Happy New Year!

Well, it's official - it is January 1, 2012.  Where was I a year ago?  I think I was pretty happy, happier than I had been in years, as a matter of fact: exploring woods and brooks, preparing for a ballroom showcase with rediscovered friends, doing artwork, hanging out with my cats and my buds.  I certainly had no idea last January 1st that in six weeks the consequences of one simple decision would begin to transform my life.  What lies in store this year?  I am better off not knowing; we all are.  Any happiness we might feel about a positive development we foresee inevitably will be blemished by the knowledge of a difficult event following close on its heels.  For myself, I will be satisfied if I continue to grow as a person and grow in faith, understanding, and dedication.  But willy-nilly, I will have to be satisfied no matter what.  Man proposes, G-d disposes, and He knows best.

Happy New Year's, or Happy New Year?

I spoke to a dear friend of mine on the phone today.  She is away from home, up North somewhere, due to circumstances beyond her control.  The subject of New Year's Eve celebrations inexorably came up.  I look forward to New Year's Eve and Valentine's Day with greatly modulated enthusiasm, even when I am dating someone, but especially when I am not.  (I admit, one of my baser thoughts when I am dating someone and it seems to be going well is "Oh goody!  I have a date for New Year's Eve!")  There is something about the pressure to go out and have a hysterically good time that defeats me before I even begin.  However this year is perhaps more debilitating than years past because I am dating someone wonderful - who is going to be in Florida for New Year's.  In case you haven't guessed, I won't be. 

I started feeling a tad desolate about it, until I had a revelation.  Now, my revelations are not newsworthy.  They are more along the lines of things other people have known practically since birth, so don't get your hopes up. You are not about to learn the meaning of life.  (This always makes me think of Jeannette McDonald in "Naughty Marietta," singing "Ah, sweet mystery of life at last I've found you . . ." to a palpably uncomfortable Nelson Eddy as he is taken away by the authorities, presumably to his death.  The mystery of life is love, in case you hadn't caught on.)

Anyhow, back to my revelation.  It isn't New Year's Eve, the holiday, that matters - it is the New Year itself that matters, all 365+ days of it, and there I have much to celebrate.  I have a great guy, I have great friends, I have a tiny but close family, I have a decrepitating but conveniently located house in Princeton, I have interests, and I have the two most lovable cats in the universe, even if they do need insulin shots every 12 hours so I can never go anywhere, and in addition, ineffable joy and fulfillment await me as the year ripens.  So perhaps my New Year's Eve won't make the Style section of the New York Times, but thank G-d, my New Year should be filled with blessings, admittedly accompanied by  the inevitable slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

Whew! A lot of downer posts lately . . .

I found this vintage post card, on which the sender wrote, with modest wit, "I've been having my ups and downs."

I guess that could apply to me, looking back over the last several posts.  You'd never know how many wonderful, happy days I have had, how much enjoyment, how much pleasure, how much downright fun, probably because I'm too busy those days to write, and also because I am not including details about my life for the sake of privacy, and happiness is sappier conveyed without particulars.

Was it Tolstoy who wrote something along the lines of all happy families are the same, but unhappy families are unhappy in their own distinctive ways?  My ways of being unhappy aren't that distinctive:  a lot of concern about the physical condition of my house, finding the time and the right people at the right price to fix things, and dealing with work people effectively are right up there.

But in the big picture, the manayama rather than the hinayama point of view (I still remember my art history from decades and decades ago), my cup runneth over - coysee revaiyah.

I've quoted "music hath charms to soothe the savage breast" before, but for me, writing down the miserable, small, petty feelings I have when I am down can be quite cathartic as well.  Most of the time I remove the post, often I take out any specifics, and rarely, and usually inadvisedly, I leave it up.  So if the taste of my blog has been a bit bitter lately, please know that in real life, there is plenty of honey to sweeten my days (and nights).  And I'll try to stop kvetching!

Hanging in there

Collage memories; collage kvetches

I found this collage from the past yesterday by chance.  It is pretty - not brilliant, not innovative, not great art (those two words should be uttered with a breathless awe) - but pretty, so I thought I would post it.

I haven't been doing much collage lately.  I haven't been doing much of anything except what has become the usual, which is why I am particularly off my game today.

I defnintely want to make more things, create more cards, get my stuff out there -sound familiar?

Well, I'm tired and disheartened.  On top of everything else, my little bunny rabbit cat Tortellini isn't well.  Just got back from the vet, who couldn't really find anything, but Tortel definitely isn't right.

Life, life.  Right now I wish I could curl up under my bed and not wake up for a couple of weeks (assuming Orange Boy and Tortellini would curl up with me and have their food, water, and litter taken care of by a Fairy Feline Mother).

I have to do more to follow the sage advice of the Bratzlaver (Breslauer) Rebbe:  Do all manner of things to make yourself joyful.  I just need some time to figure out what they may be, and I'm so busy every night with Chir's things that I never have enough time to recharge my energy and get in touch with what I would like!  (And usually, whatever comes up that I would like to do falls on a night where I feel I MUST do the set thing.)  Kvetch, kvetch, kvetch.  Let me close by thanking G-d for all his mercies.  I may have concerns, but I am blessed, and conscious of that fact.

Dive into pleasure

I did this collage years and years and years ago.  Yesterday morning I was feeling filled with happiness and optimism, so when I came across it by chance, I decided I would post it, along with some cheery drivel about going for it when one has a chance at felicity.  The day turned much less felicitous not too long after I cropped it, but I thought I would post it despite my concerns, hurt, fear, etc., as a reminder to myself that things will be better, worse, better, worse forever and ever and ever, amen.  So when the good times come, open yourself to them; and when the bad times come, count your blessings and anticipate the return of contentment.

