Rebellious Thoughts of a Woman

Overwhelmed by an Overwhelmed Sister

A few days ago I was talking to a colleague who is the perfect embodiment of “I got it”-ness. With her Vogue-in-the-classroom look and absolute dedication to going above and beyond the call of duty for her students and all of the students in our school, she is a failure-free go-to gal, who clearly revels in that role—and reputation. But that morning her smile was tense, and her laugh-whatever-off ease was strained. What had put her over the top was not administration, with all its glorious decisions. No. It was family. What a shock, huh? Why is it that the people who are supposed to be our mattresses offering endless support are often the people who give us beanie bags?

That day her bottomless pot of things she “got” overflowed when her sister volunteered her—because she’s so good at it—to get their father’s gift, less than a week before Christmas. Her husband protested, but she preferred one-more-thing-in-her-pot than to deal with another ‘round and ‘round conversation that she would have with her sister that would deflate her more than the search for the perfect B&B for his gift. So she took on one more task, once again.

I asked how busy her sister is. She shrugged, unimpressed by her sister’s busyness, and commented that it’s normal. Then she added, with a hint of scandal in her tone, that when her sister needs “me” time, she takes the day off and does nothing for anyone—she tends only to herself she practically whispered. A concept she found hard to fathom, since she is never able (willing?) to slough off responsibility.

“So,” I said, “she’s overwhelmed by the ordinariness of life.”

She looked at me with a “Bingo” look and laughed a laugh that doesn’t stop until you’re ready to lose the aha-ness of the moment.

That’s when I realized that I am like her sister because so often I, too, am “overwhelmed by the ordinariness of life.” How else can you explain the medal I expect after I finally call to question a charge on a credit card bill, or actually check my cell phone bill before paying, or bring the car into the garage for regular maintenance? Far too often life, even in its basic configuration, is overwhelming.

The other day, the mortgage broker at my credit union (I’m apartment hunting) told me that I shouldn’t have gotten another credit card (I don’t want to use the Bank of America card anymore) because it doesn’t look good when my credit score is checked, and also that I should not have let the balance on my credit card four months ago be more than 50% of the limit, even if it was paid off on-time. How was I supposed to know that regular activities would count against me in my credit rating and possibly in the mortgage rate I would get? Maybe I should have known this, but it’s darn hard to pay attention to the important and the trivial, and remember which is which.

I joke with my students who are anxious when they receive a failing grade on an essay, that we are not born knowing how to write a five-paragraph essay. I reassure them that it is okay, that I will teach them and work with them, and that they will have a few years to perfect it before they move onto other forms of essays that they will need to perfect. So much of what we need to know is not intrinsic: experience trumps intuition. And there is so much experience to meet and master.

I’m not sure where the root of the overwhelm problem lies, but I’m sure that we are all overwhelmed at some point, some of us on a daily basis. We are expected to do too much and know too much. Just living life requires more skills and knowledge than a person can comfortably handle.

But there doesn’t seem any stopping. Now that I’m looking to buy an apartment, I’m thinking of all the do-it-yourself things I might have to do. Maybe I shouldn’t have watched the home repair show that made fixing the kitchen look so easy, but I did and now I wonder if I should learn to use drills or saws or whatever those cutting tools are. Another colleague said that a friend of hers has become a competitive crafting mom; she blames Pinterest for that—a combination of keeping up with Ms. Jones and wanting to be, at least, on par with all the other mothers. Seriously, spring blossom cookies in white and pink fondant or a tower of white Christmas tree cookies—what happened to Tollhouse chocolate chip cookies using the recipe on the back of the bag?

Who is enabling all the overwhelming?

The expectation that we learn and then do so many things exceptionally well is turning out to be too much for too many of us. The other day I heard a scientist talk about a field that he had started and how now, not even 50 years later, he is unable to keep up with all of the information and discoveries in his field.

Every year I have about 150 students. I learn their first and last names in a week. I remember their names for a year. But once the year is over, their names are as the names of the stars in the sky—unknown to me. That seems a good way for my mind to handle the overload. How many people did Neanderthal woman know? And how many routes to how many houses and supermarkets and stores and types of restaurants (Thai, Chinese, Mexican, Greek, Vietnamese, barbeque, breakfast place, fast food, and deli) did she need to know? No wonder people are picking up yoga and meditation where the goal is to silence the mind. At least I think it is (I should check that).

While I am overwhelmed, I am also astonished by the things that overwhelm others. Yes, I excuse myself and not them. I guess that makes me a hypocrite, but it also makes me a person trying to give herself a break and a bit of a lift at the same time. A coping strategy for someone who doesn’t do the lotus position or hum ohm, and needs to stay away from those cookies, fondanted or not.

 

“Overwhelmed by the Ordinariness of Life” is going to be a regular feature because it’s important to curtsey to ourselves in recognition of all we do and laugh at how some people are stumped by the very nature of putting one foot in front of the other—which really is laughing at ourselves, which we really need to keep doing so that we, too, can keep placing those feet one in front of the other. I’m not sure why, but this feels critical to me. Maybe it’s because I am not a doer and the degree of doing that I do in a day must be acknowledged so that I don’t keep thinking that I have done nothing. It may also help me better value people, like my brother and my mother, who bother the heck out of me by how overwhelmed they are by the ordinariness of life. But more on them in future posts—this is my curtsey to self.

Missing Words: the Quandary of Being 50 Plus

 I’ve been forgetting things for a year. Is this what’s supposed to happen when you turn 50? It was like clockwork: I got my invite from AARP to join the party and I started forgetting things. Not things, per se, I can still find my keys and my car (not counting supermarket parking lots), no, I’ve been forgetting words. Not all words, not words when I’m writing, but when I’m speaking. All of a sudden, in the midst of a conversation, when it’s my turn to talk, I freeze up. I become, sorry Mom, my mother: a picture of confusion, a pause one two three four five six and then back to the conversation. Or right in the middle of my talking the next word will suddenly—poof!—disappear as if a magic wand had suddenly descended upon my internal dictionary. I’m not happy about this development or reverse development, as the case seems to be.

One day in school I was standing in front of my class discussing The Odyssey and how Odysseus’ ship was sunk in the storm that Zeus sent as per the request of Helios, the Sun God, because Odysseus’ men had a bbq with his sacred cattle, when the word “sunk” disappeared. I stood there in front of 28 teens whose brains are in the midst of expanding watching me visibly losing some synapses. The word “drowned” popped into my mind, but I knew it was wrong—people drown, not ships. Still standing there, pretending that this wasn’t awkward, I searched some more, when it occurred to me to just say “the ship went down.” A few seconds later, thankfully, the word, “sunk” came into view, but too late for me to prevent a fearful insight—I am beginning my decline.

