March 4 2007

Last night was both the start of Purim and a chance to see a lunar eclipse. As the past few weeks of serious winter have taken their toll on my small reserves of optimism, I thought I'd take a break from all the electronic overstimulus that surrounds me. Prying myself away from the computer, phone and television, I marched into the bedroom with a clear purpose: to see an amazing natural phenomena. I turned our little bedroom bench around to face the window, pulled back the curtains already drawn to keep the heat in, set my feet on the windowsill, and watched.

At first I could barely see anything. Even though the trees are still bare, with just buds to hint at the possibility of spring, the branches themselves obscured the first few minutes of moonrise. Once I caught a glimpse of the moon, the shiny edge helping me place it in a cloudy sky, it became easier. As I waited and watched, the moon rose slowly above the tree line and was clearly visible with the shadow covering most of its surface. To me, armed with foreknowledge and safe in the luxury of a modern home, it was interesting and beautiful. But as I watched, I began to wonder how other people in former times, lacking both understanding of what was happening and comfortable surroundings in which to ponder, would have viewed this event. It occurred to me that probably it was terrifying, or at least very threatening, to see the expected order of things interrupted. Did they scream and cry? pray? head for shelter elsewhere? And when the moon was unveiled again, was that enough to calm their fears, or did they ever after live in fear that one of the great lights of the world they knew could disappear? That led quite seamlessly to my wondering whether all of my fears were in fact much like those of the ancient people whose lives I had been contemplating. That perhaps whatever invoked such fear in me was at bottom as explicable and natural as the eclipse; I just lacked the proper perspective to see it that way.

And what does any of this have to do with Purim? To me, that holiday, the remembrance of Jewish lives saved by the intervention of Esther and Mordecai, is so much about the hidden face of Gd. And just on the eve of this holiday celebrating the happy outcome of events that had looked to be a complete disaster until almost the very end, almost the genocide of Jews, the moon taking time to show me her hidden face, which was then slowly revealed, seemed such a neat and orderly lesson that coincidence was not enough explanation. As I looked back over the past few difficult and disruptive weeks, the moon seemed to speak to me personally, telling me and showing me that disasters pass; that fears can be overcome; that the great natural plan, certainly beyond my comprehension, does indeed work for the good of all.

January 26 2007

Just in time for the coldest day in two years, the bluebird flock comes to brighten my day. Why they are still around is a mystery, as I had thought they'd go south months ago. Perhaps it's that the weather has been so mild till now; more likely, that my neighbor puts out very high quality seed and has entire flocks of different birds in residence. In any case, I know why bluebirds are equated with happiness so often. Just seeing their remarkable blue feathers flash against the sky, and even especially against the snow, lifts the heart. And I have two more reasons for being uncharacteristically upbeat: my new great-niece, Dakota, and great-nephew Catcher. They were being born almost exactly as my plane was leaving O'Hare last Friday night - I was leaving late, and they were arriving 7 weeks early! I've just seen some early snaps, and am delighted to report that despite some scary moments, they are both doing well, and, of course, are adorable. I don't know who is more thrilled, the proud parents Abbey and Eric, the even prouder grandparents Vicki and Mural, or the absolutely proudest person in the world, great-grandmother Jo (she has been taken to the hospital to see Dakota, has not yet seen Catcher who was transferred elsewhere for a few days but is now back with his sister; Dad will have to wait till the babies come home, as getting him anywhere in this cold is not possible). It's an amazing moment to see the first persons of the next generation in our family appear. Brian and I are scheduled to meet them in March, when we'll also celebrate the folks' 65th anniversary - how does anyone do that? In the meantime, aside from getting the baby bulletins and monitoring the weather, all else is quiet here.

January 8 2007

Marching through time like this line of llamas, I enter 2007. As I gathered my ghosts around me on New Year's Eve, I missed my dear Saul the Dog Prince more than ever. Typically Brian is asleep well before midnight on any night; he's a morning person, I'm a night owl with insomnia. It's a combination that works well most of the time - his prime painting time is early mornings, usually before I even stagger out to the coffee machine, and I like the solitude of late nights reading, watching TV, surfing the net or just ruminating. But I didn't realize that a big part of my satisfaction in solitude resided in the softly snoring dog, always nearby, never at all crabby about being awakened from a rabbit-chasing dream for me to wish him a Happy New Year, or pour out my troubles. It was so comforting to have a confidant for whom confidentiality was never an issue! No matter what dire dark secrets of my soul I emptied into his floppy ears, nothing ever came back to haunt me. When Saul was buried last May, it marked the end of 40 years of living with pets: 3 dogs (Mutzie, Max, Saul), many cats (Bernie, Seymour, Roachie, Sweetpea, and Pearl, who lived to be almost 30, plus about a half dozen others), 3 bunnies (Dog, Rachel, Eeny) and too many aquarium fish to name even when they were alive. I wonder if I'm done for good with that part of my life...