My beef with Shakespeare

This afternoon, returning from my morning occupations, I toured the roses in my yard that are blooming - one pink Heritage rose with two fragrant blooms and multiple fat buds, one red Eden rose with a huge, multi-petalled bloom which is too full to totally unfurl and fat buds, and a pink Eden with a beautiful flower and a waiting bud or two.  I also have a dark pink rose whose name I have forgotten which has an opening flower, and a bright scarlet Blaze rose with a blossom which although blown, refuses to fall off.  It would be wonderful if the blooms could last through the first day of December (at least!).  Shakespeare may have written:

At Christmas I no more desire a rose
Than wish a snow in May's new-fangled mirth;
But like of each thing that in season grows.

but he spoke strictly for himself.  I certainly do desire a rose at Christmas, or, as I might say, at Hannukah, in fact I desire multiple roses.  Seeing the roses in my yard bloom is a variety of religious experience for me, and the approach of winter's cold and dark semi-hibernation seems like an appropriate time for religious experience.  (Of course, any time is an appropriate time!)  

Apart from that, I do at least attempt to like of each thing that in season grows. So when the temperatures drop to bone-chilling levels, I try to revel in hot-chocolate by my wood-burning stove, and when it snows, I savor the crystalline sparkles in the sunlight.  Nonetheless, I have to point out that Shakespeare lived in England (is there no end to my vast literary knowledge?) where the winters are much milder and flowers other than roses linger.  If he had had to endure winters with snowfall up to the knees and bone-chilling temperatures, he might have been a little less poetically glib.

Things are looking up - Happy Thanksgiving!

I have regained my equilibrium.  Thanks to an unfortunate childhood and really crazy family, I react to certain admittedly not optimal things in an irrational way - inside.  I don't let it affect my behaviour, but inside I really suffer, knowing I am overreacting, but incapable at first of ameliorating the upset, panic, and sense of despair.  What can I say but "bummer"!

However, I am back on track (feeble excuse for a train picture here) and things are bli ayin hara wunderbar.

So much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving!

gray

More than two months since I posted, and I had been doing so phenomenally well.  So I just wanted to log on and add this nothing post so that I could get going again.  It's a downer post, because I feel quite gray, or grey, depending upon your orientation.  Or blue, if you want to be more colorful about it.  Or indigo, turquoise, periwinkle, ultramarine - you get the picture.

I know that my depression is anger right now, or at least resentment, so I have to do something about it myself.

But now I have to get going for - major shock and surprise - the usual.  Gee, what an unusual activity for me - it's only nearly seven days a week.
Signing off with venom . . .

Sparkle

I have no idea where this bit of advertising ephemera came from, or what the person who wrote the various odd addenda was thinking, but it is fun, and the message is a good one:Add more sparkle to your life!



Wow.

I can't go into detail, but wow.  The world is so surprising sometimes.  No sooner do I lament the lack of something in my life and feel almost ready for it. than it pops up, unexpectedly, like an enjoyable ambush.  You got me, God.  I admit it, I'm surprised!

Oh no! Say it ain't so!

The chrysanthemums have arrived!  All hope is lost; the icy blast of winter is nearly upon us.

The Dread Chrysanthemum

"These are the times that try men's souls . . . "

We have reached the middle of August, and now when I approach McCaffrey's Supermarket, I do so with a certain amount of dread and a desire to avert my eyes from the horror I might encounter in the garden department which surrounds the access to the entrance.

At some point, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, too soon, the waning perennials and annuals they have out for sale will be replaced by - say it ain't so, Sam! - (shudder!) Chrysanthemums, those evil, sloppy, puffy harbingers of Autumn, feared only because it is itself the harbinger of - dare I write the word? - Winter!  There, I said it - and wrote it.  Winter, Winter, Winter - season of cold, darkness, doom, and despair.

When I see my first chrysanthemums of the season, a chill breeze seems blow past me and I realize the ephemeral nature of life.  No matter how much I try to enjoy winter . . . (and I did, quite, this last go-round, which had tons of snow and most people hated, but to me was at least more what winter was when I was growing up, instead of just the cold and darkness and no sparkling snow and ice crystals to gladden the esthetic soul) as I say, no matter how much I try to enjoy winter, I feel an instinctive drooping of my spirits when reminded of its imminent advent.

Maybe I will enjoy it even more this year, though, with the growing of my spiritual pursuits.  From my mouth to G-d's ears, as my mother, the atheist, would always say.

So far, no chrysanthemums, but I know my luck can't hold out, and I grow increasingly anxious each time I drive to McC's for sustenance.  I fear that first shock when I see those muddy colors - the mustard, the rust, the brown, the dirty orange. 

Unfortunately, I am unaware of any measure which will prevent the chrysanthemum's appearance, unlike the similarly unwelcome vampire, who may be put off by garlic, flourished crucifixes, or a threatening pointed wooden stake, so with resignation I invite them in:  I seek out the purest yellow mum, and cart it off to my front steps, where it squats, slowly deflating, until autumn is well upon us.

Bei mir bist du schein

I love this portrait miniature.  First of all, it is authentically "folk painting," which I usually find charming.  Second of all, as my mother would say of this young woman from long ago, "Sie ist nisht kein scheinheit," "She's no beauty."  (Love those faintly bug eyes, the long nose, the disappearing chin . . .)  But third of all, she's painting in her journal or notebook, her hair is in those snazzy curls, she is wearing coral jewelry (that's my kind of woman, wearing jewelry) and altogether, she exhibits a kind of low-key self-possession that makes me smile.