The other day I was at a sports store with my 16-year-daughter. As we walked around looking for a sports bag I told her that I was anxious that I was forgetting things.

“Oh, Mom, I forget things all the time,” she noted with that trademark exasperation of the teen.

“No, this is different. It’s an age thing.” Why is it that we always talk about sensitive topics in the car or public places?

“Mom, you’re being dramatic. Now, ask them where the drawstring bags are, and don’t call them cinch bags, that’s not what they’re called.” 

Sure, she doesn’t want to deal with thinking about her mother as less than the lady who can take care of things for her; after all, I am the only adult in her life. I’m her rock, but I’m crumbling.

I walked right over to the sales clerk and asked, “Excuse me, but where are the cinch bags, uh, I mean drawstring bags.”

As we walked over to the soccer balls, where the drawstring bags were located, I said to her, “You see, I didn’t mean to say ‘cinch’ but it just came out.” It’s confusing and upsetting this whole word-replacement thing. I have lost control over my brain.

When I was younger (yes, that’s how old I feel right now that I can say that with confidence) everything worked without being aware of the parts—of the magic of creation and how amazing it is that the mind and body work so well. I heard a scientist on the radio recently talk about how much work goes on in the brain just to bring a cup of coffee to our lips. I can still do that, with ease, but still, this visible change is hard.

I used to walk by older people, going at their extreme snail’s paces, visibly concentrating on each step, wondering how they can be so slow—I don’t any more. Now I marvel at their ability to keep going in spite of all the stuff that’s becoming unglued and dismantled inside. I don’t see “them” so much as I see me down the road. Hopefully I won’t forget the word “road” and that I need to keep truckin’ down it.

Rape: The Scourge of Our Time

I was all fired up the other day to write about the heinous way women are treated in Afghanistan; the brutal absurdity of imprisoning women for being raped and of forcing them to marry the men who raped them; and how unhealthy it is for a society to give men absolute power over women. I was going to write about how conflicted I am about our leaving Afghanistan: Is it good to leave them to themselves, or is it bad since, obviously, the women aren’t much better off after our ten-year offensive. I even intended to bring in World War II and how we didn’t leave Europe, another scene of debilitatingly horrific acts of violence, until we had defeated Hitler and the evil of his regime.

Then my partner said that I should think about how many women in the military are raped. “Google ‘rape military.’” Then he mentioned a female soldier who accused a man (working for a contractor) of raping her, and how he got off with barely a slap on the wrist. And her, he said, she was jailed.

He’s right: All the wrongs committed against women cannot be dropped on the laps of Afghani men. We can’t just pooh-pooh the men of Afghanistan who conceal women behind burkas and walls, and who torch their schools, and rape them with bestial impunity, because the rest of the world doesn’t exactly present a shining example of gentlemanly behavior.

Women in the Congo, Bosnia, Kuwait, Sudan, Sri Lanka, and Rwanda have been raped as a course of war, as they have been during other conflicts, and throughout history. Reports of Libyan soldiers raping citizens have surfaced, as have sexual assaults by Egyptian police against demonstrators.

I googled “us military rape statistics,” and 2,230,000 results came up. That’s a lot of stories about men in the military who rape, and women (in the military and civilians) who have been raped by our representatives.

And here in the US, where we attempt to look down on their mistreatment of their women, well, we actually have a term for when a man doesn’t get that “no means no.” Date rape is not quite akin to opening a door for a woman. And the acceptance of the twisted logic of “she asked for it” by wearing a dress that was too tight or too revealing, or by being out too late, or by drinking too much is a psychic rape of all women. Women do not ask to be violated. No, Americans are not beacons in any one’s night.

People say that in Afghanistan it is an expression of their culture. Yeah, sure. Men take every right from a woman except the right to inhale and exhale and we let “culture” cover for that constant humiliation and exercise of power. Then what is it here? Can someone state as truth that rape is a reflection of our culture because we so degrade women by objectifying and sexualizing them? Have we let the deviants define us?

Is the genesis of these rapes by Afghani men, African rebels, European fighters, and American soldiers the same? Is the problem a universal acceptance of “boys will be boys”? Have we conceded the stage to the bullies?

Googling “rape” brings up 206,000,000 results. No, we cannot breathe a sigh of relief that at least we don’t live there—because we do. Women can be strong, but not as strong as a 200 lb. man with societal support (for what else is indifference?) on his side.

Is rape the scourge of our time? We have defeated illnesses, now we must defeat a sickness.

A person who rapes is sick in the crudest sense of the word. And it is unhealthy to ignore a sickness in our midst. Why is it that we arrest prostitutes and not Johns? Why are we always protecting the men? Why are we protecting those who need no protection?

Maybe we women are being forced back to being the weaker sex because society is unable or unwilling to protecting us. What does that say about American culture?

“I Like Your Necklace”

The other day the “compliment clothing instinct” peeked out its pretty head. In the morning, as I walked by her, I blurted out to a student that I liked her ring. I couldn’t help it—it was so big, so obvious, so worthy of compliment; teacher-student relationship be damned—the girl has taste. It was a three-inch silver disc with intricate designs on it: quite the finger shield. A ring to be noticed—and complimented.

Then later when I was walking around the supermarket, a woman who almost walked into me (or did I almost walk into her?) complimented me on my necklace. As I said “thank you,” I reached for my neck to feel which necklace I was wearing. It was the necklace that I bought after my year of wearing no jewelry after father passed away.

And the next day I complimented a colleague on how lovely she looked. And she did the thank you blush and took the back straight-chest out stance.

Even when I tell my daughter, who doesn’t much like my voice or the words that come out of my mouth, how pretty she looks, I get a shy thank you and a tinge of blush to her beautiful cheeks.

Oh, how lovely it is to give and receive. Forget the lists. Forget the stores. Forget the gift cards. Give the gift of a compliment.

Thinking about Sleeping

At night I  go to sleep. In the morning I wake up. Between those two, there are innumerable mini-wake-ups. I go to the bathroom. I come back to bed. Sleep doesn’t overtake me, or perhaps I don’t have the patience to just lay there waiting, as if for a gift. And so I turn on the radio. I listen to news and interview shows from the BBC, which is what the public radio station here plays from midnight to five am (which is a half-hour before my it-really-is-time-to-wake-up time). You would think that I would use my time constructively—clean, knit, read, eat—but I don’t. I lay listening, waiting, hoping for sleep to take me away from learning more about the drama that encompasses so many people’s lives.

