A photo from Monday morning. I love looking at Albany Hill from the El Cerrito Plaza BART Station while waiting for the train.

I've spent many years now at All Souls Parish in Berkeley. So it tickles me to notice how utterly transportive Sunday morning workshop is to me -- if I notice. As I stood at the railing to receive communion yesterday, awash in music and light and surrounded by other parishioners, I said to myself: yes I'm blessed.

Maybe the new Gutenberg editing experience is the present and future of editing in WordPress -- but it's been giving me a lot of headaches so far. I've been getting "Updating failed" and "Publishing failed" messages. Also the Preview doesn't work. I looked at posts like the following for help -- but to no avail:

• "Updating Failed" / "Publishing Failed" on latest Update (temp conflict with an unknown theme or solved by deactivating and reactivating WP Cerber) · Issue #7652 · WordPress/gutenberg
• Preview stuck in "generating preview" (about:blank ) after auto-save on published post · Issue #7561 · WordPress/gutenberg
• Saving: Autosaveable does not account for autosave existing at start of editing · Issue #7416 · WordPress/gutenberg

I'm just punting and going back to the Classic Editor using Classic Editor | WordPress.org.

I Wouldn't it be nice to write something every day in 2019? I have that hope but I'm learning to temper my expectations. Instead of setting myself that goal, I'll just indicate my intention to write when I can. And when I forget to write for months on end but decide to come back to my blog, I'll pat myself on my back and say: "Congratulations, Self. Carry on."

I like watching The Great British Baking Show on Netflix, which, I think, is a repacking of The Great British Bake Off. I'm not a baker myself and though I love to eat baked goods, I haven't seen baking as an essential skill for me to develop. But I'm inspired to re-examine that assumption, but instead of learning the riches of British baking, I'm inclined to try a recipe for something I love from dim sum: Hong Kong Egg Tarts - The Woks of Life. But wait -- aren't egg tarts derived from some European dessert? According to Egg tart - Wikipedia:

The English custard tart and the Portuguese pastel de nata are European forerunners of the Chinese egg tart, which displays characteristics of both. Before egg tart was introduced to Hong Kong, it is reported that it was first found in 1920s Guangzhou. Taking reference from the recipes of fruit tarts, the chefs in Guangzhou turned it into egg tarts by filling egg custards in the middle instead, a similar way to make simmered eggs with milk (燉蛋). However, as butter was very costly at that time, it was difficult for the chefs to make puff pastry for the tarts. Therefore, they may have used lard instead.

I didn't know what was deeply true until I told a story that would bring unexpected tears to my eyes. What I learned: tell more stories so that I can know more truth.

In the morning, when I'm in a deep flow state, the rest of the world recedes to the background (save for brilliant warming sunshine), as my mind moves happily from step to step towards clear goals. Last night, with computer on my lap and Netflix in the distance, I could barely string together the steps needed to instantiate a Docker image. Unable to recognize the state that I call "Mind like quicksand", I pushed on. I finally had the wisdom to call it quits on my computational work and devote my energies to Netflix. Fifteen minutes later, I was gently snoring -- or so my Sweetie tells me.

I've spent decades of my life attending religious gatherings, but I hadn't understood the beauty of coming together as a community on a Friday evening (every Friday evening) over a large community meal -- until Laura and I and some others from All Souls Parish were welcomed at Congregation Beth El in Berkeley last night.

After taking a much needed nap this afternoon, I was grateful that I ended up honoring a commitment I had made earlier in the day to venture out, to do something new, to show a kindness to strangers. I could easily have fallen back on the excuse of being too tired. And sometimes I am actually too tired to do new things. Instead, I was rewarded by the warmth of new friends.