The World We Want to Live In

You get tiny, unexpected tastes of the world perfected in a lot of places, if you watch. I got it last week at my son Eli’s bar mitzvah (which I’ll write more about shortly). Naomi Shahib Nye got it in the place most of us feel as far from the world we want as possible – at her flight gate, waiting after a delay had been announced:

And I noticed my new best friend—by now we were holding hands—

Had a potted plant poking out of her bag, some medicinal thing,

With green furry leaves. Such an old co...