There is no night’s sleep for me; it is a series of naps within the night. I wonder what impact this has on me? It’s exhausting thinking that there is always something I could be doing with my time and it’s exhausting always learning new things. And it’s exhausting not getting a stop-to-start sleep because I have always needed a full night’s sleep. I have always been envious of those “I just need a few hours of sleep” people.

It’s not even that I have concerns and stresses and anxieties that are keeping me turning from side to side to side to back to side looking for the magic position in the night. Sure, I had plenty of drama a few years ago, and that may be what has permanently disabled my sleepscape, but I don’t now. Now I have a life that flows as a backyard stream, it’s touched and touching, and keeps on going, inevitably, around rocks and down little rapids, and even calms in the pools that develop behind fallen branches before the rush—onward, forward. 

So why can’t I sleep? Maybe I’m never tired enough? Maybe I should succumb to the quiet of my mind rather than seek company in the night. Am I getting too many words in my life? Since I teach, I’m talking all day long. And when I’m not talking, I’m reading and writing lessons, and grading. And when I’m not so involved, I’m listening to radio, listening to talk radio or music where my focus is always on the lyrics. And when I finally have enough, I watch TV, but my partner and I always discuss and debate the drama of the cooking or house hunting show we are watching. So there are always words percolating; there are always thoughts developing and responses formulating. Is the problem, not the lack of bladder control, but the lack of thought control? Does my mind really need to be still, or as still as I can make it, to find the atmosphere I need in order to sleep from ten to five-thirty? Maybe I should practice some form of meditation in bed—force my mind into the off position.

Yes, I think I will try that. I will give myself “me time” in bed. (And no, I don’t mean that kind of me time.) Is the problem that I don’t give myself time for me? Or is it that those words are always directed outward or are from beyond the self.  They come in invited, surely, but has it become too much of an invasion rather than an interaction, or maybe the notion of continual interaction is too much for me. Where am I, my core, if I am always focused on beyond the cells of self? Have I given myself up to constantly joining and creating a flow of ideas and thoughts rather than occasionally casting myself onto a smooth, sun-dried rock from where I can be still and meaningful because I simply am?

Bask, I need to bask in bed. Bask to the beauty of being, whatever that means intuitively because I will not seek to analyze those moments. In the still small moments of night, I will be as dark matter, there and not there.

It's Cold

Is this the gloom of winter descending upon me?

It’s dark when I get up. It’s dark when I go to work. The chill air means that only my hands and face feel air unfiltered by layers of clothing, even it if it’s just the shared air of indoors. And it’s dark when I go to sleep, which is generally the case since I have always been an early-to-sleep-er, but of late it’s so early that a mere two months ago it would have been considered naptime.

And it’s been gray, so very gray. I didn’t realize how much the gloom could be gloomy; I used to think that it was lovely, but I see now that it seeps in with it a sense of isolation. Windows are closed. Doors are closed. But perspective is not closed.

I can’t let the cave take over since I am still of this world. This lousy, gray, gloomy world that I generally appreciate, or believe will get better—for us all. But not today. No. Today I’m letting the sadness descend. People are mean. People are cruel. People have egos. And I’m just tired of thinking about them. Curious, isn’t it, how people think they should be heeded when they heed not others. Who made your truth the only truth?

You want to keep your head in the sand, go ahead, just leave the rest of us alone so we can deal maturely with the horrible ways we have dealt poorly with the earth.

You don’t believe in abortion. Fine, don’t have one. Hey, guys, not sure if this applies to you anyway.

And do us all a favor, if you don’t like government, don’t become a politician, and don’t work for the government in any capacity, and don’t take money from the government. Is it necessary to always be a hypocrite just because you can?

And all of you terrorists—yes, if their purpose is to instill terror, then they are terrorists—why not let the rest of us use our words to try to solve the problems you have created and exacerbated instead of you continually lobbing your bombs and killing killing killing—just because you can. WooHoo! You killed another person. What did that get you? Do you really feel better? Do you really feel that the world is a better place now that you have forced death over life?

And you know what, I'm tired of the GOP candidates no longer bothering to attempt to impersonate an empathetic person, and I'm disgusted by people who think, heck, it's okay if you sexually harassed a woman--is it really anyone's business? YES IT IS. Stop protecting people who deserve no protection. What is with this society and its twisted desire to always protect those who have all the protection at the expense of everyone else--those they harassed and those they raped and those they demeaned. What kind of moral compass do we have? Where is it pointing? 

And ignoring the rape of boys to protect a game and a name? Unfathomable and unconscionable. And let me say, I am glad that Penn State lost on Saturday. I know, it's petty, but so be it--so be me. Don't these people care about anything but themselves and their careers? Hollow are they all. 

But my daughters are doing their homework. And my partner is studying. And my mother probably had chicken for dinner and will call to tell me about it. And my dog is waiting for just one more doggy treat for the night. And me. I feel tears. I’m tired. I haven’t even touched on the things that I have to deal with at work. The things that make me ache in empathy, and the things which cause me pain and tension and stress.

We’re such phonies, aren’t we? Pretending to care when all we hope to do is get home safely at the end of the day, without harming anyone or being harmed by anyone. (Did I mention my not getting home safely a few weeks ago when a man, who had obviously been abusing substances, side-swipped me?) Or are we the result of the hurts that we experience personally or from feeling the pain of others and by the time you reach 50 it’s just too much, too too much. We don’t become inured, we become inundated.

We can't help it, can we, to reach out--and to be reached for. But we are not an Atlas carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders, for we are part of the world. With endurance, may we become an opening in the gloom.

Back with Rebellious Thoughts

Let’s just put it out here: I am appalled by the world we live in. What makes this somewhat palatable is that I doubt there was any time in history when the world wasn’t appalling—if not in totality, at least in select corners. Not the world, no, I misspoke, the people who inhabit the world. We are a collection of murderers, rapists, thieves, racists, bigots, and generally unsavory people who you would not want to break bread with. The beauty of white beaches, swaying palm trees, ripe mangoes, and orange-purple sunsets cannot counterbalance any day’s headline from some place or another. Man’s inhumanity toward man has never taken a break. And while we can say that at least that (insert horror of the day) doesn’t happen here, forget it—it does.

