Manny Kagan

What’s Your Story?

As we gradually move toward “business as usual”, many business people will be able to get together in person in large gatherings/mixers for developing new relationships, and eventually generating new business. In these encounters, the questions, “What do you do?” and “Where are you from?” are often asked.

This might not lead to real connections. Instead in the article which appeared in Inc.com, Marcel Schwantes writes about the “5 Questions the Most Interesting People Will Always Ask in Conversations”.

1. What’s your story?

2. What makes you smile when you get up in the morning?

3. What is that one book that has influenced you the most?

4. What absolutely excites you right now?

5. What’s the most important thing I should know about you?

You can ask anyone those questions; especially yourself.

I just finished putting together my next photo-story book, “42 Encounters with Love”. Three images did not make it into the book; however, they are definitely telling a story.

Enjoy and Share!

Cheers,

Song of the Grasses

Many years ago, I met a remarkable teacher, Rabbi Gershon Winkler. My first introduction to him was through his books.

Every day, I continue to read his book, “Kabbalah 365. Daily Fruit from the Tree of Life”. It is a compilation of wisdom from different Jewish sources. I wrote about one of them on June 11, 2021, about the light. This time, I want to share a quote from “Likuttei Ha’Ma Haran Tanina, No. 3”, written by eighteenth century Rabbi Nachman of Breslov.

“When you take your next stroll in the woods, or peer out the window at your lawn, try to hear the chanting that resounds around you. All is singing every moment. How good and how beautiful is it when one is able to hear the song of the grasses.” Or to photograph them, as I did in Golden Gate Park.

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Cheers,

How to Enjoy 54 Years of Marriage

Initially, I was going to title this story, “How to Survive 54 Years of Marriage”. However, a good relationship is not just about surviving; but also enjoying.

We got married in Riga, Latvia at the age of 20, had our first child at 21, and immigrated to Israel when we were 25, where our second daughter was born. At the age of 33, we moved to San Francisco. And for the last 35 years, we have built together a successful mortgage brokerage company. We have great relationships with our daughters and their significant others. And we enjoy our lives.

Our secret can be summarized in two words – “Love and Gratitude”. On August 8^th, as years before, my wife will receive a special bouquet of flowers. These three bouquets are for you, with love and gratitude.

Share and Enjoy!

Cheers,

Charming Portland, Oregon?

The reason why I put the title in the form of a question, is because when we told our friends that our daughter Tamar and her family are moving from West Hollywood to Portland, some had a whimsical look on their face. Why are they doing that? Is it a job transfer? Which only means that many people do not know Portland.

We have been here a number of times, and have also shared mixed feelings about it. The city with the population of over 650,000 recently gained notoriety for the riots. Its slogan is “Keep Portland Weird”, and for some people it might look this way. The homeless population downtown might look similar to San Francisco’s. However, there is a different face for the city as well.

This time, we traveled there to help our children and granddaughter to settle down in their new place. In the residential area they are living in, we discovered the charm Portland offers, with beautiful old homes on narrow streets lined with mature trees and a lot of flowers in people’s front yards and on the sidewalk. Portland is called the “Rose City” and as you can see, it deserves the title.

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Cheers,

If You Leave Them Alone,
They’ll Leave You Alone

The title of this essay comes from the article titled “Latest buzz on nature in the neighborhood”, written by Carl Nolte in his column “Native Son”, which appeared in San Francisco Chronicle on June 27, 2021. The story is about wild life in San Francisco Bernal Heights. Recently neighbors encountered 2-year old mountain lion cougar, who had wandered to the city from the hills above Los Gatos. After he was captured by city authority neighbors named him “Mr. Handsome”.

Other visitors like coyotes do not get so much attention, since they have became common. In our neighborhood, Monterey Heights, I encounter and photograph them every year. Other unwelcome guests created more excitement, it was giant swarm of bees. Thousands of them occupied a gingko tree. Turned out that our city has a special bee phone line to remove bees. When specially trained beekeeper arrived, he successfully relocated them to new destination.

Though bees have coexisted with humans for thousands of years, they are wild creatures and “if you leave them alone, they will leave you alone”, was recommendation of one of the local beekeepers. Bees play an important role in humans’ life and it’s fun to photograph them while they collect their food from the flowers.

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