Last thought for the night

How pleasant the simplest human interactions can be.  I was over at CVS tonight, picking up a few things to use my $5 off coupon.  It only cost me $95 to save the $5, but that's another story!  CVS has installed those dread check yourself out stations, which I loathe and are another cheap way stores have developed to get the customer to do more of the work and to reduce customer service even further (along the lines of McCaffrey's checkers being told to wait til the end to bag, counting on the customer, being eyed by hostile people in line behind him/her, to start bagging to move the process along).

I asked a salesperson if there was a human being checkout available, and she said she would do it for me, which was nice.  Then there was a screw up with my CVS card, and she had to cancel the whole transaction and start again, and she didn't kvetch or moan.  When I started to go through the doors at the end, the beeping alarm when off.  I turned to go back into the store, and she said "That's alright - you can go through."

I was in such a good mood after this.  She had been pleasant - not over-the-top friendly - but pleasant, and I had been pleasant, and it just felt so encouraging to have yet one more reminder of the potential people have to be nice.

It's late, I'm tired, and I was very, very sick earlier today, so I am not getting the feeling across.  But at least I have the rudiments down, and I can improve it later, I hope.

Briefly, the Moon

The moon tonight was lovely - the sky was inky dark, and the moon was a luminous alabaster potato chip.

The Mystery Chocolate Benefactor Strikes Again!

At the end of last year, I emerged from my front door one afternoon to discover a box of Lindor chocolates on my front step.  There was no card anywhere that I could find, and I searched.  Then I racked my brains - who could have left them??????  Tim, Ed, Adam, Bob, Jim, R***, my neighbors, Carl and Lydia - WHO?

Above, a candy box from the 1920s.  I love

the motto:  "From Me to You."  But who is

"Me" if I am "You"? - that is the question!

I never found out, although at least I ate quite well during the initial phase of my investigation.

Imagine my astonishment when I returned home yesterday afternoon and discovered upon my doorstep a package of mixed Lindor Truffles wrapped with a Lindor ribbon, which by the way are so good you could practically die from them, again with no card.

So now I am going through my lists again, in the completely vain hope that I will come up with a new candidate.  There may be new potential culprits who have come on the scene since then, but it is not reasonable to suppose that two different people would have come up with the same romantic, generous, but ultimately crazy-making notion.  So I am stuck with the same potential suspects as before.  Someone who did not take credit, or who denied involvement upon being asked, must be responsible.  Probably.  Maybe.  Who knows?

Please, if the perpetrator is reading this, identify yourself, or your next chocolately gift may have to be left on the steps of the sanatorium to which I am committed after going completely insane trying to figure your identity out.  (Hmmm, could that be your fiendish plot?)

Excelsior!

This last year has been a rather good one.  I have made friends, forced myself to be more social in terms of groups, done work on my house, explored many, many woods and brooks and gotten many, many, MANY itchy insect bites in the process.  I've gone to museums and galleries and concerts and plays and movies; I've even gone on a mini-road trip. 

In terms of religious feeling or, dare I say/write it? -  spirituality, which let's face it, is one of those projectile-puke inducing words a lot of the time, I feel MUCH clearer and happier and anticipatory of good things.

But that certainly is not to say that I am smugly satisfied.  It is interesting that one can be rather content, without losing the desire to improve.  And, alas, there is LOTS of room for improvement.  But I think what I find encouraging is that this last year has demonstrated to me that things truly can change for the better, that I myself have the capacity to change for the better, and that it doesn't necessarily take ten years.  Well, maybe for some areas of my life - some may even take more time than I have left on earth - but the general direction is upward, which beats the feeling I had a couple of years ago, that in general, things kept getting worse and worse.  What a bummer, as they say in the vernacular . . .

So Excelsior!  Onward and upward, and as always, thanks G-d!

Beautiful night

I went to the English dance tonight.  My ambivalence about going to social events surfaced in the difficulties I had finding something to wear.  Finally, however, I got myself out of the house, and I was on my way.  As I drove, the sun was sinking: it was glorious, like an irradiated tangerine.

The dance was fun enough, not fabuloso, but fun, and I stayed through the break, which is rather a challenge for me.  On the drive back, I passed the Dinky station, and was surprised.  The ticket machines were illuminated in red and blue lights and looked wonderful in the dark.  I was amazed at how something so pedestrian could be that transcendentally beautiful.

Back to earth:  I got pulled over on Nassau St. by a very young, rather good-looking police officer.  Evidently at one point when I switched off my brights, I switched off my headlights!  He was very kind, and said that on Nassau Street it's difficult to tell if one's headlights are on or not.  He checked my license and registration and then let me go without a ticket.  I started to drive off, and realized I still hadn't turned my lights on!!!  I turned them on immediately, but was really embarrassed.  What a nice experience, in a way, though, because he was very kind.

And yay!  Tortellini has come out of hiding.

The day, not so good.  The night, much better.

Raindrops

When I left this morning to make my rounds of appointments and errands, the sky was blue, the clouds white and puffy.  At some point when I wasn't looking, the clouds shifted to gray and ominous, the sky darkened, and a few random drops of rain were soon followed with a fair additional number.

I didn't have an umbrella or rain slicker, so I surrendered to the inevitable and made no attempt to run through the rain in a vain attempt to remain dry.  As I walked along, I was struck by how lovelyit all was: the feeling of the spritzling rain on my hair and face, the slight wind that kicked up and whirled the droplets about, the atmospherically saturnine skies.  I felt a deep sense of appreciation and wonder. I wished I could slow down life temporarily so that  I could to hold on to that feeling of pleasure at just being outside in the gentle rain.

Unexpected rewards

I went tonight, with the other MR square dance "girls" to do a demo at the Burlington Farm Fair.  I have never been to a country fair before, and had no idea what to expect, other than sweating, because it was well over 90 degrees in the evening (the demo was relatively late to allow time to get there post-Shabbes).