Recorded time goes back 5,000 years. Which means we have before us 5,000 years of dirt on the human race. And it is unrelenting. Wars wars wars. Oppression oppression oppression. Suffering suffering suffering. What is wrong with us? Is it really so hard to fulfill our basic human needs without infringing on someone else’s desire to sit on a rocking chair at the end of the day with a cup of spiked iced tea? According to Maslow, there are five levels of human needs: physiological (stuff), security (here today… and tomorrow), social (let’s be friends), esteem (doin’ alright, if I do say so myself), and self-actualization (feelin’ good in here with myself). Seriously, why do we need to keep inventing armaments so that we can fulfill our needs before the guys on the other side of the river fulfill there’s? Can’t we, really, help each other? What’s wrong with hoisting each other up the ladder of needs, rather than stepping on each other as we try to ascend to the next level of fulfillment?

Is the problem that we are packs of wolves with haircuts and underwear?

It’s beyond frustrating. And beyond depressing. It is demoralizing (a word which assumes a level of morality, but it does indicate the degree to which my esteem has fallen, since I have a hard time finding the morality). Since I am Jewish, my sensitivity to the depravity that just keeps rolling along in human history is quite, unfortunately, well-practiced. But I think that holds true for anyone, anywhere in the world. Most of us, I am sure, can cite a time (assuming we know history past our own generation) when our ancestors had to leave the old village to escape persecution. And if we were “lucky,” we can claim some conquerors of our very own. But we must realize that that “good for our team” circumstance resulted in pain for those whose land/ homes/ farms/ lakes/ gold/ oil /were confiscated. And let’s not forget: women. How many of us can claim pillaged and raped women in our family trees? I bet it’s all of us.

Quite the legacy we have bequeathed ourselves.

Acknowledging the reality of our dismal history—and recognizing it for what it is—no golden age of anything (yeah, great, a golden goblet decorated with precious stones in the shape of a cupid, makes me feel so much better about the world we have come from) may be a place to start. Start what, though?

Who knows?

But it’s generally fun to start, or re-start something, so here I am, back with my rebellious thinking.

I like to imagine that we can each be that butterfly who, by virtue of its existence flutters its wings, causing things to happen somewhere. I’m hoping, though, for good things and not just the storms that keep besetting us.

Holocaust Memorial Day 2011 5771

I’ve been reading The Jews of Russia and Poland: A Bird’s-eye View of their History and Culture by Dr. Israel Friedlander, which was published in 1920, for the past few days. I took it out of my temple library because I’m interested in tormenting myself by reading about how the Jews have been maligned throughout history. The why of that: well, it puzzles me and depresses me--and captivates me. It’s the need to keep probing a wound or debility or sickness that the world has, and which it has continually imposed upon the Jews, and which, even though I am an American Jew and all is seemingly well, I cannot ignore. The other books I took out were about the Spanish Inquisition; the Holocaust; and, for a change, some uplifting Jewish-reading about the Jewish Khazars, a people in the Caucasus region who converted to Judaism in the mid-eighth century. I also took that slim, light blue-cloth-covered book because we are Friedlanders on the maternal side of my family.

I didn’t realize that yesterday was Holocaust Memorial Day, but it does seem fitting to read this book that traces and explains the anti-Semitism of the region—from the pre-Holocaust perspective—at this time. My reading, up to page 110 (another 100 pages of sadness to go before the even more devastating sadness that follows the writing of this book; oh, what would Mr. Friedlander have said, if he hadn’t had been murdered in 1920 when he went to distribute funds to starving Jews in Poland and the Ukraine as a result of World War I) showcases that there is absolutely no SURPRISE! that the Holocaust happened—not the immense devastation, not the vast number of participants and “innocent” bystanders, not the inhumanity of the supposed humane, and certainly not the belief bred from century upon century of church teachings and noble decrees and violent pogroms and debilitating laws, and the “this, too, will pass” survival stance of the Jews. It’s been a reading that traces a terrible trail of hatred, denigration and oppression. And why I take it to bed at night with me is a wonder.

The key to far too much that really is incomprehensible, because what is religion or even culture, after all, except a way or a system that is supposed to help people and not result in the deformity of their personalities in a cult of adherence, is found in this decree “the reason for the existence of the Jews is that they might remind us of the tortures of the Saviour, and by their abject and miserable condition might serve as an example of the just chastisement of God inflicted upon the infidels” (Friedlander 57). I know, not much new, but still, startling to read the bluntness of then—at least a spade was called a spade. But why am I here, in Virginia, thinking and writing about this? Why not say, “Thank goodness that that’s the past”? Because, it seems, “history repeats itself” is truer than “we need to learn about the past in order to prevent it from repeating itself” because the cycle seems to be on auto-pilot.

What is the purpose of a life? Is it to embody an ideal or embrace an idea? Why are we so weak that we can’t find our hearts within our minds? Is there really something that separates people? Are the pains that those closest to us impose upon us so hard to bear and acknowledge that we seek the “other” for a safe distance to express our own pain? Is there such a thing as a peaceful society? Have weapons ever only been used to search for food?

There is so much that is incomprehensible. Unfortunately, those things that cannot be comprehended can be felt.

I have sat here for hours trying to come up with some point that raises my thoughts to a place above or beyond where my thinking began. But I am still here; still listening to the same music (Ofra Haza) and still sitting at my dining room table because moving to the more comfortable couch seems wrong. I have reached no point. I am where Dr. Friedlander left me when I closed his book last night after reading that Catherine the Great “laid the foundations of Jewish rightlessness. Succeeding emperors have built upon these foundations” (Friedlander 112).

The sky is gray. I am on my third snow day because of Wednesday’s snowstorm. A few hours ago my younger daughter went to her father’s house. And Kenny went to work this morning. I am home alone for the first time in a while. It would have been wise to go out and get my haircut or get a sexy nightgown (I’m still on my old flannel pajamas).

Maybe I should still go out; there is time before he comes home for me to move my mood and mind from boundless and inscrutable sorrow. Nothing will be solved this afternoon. I will not uncover how to transform the cruelty in people’s hearts. I will not uncover the formula for “never again.” I will simply continue being the person I am: a person whose heart aches within its own walls, wishing it could find a way for us to live in peace and comprehension.

A Year of Mourning

For the past year I have been in mourning following the death of my father on December 21, 2009. (According to the Hebrew calendar Friday the tenth marked one year since he passed away on 4 Tevet 5770.) For this year I didn’t wear jewelry; traditionally, someone in mourning wears black, but I knew that there was no way I would be like a little Italian or Greek widow for a year (it had taken me long enough to stop wearing plain black or white as part of regaining enthusiasm for life after I exited from my marriage), but I did want to outwardly recognize my status of daughter-in-mourning. It felt good, if good can be used in this way; perhaps, appropriate as in: for me it was the appropriate thing to do to honor and commemorate my father.

One day I put on earrings in the house, just to make sure that the holes hadn’t closed up.  It felt so weird—and wrong. Once I committed to a course of action, any deviation felt wrong. I noted that the holes were open, and then immediately took the earrings out.

