✡✡ October 29, 2018
So, two years ago right after the election I felt very concerned. Having been quite overtly Jewish my entire life, I was feeling exposed and possibly unsafe. I hung Christmas lights in my front window and lit Sabbath candles in the back of the house, stopped wearing any Judaic jewelry and began to be concerned about my grandchild being able to pass as Christian FOR HER SAFETY. This is the depth of my paranoia.
Listening to people expound on Saturdays shooting in the synagogue, I realize that I am not alone. As a Jewish child I had nightmares about being taken away by men in uniform. Apparently others did too. We were told that it had happened once and could happen again. I knew it hadn't happened in the US and believed myself to be safe. After that election, it felt like none of us would be safe. My gay friends, transgender people, the poor and socioeconomically disadvantaged, Latinos, middle Easterners, African Americans...the playing field was more even.
There had been a series of killing of Black men by police. It was heartbreaking. I felt lucky that maybe I could 'pass' as Christian because I'm white. It felt like persecution was in the air and the carte blanche afforded the police in their mishandling of traffic stops and other incidents could happen to any of us. Maybe my grey hair would serve me. Grannies aren't threatening, are they? We are a benign group. Everyone has a granny, but what about my children my boys, my daughter, my granddaughter? Would they be safe? How far could this go?
The incendiary rhetoric of our culture has pushed it to the brink. Eleven Jews are dead and what has been my response? I want to go to shul. I want to be with my people. I want to throw my support in the public eye. I wore my chai necklace today - chai is a symbol for life in the Jewish alphabet. In the face of death, I want to affirm life.
One of the reasons I have been so devoted to my Judaic heritage all of my life is because I know my relatives risked their lives to worship and remain Jews. My grandmother carried heavy brass Sabbath candlesticks on that ship out of Rotterdam more than a century ago. Those are in my possession now and I light them every Sabbath to honor the struggle of my people. The Holocaust did not extinguish the light of the Jews. Try as they might the pharaohs of every age have tried and failed to oppress us out of existence. And today in America those same bastards are going to try again and I will stand and be counted. I will not hide, as terrifying as that prospect might be.
I will have the courage of my convictions and the convictions of my parents and grandparents and theirs...I don't want my family hurt. I do not want to risk my well being and what little I have to light candles on Friday nights but I will because if my life means anything at all, there has to be something that I stand for and this is who I am, a Jewess. We have always been smart and strong, striking beauties in historical accounts, and I will be among those women - Sarah, Rebecca, Leah and Rachel - the shit disturbers of the Old Testament, our Jewish Mothers before there were Jewish Mothers. I will be counted and I will fight back to make my daughter proud, and my granddaughter and all the daughters yet to come.
🍕🍕October 28, 2018
What a fabulous Sunday! Got to see my boys and my daughter-in-law and then Skype with my beautiful daughter and granddaughter. Perhaps for some of you this would be a boring, kind of pedestrian day but for me it was enlightening and altogether fun.
First I ran my errands - post office, grocery store, butcher - the usual, then I got together with my son at my house to vote and goof around with the dogs. We hit up the produce market after dropping off our ballots and after he went home I went to visit my son and daughter-in-law. We pigged out on Pizza to celebrate my birthday and had a good old time swapping recipes and stories. I'm so lucky.
I got home to take care of the dogs and cats and call my daughter. Now it is time to call it a night. To me it was a perfect day.
Not being inundated by news is a psychic relief. Spending time with people I love and who love me is God's greatest gift without even trying. I screwed up a lot in this life. I've offended plenty of people, done wrong, been wrong, caused suffering and suffered myself. Today was none of that. Today was a simple day of blissful being in the moment. Maybe it is where I am in this life and time. There was not a minute today when I wished I was someplace other than where I was. I did not want for anything at any time so for me this was bliss. A perfect day. Chalk one up for this 64th year...like sitting on that plateau and surveying the surroundings, today was a day of refreshment and the wicked indulgence of too-much-pizza. Delightful.
