Article November 27, 2000 Issue

WHY WE'RE HERE

The Christian Science Monitor

When I go to California, I pack a Raymond Chandler novel. Chandler's wordplay and colorful depiction of the architectural and cultural mise en scène of southern California deepens and heightens my experience.

I recently visited several places out there that felt like paradise. Back home, looking around my city, New York, I didn't find the world as pretty—until a light went on, and I saw things in a new way. Fresh off a crowded subway, I wrote this: "The Apple is tough, gritty, dangerous, the homeless and panhandlers and the down-and-out found on every corner. The way I figure it, in this town the ways to help other people are just more obvious."

Everything that seemed so wrong became irrelevant, as I glimpsed something: help was needed. And in that instant came the light—that's why I'm here.

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