Dry raincoat

(partly fiction)

The storm will strip away the last leaves. Throw them high in the air along with the plastic bags and cigarette butts and flatten them on the pavement. They were going to fall in the next few days anyway, and there’s nothing wrong with change coming a little sooner than expected. Like when you’re thinking of breaking up with someone and then find out they’re cheating on you, or moving across the country. You get a clean, fresh start, none of this gradual messy business, holding on to your milk past its expiration date, smelling it every now and then to see if it’s gone sour and then getting too scared to even open it so when you finally work up the courage you find that it’s curdled to the point where you can’t pour it down the drain, you have to throw the whole thing out, recycling be damned.

That’s what it was like with Mona. Recycling be damned. I always wondered what would’ve happened if we hadn’t waited for those final leaves to fall, if we’d cut things off before that point, if we’d left each other still able to imagine the green buds of spring, still able to locate the nubs on the branches where they would, could, appear. But instead we watched as we ground ourselves into the drenched pavement, as we stepped on ourselves, as we became the bare trees, haunted, unable to remember what it had been like before, in the good times.

A couple of hours until the subway and buses shut down, until each of us retreats into an apartment building full of people we have never had cause to address except to ask permission to scoot around each other in the laundry room. The mayor has declared the city comatose until further notice, aware that a body can’t function without proper circulation. With the exception, of course, of the emergency workers, those who pump blood slowly, slowly, who make the lungs swell and contract just enough to keep oxygen traveling to our communal brain. Emergency workers will go to work. Who knows who keeps their blood flowing.

I want to bend my head against the wind as I head down the street for my last essentials, to huddle my arms against my chest with my scarf flying out behind me and leaves skittering past, but the storm isn’t here yet, and the wind will probably blow in the other direction, leaving my hair and scarf to tangle unromantically in front of my face. So I walk with a straight back and a brisk step in my dry raincoat to purchase cans of peas and carrots at the grocery as well as some toiletries at the convenience store next door. Only back in the elevator do I realize I forgot to get tampons. Hopefully my uterus, in solidarity with the city, will decide to postpone my period’s start date until schools and libraries reopen. Although it’s more likely that it will get carried away by all of the reports of flooding.

Back in the apartment, my roommate and I stand on opposite sides of the kitchen island, hands on hips, mentally shaking our heads at the odd assortment of non-perishables and other counter-safe foodstuffs we have collected in our multiple shopping trips. Five oranges. Twelve donuts. Couscous. Prunes. Tomato sauce. We’re so clearly in our early twenties, so clearly unused to being the ones responsible for emergency preparation. We celebrate our last night of certain electricity by running the dishwasher and eating brie cheese and crackers. I revel in the ridiculousness while missing the power outages of my Baltimore childhood, with dogs crawling into my bed at night and seemingly endless cribbage games. Four thick candles stand sentry on the marble countertop, waiting to burn in the darkness.

Jay plays the vibraphone and I dick around on my computer as we wait for the storm to hit. The night progresses and I go out to the balcony every hour or so, stand by the railing and put my hand palm up over the edge, find the rain has not yet reached us, although the sky to our right, the western sky, bears some green among the clouds. The wind blows without howling. Maybe I’ll come spin around out here in a day or two, safe in my fourteen-story concrete birdhouse in the midst of God’s fury. I’ll dance a dance of exuberance, of giddiness, of cabin fever, of rain exhaustion, hyped up on donuts and prunes and tomato sauce. For now, though, I retreat each time from the limp breeze and dark sky, settling back onto the futon, drinking cup after cup of chamomile tea until my yawns and my roommate’s retreat into his bedroom convince me to shut down Facebook and go to sleep.

Instinct

I untwist the connecting belt between two queue-marking poles, releasing the tension. The man in front of me says, "You must be a mother." I respond, "Someday, God willing." He says, as if I hadn't spoken, "That's something my mother would do."

Calm

the whisper of fingers
brushing over fabric

A lesson from YKVK

I can't name it (you)
If I name it (you)
the stars will align
and freeze
and I will have to deal
with their positionings

"Time to get in the zone" by Laura Beth

[Let me re-introduce you to the awesome Laura Beth Resnick, a farmer whom I have had the honor of knowing since 2003. She keeps a blog called veggieadventure about farming, plants, and food; her blog is a fun and insightful record of anecdotes, facts, and recipes that both provides a window into the life of a farmer and strengthens the reader's connection to what we consume on a daily basis.

Laura Beth just wrote a post about USDA zoning with regard to average minimum winter temperature. And I illustrated! Check it out!

(I last contributed back in February to a post about plant sex.) I also recommend reading the whole blog, of course.]
 
Note: Laura Beth is continuing her blog under a new name due to her work starting Butterbee Farm in Baltimore! I have changed the links above so they point to the correct posts. --May 13, 2013

Yeshivat Hadar #2

The three-sided mobile hanging in my bedroom (a triptych of sorts, you could say) depicts a group of people (a kehila? an am?) standing on a cliff above a grassy land with a river running through it. I just realized while reattaching one of the chopsticks serving as a hanging post that I made the dirt of the cliff and the faces of the people out of the same sandpaper.

The first Hadar Shabbaton took place (took time?) in Washington Heights Sept. 7-8. That Shabbat already feels so long ago--I was still having "first conversations" with some of my fellow fellows. I guess it was technically last year. We talked Torah and life stories, caring for others and how we make decisions within and/or outside of a halakhic framework, Yiddish and interpersonal connection. We prayed and sang and ate and napped on various pieces of furniture. We learned. We were comfortable.