🌼🌼October 27, 2018
Eleven people were murdered today in their place of worship. Two years ago, I lost a friend to the presidential election believing that he was either for or 'agin' me and the people I care most about. I hear a lot of people talking about getting along with others who have a differing point of view and I agree with that. Unfortunately there is a real danger in our culture now because so many people feel the need to be armed and the intense vibration of heightened anxiety so many are experiencing. There is a relentless battering of our global psyche with news and a sense of threat. There are humanitarian crises beyond our reach and a barrage of information and misinformation beyond our control. We need to work to protect our sense of balance so that we can function and not just hide under our beds or be glued to the television 24 hours a day.
When I was small we were scared of strangers. We hid under our desks regularly in case The Bomb dropped. I lived a half block from my school and walked there every day. I knew I could get home if I had to. What else was there to fear? We knew about the Nazis and the Holocaust. On some level we knew that could happen again. Is that what we are witnessing now? Is this the precursor of the ugliness of internment camps like we imposed on the Japanese only a few decades ago?
Having lived through the summer of love, I saw the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, free love, women's liberation. In my mind I went my the moniker Rosey Haze because that's where we were, in the midst of those glory days. Pass the bottle. Pass the pipe. Take a bite and pass it on. You can crash here, sure. Perhaps we were naïve yet we had the opportunity to truly trust and feel the glory of being part of something bigger than ourselves. Maybe we experienced an early version of the Hope and Change we saw in 2008 and again in 2012. Our friends were free to fall in love and marry if they chose to.
I'm not saying things were perfect in that Summer of '68 or those decades later, but we had the luxury to contemplate more than politics and more than who might be victimized next. We fought for the rights of privilege - higher wages, better retirement. Forgive my nostalgia but my skin shone taught and my glossy hair reflected the sun back then. We protested to bring our boys home from war. Civil rights were moving forward...it felt like we were making progress. Even two years ago we felt like we had forward momentum in spite of setbacks for women and minorities who had seen some inertia in their movements. Now every day brings a new crisis. Living in America has changed, distracting us from the pursuit of internal development, spiritual enlightenment and personal improvement since now it is a matter of survival for us individually, communally and globally. We have to pay attention and the suspense of killing us, wearing on us like an abusive relationship. We walk on eggshells fearing the next assault on our sense of right and wrong. I believe we will get through this. America has always survived and we will survive this too. The greater challenge is to come through with as much in tact as possible.
Who knew that I'd really and truly reach my 64th birthday. There was a time I thought 21 was out of reach, then 30. 42 was the last time someone told me I didn't look my age. The 50's were a challenge, though filled with amazing things I'd never done before. Turning 60 was actually tough. I really didn't know who I was or who I wanted to become. Today I am 64 and I'm celebrating. It's as though I've reached some kind of plateau, one of those pleasant stops along the path where you can look back at the beauty behind, beneath and around you, knowing that the trail has been rough but here you are. The air is clear, there is a moment to catch your breath and what's ahead seems to be an adventure to be discovered. My plateau. My 64th birthday.
I feel more loved today than I have in a long time. I am more inclined to touch and be touched. I am less afraid than I am excited, less regretful than anticipatory. I can't really say why. It's almost like when you unplug a drain and things start flowing again. You know your drain is slow and you live with it that way for a while (sometimes quite a while) then one day you get it cleared out and it doesn't take as long as you thought it might. All is right with the world, maybe not perfect but right.
For this year, I'm committed to this blog. I want to see where the year takes me, what wonders will present themselves and I want to share this with others. That in itself is different. I'm a painfully private person. Maybe some of that is inherent shame for who I have been or what I have done or maybe what I haven't accomplished, where I haven't gone and who I haven't been in the past. Today all of that has fallen away and here I am, ready for tomorrow and the day after, prepared for whatever comes my way. Bring it, world. Let's do this.
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