It was so beautiful, I felt like crying.  There were three different types of Ferris Wheels lit up in multicolored glory against the night sky, and some other intimidating-looking rides, all embellished with different patterns and colors of light - they were at some distance from me, and I could hear the excited cries and laughter of the people in the rides floating across the fairgrounds to me.  I just stood and drank it in, and thought to myself of the wonderful things that can come if one just opens oneself up to new experiences.

The demo itself was fun, although we were all dripping by the end!  Judy, Sue, Chir, Nad, Martina, someone very nice whose name I forget, Teddie, and I were there, and quite a few enthusiastic teenagers and younger adults joined in, which was so nice, because often teenagers can seem so disaffected and square dancing isn't the "coolest" activity around.  But they loved it!

We didn't get to do Mainstream, which consists of 68 different calls and is really varied and interesting to do because of the beginners watching who wanted to dance right away, so instead we did three "tips" (two dances each, one called, one singing) with just dos a dos, right and left grand, left and rightt allemande, circles, right and left hand stars,  swings, and promenades.  Of course, everyone was dripping, but when the caller said that was it for the night, several of us asked for another "tip" and when he agreed, 16 people (two squares) got up to dance!  That's true enthusiasm, folks.

Walking back to my car, I made a point of pausing for a last look at the neon-decorated rides.  All were still illuminated; I felt lifted out of myself by their beauty.  And I thought gratefully to myself how wonderful it is that agreeing to something new, opening oneself up to other experiences, can bring such an unexpected reward.


My life grows fuller and more rewarding;  may I continue on the right path.

I slew nine with one blow . . . .

I wish I had Puxx N Boots to help me deal with my

gnat problem.  He'd know what to do with them.

My kitchen and bathroom have been invaded by clouds of gnats, nasty, obnoxious, nitpicky little gnats.  They fuss around my face, they cluster on the ceiling, they swirl around the light fixtures.  They are, in a word, icky.

Fortunately, I have discovered spraying them with Fantastic kills them quite effectively, and I can get quite a few with one spritz.  Unfortunately, that means I sometimes go berserk, spraying the ceiling, the wall, the counters, everywhere with Fantastic, which lingers briefly in the air, and then drifts down into my hair and my eyes, if I don't close them quickly enough.  Anything that is left out when I spray has to get thoroughly washed and dried to remove the Fantastic film.  This is a nudge and a half, but the dead flecks that used to be annoyingly lively little gnats make it all worthwhile.  This is the first time I have felt a bloodlust.  Ordinarily, if I kill an insect I apologize and feel bad.  Unless one of the gnats seems to linger, I feel no remorse.  I have become a serial gnat killer.

Being able to kill several gnats with one burst puts me in mind of the beginning of the story of Puss in Boots, where he "slays" several flies with one blow, and adopts the motto "I slew nine with one blow," leading to the misunderstanding that he killed nine people.  (This was not in the original tale by Perrault, but in a variation in a storybook I had as a child.)

I just wish I could kill 900 with one spritz.  At 9 at a time, I'm going to have gnats flying around for a while.

Be careful what you wish for - you may get it!

I ended my last entry with a wish for intriguing dreams.  I have been having positively labyrinthine, byzantine nightmares lately, but I had a respite for about a week.  Last night, back they came.  I dreamt I became engaged to a childhood friend called Carl Morgenstern, who in the dream lived in Boston and was a Bostoner Chossid.  (In real life, I knew him in elementary school here in Princeton and I don't believe he was even Jewish.)

The eyelashes in my dream

were actually iridescent

blue and purple, and hung

down about 4"!

As the dream continued, it became increasingly clear that I had made a monumental error.  A variety of figures from my past, distorted and disguised in dream language, appeared and reluctantly warned me.  All kinds of other surreal things happened, including a woman coating my eye lashes with iridscent colors which weighed them down so that they hung over my eyes - they had become four inches long or so.  My eyelashes are long; occasionally strangers stop me and comment on them; but four inches?  No.

Lorenzo the Magnificent appeared in the dream unchanged from reality, and suggested I run for my life, so to speak.  But the shul I was in was in a train, somehow, that had gone to Linden (where ever that is) while I was preparing, and I didn't know a) how to get out without being apprehended and b) how to get home.  It went on, with all kinds of detours and recurring motifs from other dreams (being in a theater, trying to write and not being able to, asking for information and not being able to get it) and when I finally woke up, I was quite upset.

Apart from it being an understandable anxiety dream, I'm not sure what else was going on.  I'll write it down in my book and understanding will come later.

I have to say though, I'd rather have a not-so-pleasant dream than no dream at all . . .  the workings of the sleeping subconscious mind are so fascinating, no matter what!

I've been away for a long time -






This is a beautiful rose called Red Eden, because

its lush form recalls the original pink Eden rose,

which grows along my house's wall.

I haven't posted since mid-June, when I was in an extremely happy frame of mind.  I have, fortunately enough, been extremely happy several times since then, although I haven't taken the time to post.  Just recently I met two newish friends for a bite and then an evening of G and S music, which was so delightful I just floated home.  The three of us got on so well, and proposals were made for several more meetings this summer, so I also felt grateful and excited about new friendships, as well as about old friendships renewed.

Work drags on at my house, with the contractor disappearing for days on end, sending texts that he will be there the next day and then not showing up.  It is very wearying.  I believe he is a basically honest guy who is in over his head, makes promises without thinking them through, and then through embarrassment or whatever, avoids me until he gets the courage to come back again for a day or two.