Yesterday my younger daughter asked me if I would start wearing jewelry now; I said that I would start again after Tuesday. I didn’t realize that she had even heard me when I told her how I would be mourning her grandfather.

I’m pleased with what I did. For a moment I wondered about not wearing jewelry again, but then I realized that that would, in some way, negate what I had done and lessen what it meant for me. So next week, when Kenny and I go to San Francisco for a few days, I plan to look for a necklace (and perhaps matching earrings) to mark the end of this official mourning period (in Judaism, the child of someone who dies is supposed to be in mourning for one year) as well as to be a different kind of reminder of my father, and my life—and how life continues even when it seems so full of tears [teers] and tears [tairs].

A year ago I was in tears curled up on my bed, unable to sleep and now, now I tear up, but that is all. It is so upsetting and unsettling how we move on with our lives. Last year I couldn’t fathom how the life around me goes on as it had before—untouched—as if nothing significant had happened, and now, now I am part of that movement of life. Granted, there is a missing part of my circle, but still I am within the flow part of the ebb and flow. Even my mother seems to be moving; while I am not sure if it is forward, because what is forward, really, when talking about living your life without the love and life of your life by your side, but she has not turned into a caricature of a widow sitting for hours on end with a cold cup of tea unable to do things for herself. After all, she did give the “looks could kill” look of a true New Yorker to a neighbor who told her to get out of the street when my mother was waiting for the Super Shuttle van to pick her up—it came an hour late—at the end of her visit here last week.

But I do feel guilty in some way because my life has progressed in such a lovely way, yet my father is not here to be a part of it. I guess that is the hardest thing about losing someone—that they aren’t a part of your life any more. Yes, I know, when you think about that person it is keeping him alive, but, really, it’s you keeping them alive, it is not them being alive. And so there is a frozenness to my memories, to my life—before my father died and after.

How do you envelope mourning into your life after the intense ache of surprise and loss is over? And is it mourning or is it something else? Is it sorrow? Is there a word that covers this here and not here quality that one experiences when a loved one dies? I don’t want to check the thesaurus because this is not a word hunt—it is a feeling hunt.

Surprisingly, there is also a fullness to how I feel since there is a sense that I am living or experiencing my life for myself as well as for him—acknowledging what he might have thought or said or reacted or hoped for. There is also, though, a sense of guilt that my life has moved on, that it has changed. I know it is wrong to feel that way, but that pricking is still there, calling my attention to my here and now, as well as my then, when he was still here as a shoulder and a counsel.

It is such a complicated business this respect for self and this respect for those we mourn. 

During my year of mourning a friend’s father passed away, an acquaintance’s mother-in-law passed away, and my father’s older sister was operated on for having the same kind of cancer that he had (esophageal). And my father’s younger sister was in a car accident. And my older daughter no longer speaks to her father since he insulted her and hurt her in ways I thought were only reserved for me. And a kind and loving man has entered my life so that he sits round the dining room table with me every night, and wakes up with me every morning. And I have lost weight and am finally pleased or settled with how I look and where my life is. And I have had students respect and not respect me. And my younger daughter has been sweet and bitter towards me. And I no longer talk to my brother because I got tired of always calling him and I got hurt beyond the desire to invite more hurts that he didn’t find it in himself to see me as a part of his life.

So my life is big and little, as it was before.

And the world is still on its axis, spinning and rotating and circling.

My father died last year on December 21st; it is now December 18th. The week before he died he and my mother called to say that “it’s not good,” so my younger daughter and I flew down to Florida to be with him. We were with him for three days, leaving the day before he died.

We cried in the chapel during the funeral service; and we cried in the cemetery as we shoveled and threw in fistfuls of dirt over him within his pine box coffin; and we cried during the Shiva service; and we cried in private.

You mourn the passing of a loved one by doing the rituals and by creating rituals and by receiving his presence within the forward path of your life. 

You mourn someone by still loving him within the newness that comes from living.

Sharing Minutes

Opposite me sits a man who has fallen asleep. He sits on the floor, leaning against the couch. His head is back, his mouth is open, he is gently snoring. And when he wakes up a few minutes later he will say, “Laura, is there anything I can get for you?”

“No,” I will say because there isn’t anything I want and because I know that if I say something he will get up from the floor immediately.

That scene is the scene of my life since Kenny moved here in mid-October. The asking what he can do for me, and the fulfilling of those responses. And beyond that: the attempt to figure out what my responses would be before I formulate them. My life has changed since he has come into my life not only because I share my bed and my table and the minutes of my life with a wonderful man, but because my expectations for my life and how I will be treated and responded to have changed.

He tells me that I put everyone before myself. I ask, “Is that true?” because it doesn’t feel that way; I feel that I put myself before everyone else. But his contention, from observing me and hearing the stories of my days, presents angles of myself which I have never seen. And I appreciate those angles which come from his intense honesty and deep respect. “Refreshing” is too pale a word to sustain the thought that I am finally being reflected off a person who sees me in sunny tones because he, too, is a sunbeam. To be able to finally and fully discard the horror shop image of a woman that was presented to me for years is refreshing and life affirming. Surely it should have been done before, but until I had loving words to override the spite-filled ones there was always space in my mind for echoes.

Is there a way to thank a man beyond loving him?

“Aye,” as he would say.  There is coming up with answers to his question. There is the independent woman who can manage on her own, and there is the independent woman who can manage on her own who learns that strength can be found when two lean against each other. So, “Aye, Kenny, you could read this post.” 

The Fuzzy and Infinite Bead of Plenty

I ended my previous post, a month ago with this paragraph: “How could I not reach out my hand to touch this preposterous bead? It feels as if the ineffable quality that oversees the wonders and ways of the world is presenting me with the most precious bead of plenty—a bead that grows to encompass all manner of well-being, fuzzy and infinite.”

The bead that I was referring to is a man with whom, 28 years ago, I would walk along the daytime and nighttime streets of Manhattan (and one bridge to Brooklyn in a blizzard) being the most open I had ever been with anyone. This man suddenly appeared in my in-box from where he has since snuggled his way into that space I didn’t know existed: a heart untrammeled.

When I started this blog in April 2008, I needed an outlet from all the pain I was experiencing from another man I met 28 years ago: my ex-husband. (Speak about making the wrong choice!) When I began the divorce proceedings four years before that, it was not to clear my decks for another man or even—utterly preposterous—the idea of love; rather, it was to come up for air. For too long I had been stifled: stifled by him and stifled by myself in reaction to him. And the blog, well, I needed to figure out how to breathe again.

