platform is jammed with passengers. By now, this is early rush-hour. No trains are moving. Passengers are accumulating in this station, like rainwater in a puddle. And this would be no particular big deal, except for the pandemic. I don’t want to hang around here and breathe. I head for the elevator. There, one passenger tells me that the trams one level above us, are not running. But the elevator operator, and, yes, there is one, says this is untrue. Plenty of trams. So I go to that level, roll aboard a muni light rail vehicle, and get off one stop beyond Powell Street.

I am still underground. And this platform at Civic Center Station, is also a COVID-19 repository, Jammed with commuters. Still, I don’t see much choice. I still have this bag of groceries on my lap. I will need to pee fairly soon. The platform electronic signs seem to be running on automatic, depicting the normal sequence of trains. But there’s nothing normal now. The loudspeaker announces that only one track is running. The other is shut. At one moment a train heading toward my station is supposed to arrive in two minutes, then the sign says 43 minutes, then back to two. But for once, the promised train actually happens. Before I know it, I am back in my neighborhood.

And what is the lesson? That is not just me that is fragile. It’s everything. It’s everyone. It’s climate change. It’s the fucking pandemic. As for Powell Street, a woman had gotten her arm caught in an automatic BART car door and was dragged to her death.