My garden, despite the depredations of Frick and Frack, the two semi-idiot workers the contractor sends,  has for the most part survived their stupefying carelessness,  rallying with lovely rebloom.  The miraculous beauty of roses and other flowers always reminds me of all the beauty that exists in the world, and I am overcome with a sense of wellbeing and gratitude that blots everything else out.  I feel uplifted and surrounded by hope and possibility.  Frankly, it amazes me how it never fails. 

Year after year, my pink Heritage rose blooms, and year after year, I am moved to tears by its beauty.  I never tire of it, I never become accustomed to it; it always strikes me as a miraculous gift from above, and it always fortifies me.  I am thankful for this; becoming innured to the beauty that surrounds us would be a terrible fate.  So although there are many, many things about myself that I

Above left, a pale daylily with lemon-lime

throat, and right, rebloom on my beloved

though invasive wisteria.

wish were different, many things I  wish G-d could have done differently, this one thing is a source of constant happiness and appreciation.  It isn't restricted to the obvious, like flowers.  A metal door with peeling paint can fascinate me; a light green car parked next to a turquoise car can stop me in my tracks.  Visual pleasures are everywhere if one just opens ones eyes and lets go of preconceptions.  Well, to bed.  Another day of life's mixed pleasures lies ahead;  a good night's sleep, with some intriguing dreams (I hope!) will help me make the most of it.

High from Happiness



A section of one of my monoprints.



I had the most wonderful time tonight!  I finished my square dancing course, and my club sponsored a "graduation" dance tonight.  I was very nervous about attending, because I am that (to me) annoying mixture of gregarious and shy, but I knew a couple of people from my class would be there (Ann and Judy at least) and I did my usual telling myself sternly to just GO and I could leave if I didn't enjoy it.



It was so much fun!  I even had a chance to try round dancing with Nad.  The president of the club and the caller signed a graduation diploma, and there was a special presentation, and at the very end, Chir brought out a cake that said "Congratulations Class of 2011" (in other words, me).  I chatted with lots of people and just felt happy - a greatly heightened sense of contentment - even joy - and optimism about the future.  Next dance, August 6th.  Be there, and be square! (dancing, that is . . . )



Thanks, G-d.

I have been thinking a lot about G-d and religion lately; a lot.  I don't understand anything, but I am grateful G-d gave me an innate longing for the transcendent.  I just wish I could be better than I am, but then, I can be better, and will be, mit G-tten's hilfen, as my mother used to say in her fractured Yiddish.

Birthdays

I didn't have high hopes for my birthday this year.  As a matter of fact, I haven't had really high hopes for my birthday since my friend, Lorenzo the Magnificent, moved away.  He called me at 12:01 last night to wish me a happy birthday, which was a great start to what turned out to be a great day.

My sister-in-law, as has been her habit the last few years, decamped to spend her/our birthday with Holly, one of my two nieces, but my brother invited me over to his place for dinner Saturday night, and we hung out and watched "Carnivale" episodes (what a nifty, bizarre, show, and Clancy Brown as Brother Justin is completely mesmerizing!), so I had a great time with him.

But I expected exactly nothing on my birthday itself.  I was wrong.  The day before, I met Twinerik at a mutual friend's wedding.  He immediately told me he wanted to do something for my birthday the next day, and called in the morning to arrange to meet me briefly after school, before I headed off to my evening rehearsal.  He brought me a Hebrew birthday card! chocolates! and a mogen dovid pendant, and treated me to iced coffee at Dunkin' Donuts.  (Chabad says coffee and tea are okay there.)!!

On Thursday he is returning with flowers to take me out to dinner! 

Then quite a few people called to wish me a happy birthday (including Cindy, who just got married yesterday afternoon and might have had a few other things on her mind . . . !) , and I also had a lovely time with Brad and Marlene Weinstein. 

I can't believe how happy I am.  Thanks, God!  I have to add that I would have been happy anyhow.  I have good friends, sweet cats, satisfying work, my own place, a blooming garden - isn't that enough to make one's birthday happy?

Only connect - and happiness

These are Eden roses, blooming along the side of my house. All I have to do to have a spiritually-uplifting experience is stand and look at them.  (A photo doesn't do it, and also, this needs to be rotated!!!)  I find their beauty so astounding that just looking at them is a transcendent experience, something that fills me with gratitude for all the beauty that exists in the world, and wonderment that something so otherworldly could be part of my (neglected but beloved) garden.

I forced myself to go out tonight, to an English Country Dance (the kind of dances done in Jane Austen novels, and the kind of dance where women can and do easily dance the male part without any difficulty.  Excellent  quality in a dance!)  I wasn't feeling well, and honestly wasn't certain I should go, but I pushed myself, promising that if I didn't feel well or didn't enjoy it, I could leave as soon as I wanted.

So I went, and I had a simply wonderful time and floated out afterwards feeling - can you guess? - yes, happy.  There were a couple of women who seem like potential friends, which really makes me happy.

Also knowing that I matter to a friend of mine from many, many years ago makes me happy.

I think we all need to feel that someone, somewhere, cares about us and those qualities that make us ourselves.  I certainly do.  To feel loved is one of the most important things in life.  It's one of the things that make teaching so rewarding.  Many of my students do love me, and I give all my students love.  They need it and deserve it.  For myself, lately it has been a source of happiness to think that SZ, someone I knew forty years ago, and who has lived (and is living!) a full, very demanding life, still remembers me and values our friendship after all these years. 