First I just poured out in pain. I was seeking to find solace in the opening up, in the discovery of shared pain, in the offering of words of wisdom from survivors, in the providing of comfort to those who only had pain. And then, once I began to find my breathe and my voice, I found that I didn’t just reside in pain. I found that I could write—and think—about things that did not revolve around my life and its downs and occasional ups. I would write about all manner of thing. I liked to think of myself as a columnist (note: I would love to be a columnist) sharing my point-of-view and insights. But always, always there was some new anguish from my ex-husband that I needed to screech out. And now, well it still happens because he has not changed, but I don’t want to dwell on it, I want to acknowledge it and return to the path that my life has taken.

I am, for a moment, without words. Not just that I never thought I would be so fulfilled from a man’s attentions, but that I honestly did not expect more than a freedom of self when I began the divorce journey and the blog journey. Who knows what is beyond, yonder on the horizon, but I know what is not there. What is not there is the pain that has been transcribed here.

In a telling reflection that life is never flawless, this man lives abroad. I will be visiting him for a few days in six weeks—the countdown is on. But when you have two writers unfolding their hearts to and for the other, it is a thing of transcendent beauty. My inbox surely runneth over.

My words, and my thoughts, and my creativity, I have begun to channel to this man as well as to the new book that I have started writing. And so, I guess, I am saying goodbye. Or maybe, because goodbye seems so final and hard, I am saying that when and if I return it will not be as a woman discovering a recipe for lemonade to use the lemons her life dropped into her basket, but it will be as a woman who has recipes for cakes and soups, the sustenance of life. Or maybe I won’t have any recipes to share, just stories that show it is possible to go from the depths of the tunnel where no light can penetrate, to a place that feels darn close to Everest.

Plenty Beads

I used to finger the enough beads that my life was stringing for me. Enough bead after enough bead after enough bead of words and happenings that kept pushing me down, teasing me into thinking that they would end—that there would be a real enough point—but they just kept coming.

And then last June, when the house was sold and I could move out of the oppressive atmosphere, the stringing ceremonies stopped. And now new stringing ceremonies need to be instated. Now I am happily adding plenty beads to charm my days.

---It is pouring outside. What a joy. Once you live in Israel (or any place with a dry season), you can’t but appreciate a summer rain. It is beyond refreshing, it is life-affirming. Rain in the midst of unending heat. Even though I grew up in New York City, city of steamy summer rain storms, that seventeen-year break means that I do not take the soothing rains for granted. It is a blessing to be received.

---In a few days I will be going on vacation—I am taking my daughters to the Pacific Northwest for a week’s vacation. While my older daughter has shed her teenage skin and my younger daughter has grown it, they both wanted to go—or agreed to go—with me on vacation. Either way, it is still such a plenty bead on my formerly bare mother-joy necklace. And while I am not happy that my older daughter has not talked to her father for a while—as a result of his words and actions toward her—I can’t say that I’m not sorry that she has finally seen him for who he is.

---I have sent off query letters to agents for the book I began writing last summer. What a sense of satisfaction. And after the experience of writing this blog and receiving such supportive feedback, I believe that I have developed the type of skin necessary to not give up. Although, of course, I am sending out positive thoughts that this first round will elicit an invitation to send the manuscript and not just form rejection letters.

---And I have begun writing another book. And that also is wonderful. Of course it’s slow going, but I am pleased with the concept (which came to me about two weeks ago) and pleased that I am finding purpose in thinking about it and writing it.

---For three years I used to listen, night after night, to a call-in radio show, Delilah. People would call to say how wonderful their husband or wife is, asking for a song to be dedicated in his or her honor, or they would call, asking for a song that would temporarily soothe their broken hearts. Up until last June I would lay there on my love seat-bed, with the door of my room locked, and cry as I listened to people talking about how lucky they were, and I would cry as I listened to people cry out their pain, seeking a moment’s solace in a song.

I would cry because I could never imagine getting out of the misery that I felt encompassed me. Love and happiness seemed so foreign. How does one go from experiencing the harshness of a relationship that transformed itself into an endless battle to longing to think about someone? And even when people would say that that is precisely what had happened to them, I would be happy for them and envy them, but say, good for them, but that will not happen to me.

And now, now I am finding an opening in my heart for a man who searched for me to tell me that he has loved me since we were friends 28 years ago. How could I not reach out my hand to touch this preposterous bead? It feels as if the ineffable quality that oversees the wonders and ways of the world is presenting me with the most precious bead of plenty—a bead that grows to encompass all manner of well-being, fuzzy and infinite.

Truth Is Stranger than Fiction

How is it that when I am always sure of what I am going to write about, something happens that forces me to completely change my focus?

On Wednesday I drove up to New York to meet a friend to see Carole King and James Taylor perform. It was a wonderful concert: wonderful time with a friend who is great for creating memories with, wonderful seeing my mother a little less drained than she had been the previous week on her way back up to New York, and wonderful that the drives to and from New York were smooth sailing almost the entire way. And wonderful that I went on this one-day adventure after it had changed from a more intentional, extended visit with my mother to a less than 24-hour jaunt. After the concert I thought that I was going to write about how the audience of midlife-plusers couldn’t contain themselves from singing out loud during “Natural Woman” and “Fire and Rain”—moi included. But then something happened the next day that shelved that reflection on how we change and yet how we don’t change. But on second thought, maybe it is still on that but from an entirely different angle.

On Thursday afternoon I checked my work email. My heart did a drop and roll back into place as I read the most unexpected email. It was from a man who I was friends with in the few months I lived in New York between visiting Israel and moving back to Israel in 1982-3. It was a very intense friendship--and no sex or dillydallying was involved. It was this free moment before our lives (I assume on his, I know on mine) took a serious turn. We were free to talk and walk around New York for hours, and doing spontaneous things because we were young and felt the power of our youth and the flood of happiness that invades when you mesmerize and are mesmerized by someone else without really being aware of it or acting on it.

Oh my. I cried for about five minutes in the car as I drove to pick up my daughter and her friend after they saw Eclipse at the mall. 

How do you ever know if you have touched someone? And do you ever know if you have been acknowledged long after your presence isn’t present? Twenty-eight years ago we were companions in an idyllic interlude. And that has been remembered.

In the space of his email I was transported back past the bitterness and disappointments that have tainted me. He brought me back to a time before regrets. Before, as too many people have noticed, my eyes deadened—and then came back to life. Back to being the young woman who listened to James Taylor and Carole King in her room endlessly, being touched by their words but not, yet, fully understanding the meaning from which they were formed.