The ghosts of years gone always seem nearer at New Year's, or Rosh HaShona, the Jewish New Year. Old dear college and post-college friends like Kent and Willie appear, now almost forty years younger than I, but still missed. My grandparents, aunts and uncles, some gone decades past, and one, my very last beloved "tante", gone only last year, two months prior to her 101st birthday. Very very sadly and for me completely unexpectedly, my wonderful friend and mentor of over 30 years, Patricia, whose wise advice and grace in living were a mainstay that will be missed the rest of my life. Friends' parents, parents' friends, as each of us ages our lists grow. It almost seems to me that we are like comets racing across our lifespan as they do the sky. The older we get, the faster we pass through time, and the longer our "tails" become, as we drag our incrementally increasing history behind us. I guess this is as close as I'll come to understanding the time/space theory of Einsteinian physics.

December 25 2006

From years past, these Christmas Seals were on the letter my father sent my mother while he was still in the Army, Stateside, in 1943, waiting for orders to be sent to the European Theater. Maybe it's the long long nights that make me reflect back (to the time before my birth), maybe it's my father's upcoming 93rd birthday on the 27th, or maybe it's just that this is part of my nature. In any case, as this year comes to a close, I've been thinking more and more of times long ago, and what the world was like then. Here in the present, as I look out the window to the snowless landscape, I am amazed that some of the grass could actually use mowing, and that the daffodils continue their misguided progress out of the ground. Apparently the global warming process has fooled them too. This is the first year since our move to New York State that December has not found us surrounded by several feet of snow; though with January just around the corner, that could happen any time for the next three months. I still put out seed in our bird feeder, and get the usual crowd of feathered friends (juncos, sparrow, jays, titmice, nuthatches, cardinals, doves, a very occasional goldfinch, lots of other finches, a lone rufuous sided towhee, chickadees black-capped and otherwise, and a very misguided downy woodpecker that hangs upside down on the perch pulling out sunflower seeds, apparently never having heard that woodpeckers don't eat out of bird feeders). The larger, pileated woodpeckers are doing their jack-hammer imitations in the surrounding forests, and now that the leaves are down I have a good view of what are either crows' or hawks' nests in the bigger oaks. The deer have been invisible for a few days, though I see their hoof prints all over the lower planted terraces. In fact, they and I continue to fight over who controls the last planting of irises this past fall; they keep coming back to the same one and digging it up. Must be frustrating for whatever their plans are for me to keep replanting it. And they (the deer) have also grudgingly gnawed at the ends of the yucca leaf spears. I know they don't like the stuff, and won't eat it, but I guess they just have to convince themselves again and again. I would much prefer they stay in the long weedy areas we thoughtfully left for them to chew on - or even come out to the flats and mow the grass. But alas, they are pretty but perverse, and always seem to know which plants I most want them to avoid, which they take great pains to nibble.

December 20 2006

A holiday bouquet for everyone! Update regarding the post November 28 Social Security - I guess Hell did freeze over, I just missed it. The Social Security office has sent a final payment to our account, and sent us a letter (about a week later) to say they were going to do this. And why should anyone care? First, it's a rare and happy moment to get real closure on any dealing with any bureaucracy. And second, more important to my vast and ever-expanding readership out there (almost up to double digits!), this proves that my original assumption that it was not legal for the government to just take whatever funds were left in someone's account, was true. Unfortunately we have had too many friends who have lost parents this year, and, as one might expect at such a sad and stressful time, the last thing a grieving child needs is to go head to head with a governmental agency. But I do encourage any of you out there who have the energy to pursue this matter to do so. We were told very clearly at the time of my mother-in-law's death, and subsequently, by more than one bureaucrat, that there were no benefits to surviving children - yet, lo and behold, it turns out that's not true. Apparently this is a very well-kept secret. At least no one I spoke to about it seemed to think otherwise.

December 18 2006

We are having a much quieter Hanuka this year than in 2001. Here is the story of our Hanuka miracle, from my journal at that time. It also reminds me of the "daily miracles" taken for granted; that we are here, healthy and safe, that my parents (and other family and friends) are too, and so much more. It seems sometimes that only a brush with disaster can show me just how much I have to be grateful for. Happy Holidays to all!

12/20/01 Brian wrote: For the past week we have been trying to recover from the horrifying event last Friday night (12/14, the sixth night of Hanuka). LK and I were in our "cozy room" in front of a fire in the wood stove. I happened to look up from my book and noticed what looked to be snowflakes blowing horizontally outside our window. We quickly realized it was sparks in the steady ferocious wind. We ran to the back door to see what was causing the sparks. The wood pile next to the back door was engulfed in flames. I remember crying "My God!" as I ran to get the rubber boots, gloves and a fire extinguisher. I ran out and emptied the extinguisher into the fire with almost no result. The wind was howling as flames were wildly flying over my head and under the first story eaves of the house.