Squirrely about Automatic Haiku

Noodling around on the internet, looking for ideas of things to do when I am too unmotivated to do almost anything, I came across a website which randomly generates haiku  which, although not strictly grammtically correct, often can be twisted into meaning something given enough effort and imagination.  There seems to be a definite "dark side" slant to the words on which the Haiku Generator draws:  I didn't come across "happy" or "cheery" or "gleeful"  (or any other of the Seven Dwarves . . . ) but there were "grotesque"s, "desperate"s, and "groaning"s to spare.  Still, fun if you want to while away hours almost completely uselessly.  I say almost because I do think it prompts one to come up with one's own haiku, simply out of frustration with the computer-generated versions.  In addition, for me the urge to illustrate is triggered by some of the nutso (keeping up the squirrel theme here) imagery.

http://www.everypoet.com/haiku/default.htm) 

The first two it created for me didn't do anything for me at all, but the third had a certain sound/image thing going for it and makes a certain amount of sense if you think about it hard while standing on your head and squinting mentally:

riding brazenly
tiredly, sound gusting squirrels
somersault coolly

or a smidge more coherently:

canoe encircles
reflection bragging, gloating
image ricochets

This one is mine -

 snowstorm in springtime:

drifts of petals falling fast

blanketing the ground . . .

What to do, what to do?

What is there to do when one doesn't know what to do?  Well, I am going to start a little list and add to it as ideas come to me. 
1.  Library
2. Bookstore
3.  Listen to music
4.  Make a pop-up card
5.  Go outside NOW, immediately
6.  Start a scrapbook and fill it with items found outdoors.
7.  Visit a museum
8.  Say tehillim  - check out Bratzlaver Rebbe's recommendations.
9.  Write a fairy tale (speaking of the Bratzlaver Rebbe . . . )
10.  Memorize a poem - or passage

I'll add more ideas as they come to me - there are of course zillions of things to do, but I want to list only relatively non-challenging, easy things because boredom has a lot to do with lack of energy and initiative.  Let's face it, there are so many nifty things to do, one need never be bored if one has the get up and go to get up and get going.  This list is for when the urge to become horizontal is growing stronger with every passing moment.

Emergency Room musings

One of my wisterias - it smells like summer wine.

Ended up in the Emergency Room today, despite all my best evasive efforts.  Now, anyone who knows me knows that I consider the Emergency Room a fate worse than death, whether I'm the patient or I am staying with a patient.  The endless, endless waiting . . . never knowing whether combwebs are going to completely encase me before a doctor shows up and does something ...  I will say, though, that all things considered, the ER is better when I am a patient.  I can lie down, close my eyes, and not worry about staying cheerful and upbeat, although considering my situation today, I was quite cheerful anyhow. . . not sure why.

The nice thing is, that actually, it only took about  2 1/2 hours start to finish - okay, possibly nearly 3 - and since I went in around 3pm, I was out by 6pm, instead of sitting, hour after eye-glazing hour until 5am.  The unfortunate part is that some of it actually (I don't like even typing the word!) hurt, but you can't have everything.

If I hadn't forced myself to go into work first, I could have been finished by 1pm and just vegetated for the whole day.

The nicest thing, of course, is that thank God I'm okay and I'm home.  So once again, danks Gott.  I owe you.

Bleeding heart at left and brunnera spikes at right.

When I got home I should have gone to bed, but I had to check out my wisteria and lilacs which were so beautiful they left me breathless.  Or maybe I was breathless because I lugged the garden hose and watering can around watering everything before I went in, fed the cats, and collapsed.  Probably a little bit of both.  To my excited amazement, my brunnera, which I have kept alive out of stubbornness rather, I admit sadly, than out of real afffection, has bloomed!!  It looks rather like a pink hyacinth and is just lovely, especially next to my bleeding heart (the one in my garden, that is!).  Now that the brunnera has shown me what lovely flowers it can produce, of course, I will labor to protect it; I hope it can survive my TLC!

Time passes, but the mystery of life continues to confound

A lot of time has passed since my last post . . . in between, there have been brookside strolls, concerts, get-togethers with friends, a murder-mystery party, cleaning up and organizing, wasting time and being really sick for a week and basically hardly being able to do anything at all! 

I heard on the radio a Holocaust survivor  tell her story about how she, her mother and father, made it through the war, saved at the end by Raoul Wallenberg.  I found it very disturbing - at one point she seemed to be saved and in a children's home, when she got scarlet fever and had to go to the hospital.  While she was away, the other 26 children in the home were gunned to death by Nazi airforce men on a drunken rampage.  A miracle that she survived - yes!  But the 26 other children, shot dead, when their parents were thanking God that their children at least were safe?  The mother, by an incredible twist of fate, arrives at a prison, and who should she see upon arrival but the father, who soon after slips her a vial of liquid she drinks which makes her faint.  She is carried off to the infirmary (after another near miss with fate) and while she is there, everyone else in the transport except for four (out of hundreds) is herded outside the prison and shot to death.  Mother and Father saved miraculously - hundreds shot at a minutes notice.  And then Mother, Father, and daughter are reunited by Wallenberg months before the end of the war.  Again, it seems miraculous, but not for millions of others . . .

I know this is hardly a new question.  I know I am not being profound.  But hearing the woman herself tell the story mesmerized me, and the horror juxtaposed with the miraculous told of a world where there is nothing you can do that will necessarily have the consequences you intend.  Good luck is bad luck, bad luck is good luck.  We are clueless about our destiny and the outcome of our actions.  How can one not believe in God?  How can one believe in God?

The woman who spoke has my deepest admiration.  She endured as a child what I cannot imagine anyone enduring, and she is alive, with a full life and a sense of gratitude.