Just being at that concert, listening to Carole King and James Taylor, transported me back to my youth, but yet kept me so solidly in the present, so did his email. The past and the present. Perhaps I have lived my past more fully than I thought. Maybe there is less to regret than I think. I was fully in my life, experiencing it, not planning it or anticipating it or waiting for it. Perhaps that is the sense that I need to recover; not (necessarily) the silliness of walking across a bridge in a blizzard, but of committing to the preciousness of each moment—and of sharing and creating joy.

* * *

Update on the six-week relationship: It did not last past that marker.

Facing a Wall

I’m not sure why we need to confront all of our fears and overcome them. And I’m also not sure, on the flip side, why we always have to be upbeat and why everything needs to be seen through pink lenses. I wonder if this is similar to anti-bacterial soap? We think it’s good to get rid of all the germs that might have come upon us, only to discover that we have now weakened our defenses so that we can be felled by the slightest of germs.

Yesterday I went to a park to see a waterfall (after a marvelous feast of Maryland blue crabs at a picnic bench covered with newspapers in a slight rain). I had thought that there would be a walk through the woods, and then the waterfall to marvel at, and then back to the car. Lovely. But no, there was a waterfall, but, it turns out, this waterfall was supposed to be climbed. There was a narrow band of water cascading down a wall of rocks and boulders that people climb up to reach the top of the waterfall. People, as in people other than myself.

Jon (the man I have been dating for about six weeks), who happens to be six feet tall with rather long legs, stood atop the first boulder before I could even grasp the fact that I was expected to climb this boulder, and then innumerable other boulders in order to what?—get to the top and say I did.

But no, I am no rock climber. It could be my rather earthbound build, or it could be my discomfort at the notion of climbing a smooth faced object, notwithstanding the “foot holds” in it. Or it could be my not trusting myself to haul up my not delicate self from hold to hold. Or it could be that as I thought about conquering the task and getting up to where those other people were, way up there, that I would need to get down as well. The joy of the day faded to the gray color of the boulders. I could feel the fun leave and a dread enter.

Dread. Why should I do something that I dread? And on my day off, too.

So I said no.

Jon tried to encourage me, and then he tried to get me to overcome my fear. But I was having none of it. I would not be talked into doing something that I didn’t want to do, that I didn’t feel comfortable doing. Is this giving into my fear or is this being realistic? Why can’t a mountain of boulders be just that and not something that represents a fear that I need to overcome? Why can’t I keep within this fear—protecting me?

Part of me—a big part—thinks I’m stronger for not letting someone else’s cajoling push me past what I felt comfortable doing. Did I get to where I am to believe someone else say which fears I need to overcome, or did I get to where I am so that I could listen to myself—and have a self to hear and trust.

Tomorrow I have another wall to face. Another wall that I have not faced before, but this time I have decided to push through the fear and trepidation and—paint it! Yes, tomorrow, all on my own, I will paint the wall opposite my bed in Blue Bayou. I will not get a sample and paint a three inch block to be sure that it’s really the color I want. No. I put up at least thirty paint sample sheets on my wall for about a week and narrowed it down to this color. It is the color. A decision has been made.

And I have not painted since I was about eight and my parent’s painted their bedroom chocolate brown. I was assigned the bottom molding. But I will do it. And it will be as perfect as I am capable of painting a wall.

This is a wall that I want to encounter—and climb.

Isn’t life about encountering walls, some to be walked around, some to turn away from, and some to walk right through?

May 16, 2010

In five days we will be without my father for five months.

In two days my older daughter will be 19. (She just found out that she got into the college of her choice—and with a substantial scholarship!)

Bitter sweet.

On this day I have been moved to write again.

Was I silent because I needed to stay in place long enough to be comforted by the stillness?

Was I silent because I could find no path to take?

Was I silent because sometimes silence shows more movement than movement itself?

I’m not sure what I will write about, but that’s okay—that’s what I want. I have no agenda or mission. I feel liberated. I am liberated.

I will be as the peonies that I love in full bloom: bold, open and layered.

Where's My Coffee?

It seems that break-time has descended upon me. As in take a break from writing the blog. Although it seems more that writing has taken a break from me because I have become writingless. In the past few weeks no thoughts or ideas have germinated, and certainly none have grown. I am simply striding along. Yes, I have become a strider. A friend told me that she thinks it has to do with my father’s recent death, and she is probably right. But beyond that, or because of that, of late life has come to feel depthless. Or is it that peaks of happiness seem so remote? Yes, I am to make my own happiness. Yes, I am to make my own adventures and successes and joys. But how do you go about doing that when you have no vitality except in a corner of your mind that is more a reminder of the kernel of self gone by than a piece of current passion?

There are no excuses and no places to hide. There are no battles to be had and survived. There is the ebb and flow. There is just me.

Lately I stay up way past my 9 o’clock bedtime because too often I regret the passage of another day that is simply a notch on a wall and not an experience.

Now I am tired because the end of the day, the end of the weekend, has come and with it no anticipation of relief through sleep. No relief. Just more of the same monotony of experience and thought, and that is so trying and tiring. But how can I make myself push past who I am in order to be someone who bursts forth with excitement? A slump. Perhaps. Or is it a new place? In the happy, happy way we are supposed to think I am supposed to think that this is some plateau before I reach up, up, up to a higher level of fulfillment and satisfaction. But it doesn’t feel that way. It feels that I have reached a treadmill quality of life with no buttons to push to change pace or direction.

I didn’t think I had it in me to get this far. I thought that I would only get a sentence or two out, like a “Back in Five Minutes” sign. Does that mean that I am not as blank as I thought? Or does it mean that I am always self aware, even as I seep down, depleted? I don’t want to fight this quietness that is calling for control; I will respect it.

Back when…

It’s Still Snowing in Northern Virginia

I just finished the one bag of potato chips that I bought yesterday in my harrowing journey to the supermarket, where the supermarket parking lot was the most harrowing aspect since it does not seem to have been plowed except by the tires of cabin-fever suffering adults in need of milk, bread, butter, yogurt and Cheese Puffs, and am about to embark on my first cup of hot chocolate since I forgot to buy coffee beans and am getting anxious that I will not have enough for my morning cup until I can next exit the cabin. It’s a blizzard outside, as it’s been for hours, and I’m now on my fourth day of school closure (not counting last Wednesday for a mere three inches of snow). For a week, until Monday, my older daughter was here, as was my younger daughter and my dog. Now I am home alone. No one is watching me snack, and watching junk tv, and napping, and reading the weather report over and over, and looking to see it the moment it is posted: the announcement that school will be closed tomorrow. (They just made the announcement: school will be closed on Thursday and Friday.)