LK had run to the shed in the dark, grabbed the fire hose and was trying to attach it to the spigot in the dog run, in pitch blackness. I ran to my studio to get another fire extinguisher which I emptied into the fire, also with no result. There was too much burning. I could barely see LK through the clouds of smoke as she tried to pour water from the hose on the fire. I ran to the shed and grabbed a shovel and began to push over the wood pile, now consumed in a raging fire. This was not working. I rushed to get a hoe and began to pull burning logs away from the center of the fire onto the gravel driveway and away from the house, which is the direction the wind was blowing, straight up from the Potomac. LK could not see me a few feet away and thought I might be on fire.

After about ten minutes we had brought it under control. Ashes in a metal bucket from the night before had been revived by the wind and sucked out of a crack in the top. A few more minutes and we would have lost everything. Every calm day is a blessing.

LK added: I consider this a real Hanuka miracle. The sixth night of Hanuka will always have a different meaning for me now. I don't think I have bee this frightened since the terror bombings in Israel in '96. I still don't remember how I got into the shed. I ran past Brian and the fire (he had put himself between the fire and the back wall of the house, and as I learned later was emptying fire extinguisher into the wood pile; I could hear him after that, but couldn't see him, only flames). I don't remember how I found the hose, or anything else except that I just kept praying GD would help me do this. The first end of the hose I grabbed was not the right one, so I had to try again. I don't think I could think at all, just act. Hours later, when I recalled the sequence of events, all I could remember was getting the wrong end of the hose first and hoping Brian wasn't burning up while I got the hose coupled. We both were out for hours in a fierce cold wind, continuing to water the woodpile, the scattered, burned logs, and the entire back driveway. Needless to say, I didn't get any sleep that night, as we were too aware that if even one spark had been missed by either of us, the fire would start up again in the high winds. In the morning I could see how close we had really come to disaster. The entire back driveway was littered with burnt logs of all sizes, many almost burned through. The house itself had not even one speck of soot!

December 14 2006

I am so proud of my mother! At 87 she is still not only smart, lovely and thoughtful, but also incredibly tenacious as her own excellent advocate. Let me explain: Over six months ago, on a weekend, my mother discovered that one of the staff persons at her assisted living center (where she and my soon to be 93 year old father have lived for almost 6 years now) had decided to "clean out" the lounge room on their floor. This room serves both as an informal meeting room for activities and resident parties, and, more frequently, as a place for the live-in aides who care for residents to store their food, cook it, and socialize while they grab a meal. There's a refrigerator and a microwave, and lots of cabinet space, mostly empty except for things like Scrabble boards. We've had someone living with my parents for over two years now. One person works Monday through Friday, and someone else comes in for the weekend shift. The weekend man had just come in the night before, bringing his fresh food for the weekend with him. This was all thrown out, without warning, or even the courtesy of a knock on the apartment door to ask him to remove anything. When Mom confronted the staff person, she was given the usual non-responsive replies that the residents have unhappily become used to. That is, no real reason was given as to why unspoiled, clearly marked food was tossed. At that point Mom told the staff person that she would reimburse the aide for his lost food, and deduct that amount from her monthly fee (we're talking about thousands of dollars a month for the apartment, two meals a day, and various other services). The staff person was not only unsympathetic, but actually told my mother that she could do that if she wanted, but the small amount in dispute would be deducted from my parents' deposit when they "moved". "Moved" at this stage in their lives, as you might imagine, rarely means to anywhere else on this planet. What rudeness! What gall! So for the last six months my mother has talked to easily half a dozen persons about this, all of whom declined to to anything, citing ridiculous non-reasons that were enough to make me tear my hair out just hearing them. Finally, yesterday, Mom called the very head honcho of the entire area ONE MORE TIME. She had just seen an ad where the center was offering a free month's rent to new residents, plus a signing fee to anyone who recommended someone. She pointed out to this person that those amounts totaled over five thousand dollars; whereas what she was requesting lo these many months was well under fifty dollars. I don't know whether she caught him in a good mood, or that he finally understood the righteousness of her complaint, or whether the moon was retrograde or not; but the upshot of it all was that at dinner last night, a man to whom she had also spoken about this months ago, who also declined to credit this small sum, sought her out and said that "without admitting any wrongdoing, in the spirit of conciliation" they would credit her account. Kudos to Mom for hanging in there - it's a small win financially but HUGE in the principles department. And how lucky am I to be the daughter of such a woman of valour? Advocates out there, take note: never give up, never give in, hang on to your principles!