I was haunted as a child by the idea of the Nazis coming to get us.  Being Jewish in Princeton then wasn't as easy as it is now.  I was an oddity in school, and it wasn't helped by my non-observant, name-only Jewish mother going on and on about how the goyim hated us.  That meant they hated me, which meant all my school-mates hated me.  Great.  I remember asking her once in fear that if the Nazis had knocked on our door and asked if we were Jewish, what would she do?  I think I was eight or nine.  And my mother said proudly that she would never deny being Jewish.  I said to her, inwardly terrified, but wouldn't that mean they would take us away and kill us.  Her reply was indistinct. 

The mother of the woman who spoke would have done anything to save her daughter.  She wasn't going to announce that she was Jewish and get her child murdered.  She hid, she bargained, she asked for favors, she begged, she did what she had to so she, her husband, and her daughter could survive.

I hadn't thought of that exchange in some time, although as you might imagine it had quite an impact on my life.  Let's just say I didn't feel that safe with my parents.  But why would I have?  I had already been physically abused several times without my mother or father laying down the law, and sexual abuse had probably begun.  And I remember when I was talking to my mother about the sexual abuse, and asking for help, she retorted, "My friend A--- was actually raped in the concentration camps during the war.  That's much worse, and she's okay." 

So obviously everything got stirred up by hearing this woman tell her story, including terrible sadness for all those who suffered and died.

It's mystery how we live in this world.  How do we understand the horrible tragedies that occur everyday, and the beauty alongside them?  The simple answer is, we don't.  And how do we go on if not by limiting our awareness?  The answer again, we don't.  We must forget, the impact of tragedy must fade, or we would not be able to take a step forward, and then another.  That is a large part of what our work is in this world, just to keep going, just to take one more step forward.

Happy Passover

Treasures from Stony Brook

Yesterday I took some time to walk along the Stony Brook, behind the Hun School.  The brook was as high as I have ever seen it, rushing along, covering all the rocks that used to protrude above its normally tranquil surface.  At one particularly rocky point, little peaking waves and rivulets were formed, with lacy ripples racing outwards, reminding me of the shore.

It was very, very muddy, and although I was at some pains to be careful, twice I ended up unexpectedly sliding down a bank on my tush, and three times I ended up having to just walk through a stream, sogging up my sneakers.  (I was in a good mood, it seems, because I remember thinking as I squished back through the woods to my starting street how companionable the sound of my soaked feet and sneakers was . . . )

The floor of the woods was covered with wildflowers - especially small white flowers with pink tinges, and small yellow flowers.  I was excited to see a very common wildflower which nonetheless I haven't seen before, a dogtooth violet - or actually, many many dogtooth violets.  They have spotted leaves and the flower is yellow, in this case with some wine tipping.

At one point on the way back, I allowed myself a brief excursion to a pebble bank, where I looked at the pebbles and stones washed up by the storm the day before.  As I was looking at a larger stone, I suddenly noticed a red pebble just a jot over an inch which appeared to have a hole in it.  I stooped down closer, picked it up, and - oh joy! - it did have a small hole all the way through.  This kind of thing is very difficult to find.  I have two stonelets about four or more times as heavy which have a hole through them - one hole quite large, one small and snaking indirectly through - but this pebble is so small and light, and so elegantly simple; it is as though it were made to be a pendant. 

I was so excited!  I felt as though the powers that be in the universe had given me a present directly, had sent me a loving message.  I found a few other nice stones, including one with small, yellowish crystals (very small, and not very clear), but this one I clutched with a tenacity ordinarily reserved for holding on to diamond jewels. 

I am wearing it now strung on a ribbon.  To me it is a real treasure, to someone else, it is just a dull red pebble.  Thank you, Hashem, for giving me eyes to see.

Pesach tonight.  I just visualized the Stony Brook as the Red Sea, splitting at G-d's command!  Even that would be so terrifying, so awe-inspiring; what mortal mind can even imagine what the Red Sea would have been like, with its towering walls of waves?

Art Shows

Well, this is a rather glum photo of one of my collages, which I believe I named something along the lines of The DayDream.  I would now want to name it something more obscure, like TheAncient Philospher's Theorem Realized - which doesn't mean anything but sounds rather impressive.  I plan to come up with a whole stock of pretentious, meaningless titles so that when I need to come up with a name for an exhibit, I can just close my eyes and pick one at random.  Suggestions?

That set me to thinking about Sherlock Holmes and Watson.  I think I remember some wordplay along these lines:
Watson:  So it was a stomach ailment all along, Holmes?
Holmes:  Alimentary, my dear Watson.

Watson:  So that rude young man did it!
Holmes:  Rudimentary, my dear Watson.

Watson:  So it was heavy metals poisoning that knocked her off!\
Holmes:  Elementary, my dear Watson . . .

And so forth.  Ah ha!  Maybe one title could be Sherlock Holme's Day Dream, with a companion piece, Sherlock Holme's Nightmare.

Quickie Post

Haven't posted in so long, just want to put something, anything, online.  So, here is a pic of a collage I did a looooong time ago.  I would post a pic of the collages that are currently in two different gallery shows. but something went wrong when I e-mailed them from my camera, and I don't have them.  I'll have to go over to the shows and photograph them again there, and keep my fingers crossed . . .

Have checked out some niftoid streams, seen a movie, done some other stuff - life keeps moving along.

Some cool dreams, too, although rather opaque in meaning.

A Curse is Lifted!

I haven't posted in a couple of weeks - the drama of the well and hearing from my old friend left my brain whirling.

But I would like to take a moment to give credit where credit is due, even if the credit is due to me!  I need all the encouragement I can get.  So let it hereby be noted that I have continued to explore new intellectual and artistic avenues, to wit:



1850 engraving of Emperor Nero

A few days ago, I went to a brand-new opera about Emperor Nero composed by a Princeton University student, performed by Princeton and some other University students, staged by University students, managed by . . . you get the idea:  this was a student production - very elaborate, and on an appropriately royal scale. 