In the midst of all the busy-ness, I have had some time to reflect on a number of things. One of the things that kept me most occupied (other than Sarah Palin and the fact that this is a woman who garners an incredible amount of attention as opposed to the countless intelligent, caring women who are not heard from because our media and far too many people are incredibly stupid and selfish—sorry) is hearing that some Republican senators say that Don’t Ask Don’t Tell should stay in place because otherwise unit cohesion will be at stake. Mind you, I have never been in the military and I am not a lesbian, so my response comes from who I am: a woman who lives in this country, and in this world. A country and a world still dominated by far too much violence, especially against women. So tell me, how is it that lying about your sexual orientation will rip at the effectiveness of our military while the unprecedented number of suicides, and attacks and harassment of females in the military don’t do that? I don’t get it.

I know, putting suicide and rape in the same sentence is a bit of a stretch, but seriously, if they really cared about each and every soldier and not some inane pandering to people who have stored their compassion in toe nail clippings boxes, wouldn’t they get up and cry for change that will help soldiers deal with their internal and external wounds? (Never mind stopping the wars and every drum call for war—including the latest Palin inanity of suggesting that going to war with Iran would be a way for Obama to definitely get re-elected. Why is anyone listening to this incredibly mean and stupid woman? Is it because she is a woman? I really don’t get it.) And wouldn’t they call for doing something—I know, this is a tall-order societal thing—to stop men’s abuse of women as some sort of ritual for proving masculinity the world over.

How is it that knowing that someone in your unit is gay and dealing with that is worse than thinking that maybe someone in your unit is gay and having to be overly cautious because you don’t want to offend him? I, of course, am going on the assumption that people who need to work together can actually work together, and do their utmost to make for a positive environment where everyone can work and be valued. Oops, not talking about the Senate. Rather, I'm talking about everyone else who has learned to act grown-up at work, because that’s the only way to potentially keep a job and a paycheck coming.

I don’t have the statistics at hand and I’m not going to get side-tracked by Googling it or asking my friend who is writing about violence against women in the military, but it is unprecedented. Shouldn’t this have an enormous effect on unit cohesion or military might? And not just for the women who are scared and degraded and hurt, and not just for the men who are the perpetrators. But what of the men who find it offensive, wouldn’t their unit cohesion be demoralized knowing that they are living with rapists and abusers?

Can’t the hypocrisy ever end? What kind of world could we possibly be trying to create if the “enforcers” of that philosophy are not able to be free? Free to express their sexuality. Free to go to the bathroom at night without fearing of being raped. Free to express their nightmares without worrying about appearing weak.

Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. How about working to create a society that values an open dialogue of non-ideologues? How about limiting the number of times stupid ideas and stupid people are quoted in a day? Yes, I know, who is to decide? How about this: If what you say hurts people for no reason other than self-aggrandizement, then what you said is stupid and you might be as well. Is that hypocrisy? I’m not sure. For goodness’s sake, isn’t there a way to treat everyone with respect? You would think it’s a basic human right: Be respected and valued. Does that really infringe on someone else’s right to be respected and valued? I would say only if your values infringe on other people; in that case I would say that your values are the ones that need to be clipped.

I think the snow needs to stop and I need to get out of here for a while.

A Day, This Day

Today it has been snowing since morning. All is white, except now it is an eerie white, lit by streetlamps.

Today I finished writing the first draft of my novel.

Today I listened to “Beloved Wife” by Natalie Merchant so often that the tears have finally stopped pouring.

Today is? was? my parent’s 55th wedding anniversary.

Today I didn’t blame anyone for anything.

Today I took three walks in the snow, one whose purpose was simply to walk in the snow and not an opportunity for Poops to poop.

Today I left exman a voice message about getting a Get (Jewish divorce decree) next week.

Today I baked a cake and cooked fish; one was very good and the other was not.

Today I came up with a few writing assignments for my students.

Today I was here to hear the thoughts and frustrations of my mother and a few friends.

Today I was the disappointing mother to a 14-year-old who had hoped for a snowstorm-event-planner mother.

Today still has two more hours. But it is time to go to sleep. What more can a day bring, except tomorrow.

More Thoughts on People

I’m still mulling people’s reactions to each other, or perhaps I am still mulling how people live their lives so separate from each other. Or maybe I’m mulling how I’m still disappointed in people, but I'm coming out of that into a disappointed acceptance.

The other day I received in the mail a condolence card from my colleagues. I cried as I read through their comments, touched that were sending out their thoughts to me and that they had made this gesture. But then I caught myself: so, they all knew that my father had passed away and yet they hadn’t said anything to me face-to-face. At first they got a sort of pass because it was possible that they hadn’t known that he had died, but now I know that they had known and yet they thought that “I’m sorry for your loss” on a card was sentiment enough. Maybe it is—in their worlds—but not in mine.

Yes, I know. My father died and your life goes on unaffected. Well, if my father hadn’t led by example never to curse I would say “f%#* you” to all those who are so callous. I’m in an angry mood, maybe it’s a stage of reacting to people’s reactions when called to rise to the occasion. First, disappointment, then anger. What comes next? Maybe, as a few of you suggested, cut the dead wood. Forget about those people who don’t want their lives to intersect with mine or who don’t know how to intersect with other people.

Yes, I should focus on my one colleague who gave to me a bottle of wine with a smiley face on it—Happy Wine—because she knew I’d “been having a tough time.”

I am going to resist retreating again from people. And I am going to try not to absorb the lesson “not to expect anything from people.” I am going to try to continue living my life according to the rule “What is hateful to you, do not to your fellow man,” because I prefer some tears of disappointment in others over tears of disappointment in myself.

Life lessons. Is that what life is all about? Is life like a billboard on a busy road? We keep passing the signs displaying the lessons, but only after we’ve driven by them countless times do we finally understand what they’re saying. Unfortunately, there are lots of drivers who are so focused or distracted or inept that they never look around, and so they never see the signs.

The latest sign: I’m going to stay focused (and not feel bad about it) of comprehending the signs and not letting the sign-less distract me.

Strength and Love

Strength and thoughts and prayers of love and healing and comfort to my father who is battling cancer--and to all those and their loved ones who are sick.

Mi Sheberakh (The Jewish Prayer for Healing)
May the One who blessed our ancestors--Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah--bless and heal those who are ill. May God overflow with compassion upon them, to restore them, to heal them, to strengthen them, to enliven them. That God will send them, speedily, a complete healing--healing of the soul and healing of the body--along with all the ill, among the people of Israel and all humankind, soon, speedily, without delay, and let us all say: Amen!