I actually assumed I would hate the music, thinking that it would be what has become the standard for contemporary opera - Heaven forbid there should be a reproducable melody!  Instead, the music was in many instances lovely, and the libretto (which was in classical Latin, but with a translation projected on the back of the stage) was poetic and charming.  I would love to have a copy of the libretto, and actually, I would love to have a cd or better yet, dvd of the production.  The singing was fine (I am no expert, but it certainly seemed well executed, although not professional level, of course). Thankfully, the opera was fully staged, meaning that there were costumes (the centurions were yummy, in the brightest possible scarlet) and even a minimal set. I had gone thinking it might have been presented concert-style, without costumes or acting; such was my devotion to experiencing something new and potentially interesting.

The fact that I enjoyed it means that the curse of the bleh musical event is lifted!!!  (The last 4 or 5 concerts I have been to, I have not enjoyed, and I was beginning to worry it was me . . . ).

I also went to a new exhibit about collagist Kurt Schwitters at the PU Art Museum.  It was a bit too much of a good thing, but I still deserve points for going . . . There was a fascinating reproduction of one of the rooms in Schwitter's apartment in Germany, where he built a crazy indoor environment of  gypsum board and white paint and whatever oddments he felt inspired to use.  It made me want to create my own indoor environment, although mine would be more like a castle . . . not as coruscatingly abstract as Schwitters'.

So I'm keeping on keeping on, improving my life one event, one friendship at a time, and beli ayin hara, things are getting better.  I am getting back to being myself, after having foolishly given myself away.

Words cannot express . . .

I have been sitting here with tears trickling down my face; tears of happiness, of regret, of longing, of gratitude, of possbility. I just took in my mail and saw a handwritten envelope in what looked like a familiar hand, somehow. Then I saw the printed return address and for a wild moment I thought - could the letter possibly, somehow, be from that dear friend from so many decades ago? I opened it and was stunned. It was from that friend, a friend I have thought of, who has influenced me over the years (and years . . . ) who, through some miracle wrought by Hashem, encountered my blog entry containing an experience he once told me about, so long ago I can hardly believe it. That story has remained with me through thick and thin, and I have repeated it to many people over the years because of its message. There are many lessons in it, of course, about Hashem and the way He works in the world, about our mission in this world, too; but also it teaches us to look behind what is obvious to see the sublime - to look behind a crazy old woman giving compliments and see the angel sent by Hashem.  And it reminds me of the importance of even the tiniest act of good we do in this world.

At any rate, my friend's story opened my eyes to look for the wonder and the meaning of what lies behind our physical world; a priceless gift.

To hear from this friend now, after decades and decades; now, when I have been longing for the Rebbe zt"l and the Bostoner kehillah, and thinking of writing or calling the Rebbe's office to see if I could arrange a visit and spend a Shabbes there . . . I can't capture the immensity of the feeling in words, but I will say that the note from my friend is more precious to me than gold; and I think of him and his wife and his family with such warmth and affection.
Thank you.

All's well . . . wellsprings of joy

The worker who nearly fell into the well, thereby discovering
it, offered to take a picture of it for me while sitting with his
legs dangling over the edge.  Can you say vertigo?

Guess what some construction workers replacing my cracked and fissured concrete floor discovered hidden beneath its surface???   A well!  A 19th century well, with an antique bottle floating in it.  Here I have been searching for houses with water on the property - stream, brook, pond - and I have been standing not two feet above the top of a well shaft with water at the bottom in my own house everyday for years!  I am so excited.  Talk about the magic that lies just beneath the surface in this world!

Kitchen Tears

Yes, Virginia, there actually are families like this, where everything is calm and orderly; where organization, scheduling, and structure form the basis of life.  Not in my family, of course, I hasten to add, although I used to fantasize about having a family something like this. When I was eight or nine, a friend of mine told me about her family, the Billings, several houses down, who went to church together every Sunday morning and then had pancakes for breakfast.  It sounded like heaven - both the regularity of the family ritual, and the pancakes.  I was unable to convince my mother of the desirability of either church (even a synagogue would have done . . . ) or pancakes.

Kitchen tears - the title makes me think of all the painful tears I have shed, chopping particularly virulent onions, but that isn't what prompted this post.  I just decided to tackle packing up almost all of the two dozen or less cookbooks that have remained out because of the memories, and in a few instances, recipes, they contain.  But I am putting it off an hour or so, because when I reached up to take a handful down, I was assailed by such nostalgia, and such a sense of longing for the past, that I felt on the edge of tears.
There was a strawberry-patterned binder with hand-written recipes, mine, and those of the woman who gave me this home-made cookbook for my wedding to Nosson.  There were the baking books I used to make fancy cakes, tortes, strudels, and pies for Friday night dessert, when we would have people over after the Shabbes dinner, or for Saturday night, for the party held in honor of the departing Sabbath Queen, called Melave Malka.

There, too, were sturdy books I had used again and again making ordinary dinners: mushrooms stroganoff, chicken stuffed under the skin, cornbread-topped pseudo-Mexican casserole.

If I could be magically transported back to that time, I would go enriched with the knowledge that  on one level, there are no ordinary dinners - that every moment of felicity shared with someone you love should be recognized as the temporary gift that it is.

I suppose to put these books away means putting away those dreams of the good times, and also of what might have been.  It means accepting the present and its obligations.  Acknowledging that makes it easier to pack up, because those long-ago times will always be with me, books or no books, accompanied, sadly, by regret. The books, despite my reverence for what some objects can do, are actually not magic . . .

For now, I will give myself a little time to mourn what is lost in the past, and then get back to the job of living in the present and looking to the future.