Fort Tryon is one of my favorite places to daven in New York, and I invited a friend to join me there after Shabbat to experience Selichot (a series of penitential prayers and verses that started, for Ashkenazim, the night of Sept. 8 and continued through this past Tuesday morning). We prayed in a small room, the same place we had inhabited for Friday night services, and the sound filled. I remembered the loudness from last year. A space and a group of people that invite you to sing out, to add harmonies that expand, that deepen and darken and create bells, vessels, simplicities of speech, communal speech, a community speaking.

There is a drawing or a poem I have been thinking about for months and months. A morning service at Fort Tryon. Silence, the Amidah. Silent figures wrapped in tallitot, tallitot over heads. Back and forth, the bending. Silent figures, upper bodies bend, back and forth. And young children weave around them, run around them, playing among the silent swathed benders, the ivory-swathed trees, the old trees, a forest of them and the children play, burbling water coursing around old old stones.

"I felt joy out of my fear and fear out of my joy"

Classes over the second and third weeks of yeshiva incorporated a mix of straightforward, philosophical, and personal discussions. Under Devorah Zlochower's guidance, we charted the ordering of sacrifices on Yom Kippur in the Temple. Rav Shai spoke of various ways of thinking about awe, including the connection between awe and humility--awareness of our own smallness and simultaneous internalization of grandeur (with significant input on this particular point from Laynie). He commented that the presence of God means that "all these things that seem private are not private." Dena Weiss led a discussion about mercy, judgment, fairness, showing favor, forgiveness, cleansing, restoration, reconciliation, vindication, etc. with specific attention to the phrases "nesiat panim" and "nesiat avon." (Is mercy fair? Is this a paradox? If so, how do we get out of it? What is the mechanism involved in "nesiat avon," the lifting/cleaning/concealing of guilt/sin/punishment of iniquity? When our punishments get lifted, what happens to our sins?) Rav Aviva helped us tease out an argument regarding the placement of declaration/remembrance of God's kingship within the Rosh Hashanah liturgy. Dori reminded us of what was beautiful in the cores of our conversations. Rav Jason challenged us to look more closely at the passage in the Torah that describes the 13 midot, the 13 attributes of God.

Rav Shai gave us the space to discuss whether or not--and in which cases--forgiveness is a moral as well as a religious obligation, reminding us that this involves "talking about some of the deepest hurts and wounds that people are carrying around." "Do we believe that emotional decisions are possible?" Is forgiving an act, a process, or both? When might it make sense to forgive but not reconcile? "The moment you condone you can no longer forgive....Excusing actually makes forgiving impossible...superfluous." Like the teasing out of knots.

Rav Eitan spoke about the need "to build...communities...that are radiant." His shiur on tefilah, prayer, delineated parameters and qualities to consider when constructing or fine-tuning a prayer community and its services: choreography, sustainability, constituency, and the balances between charisma and predictability, excellence and democracy, and poetry and prose.

I took pride and joy in the way that my classmates, having learned certain material in pairs together for an hour, then cited each other in the concluding shiur (group class) and resolved to bring observations made by my chevrutah to the larger group more often.

The other fellows continue to be one of the highlights of the year program. Each of us has introduced ourselves to the group through teaching something, or about something, dear to us:

An introductory--and immersive--Yiddish lesson
"The Six Steps of Nonviolence"
The prophetic nature of science fiction
Drumming patterns
Her family
The creative self
The Theater of the Oppressed
A poem she wrote
Three stories from her life
The importance of learning/knowing a foreign language
Silence and calm and the connection between Quaker Meeting and graphic novels (me)
Theater, including Shakespeare and directing/stage management
Rosenzweig
Awesomeness
Two yet to come!

On October 15 we will start our primary learning projects for the year. Soon, I will write Hadar #3 in order to elaborate upon the above, which currently contains too much listing and not enough thinking, and to share a few more experiences, such as our first visit to Jewish Home Lifecare.

Words to music

Your shoes
drumming up dust
shoes drumming up dust on this dance floor
dust
on this dance floor
this dusty dusty dance floor
drumming
drumming
drumming
Your shoes
drumming up dust
shoes, dust, dance floor

Give me your shoes
your shiny shoes
your drumming shiny shoes
give me your shoes
your shiny shoes
your drumming shiny black shoes
I want those black shoes on my feet
let me feel my feet
in your drumming shoes
in your elegant
masculine
humming drumming shoes

KlezKanada, "Poetry and Music" workshop, 8.23.2012

Raindrops

Collecting on the windowsill collecting on the sidewalk collecting in my eyes my eyelashes on my lashes my cheekbones

Dust to dust little specks of dusk in my eyes my eyelashes on my lashes my cheekbones

Water runs down to the ground the ground water water run go leave the dust the dusk on my cheekbones

spatter me with sprinkles with finger flecked sprinkles red dusky dusk cheekbones

as the water runs down down to the ground the water ground water from the sky

from the sky to the ground the water by way of cheekbones of dust of dusky red collecting

collecting on the windowsill collecting on the sidewalk collecting in the clouds collecting in my eyes

eyelashes flecked with cheekbones red dusky dust blushing blood rushing from the sky to the ground dust to dust with water collecting spreading dropping binding cleaving stretching bunching holding falling

falling to the ground from the sky the water cling to each other! cling to the water bring the dust closer bring the water closer make a drop a drop that drops holding holding to itself holding to the water the dust the water dust water soul water dust water dust body cleave cleave hold tight let the molecules work let the bonds stay let the charges meld oh soul water oh my soul

Rediscovery

Rediscovered the journal in which I recorded notes during the summer of 2010, when I was studying at Pardes. It has been sitting on my shelf in New York for months, but I did not take the time to look through it until I was preparing for my running-through-a-fountain-with-a-friend visit to Washington Heights this past Friday and decided it had enough blank pages to be appropriate notebook to carry along. There are some true journal entries, some email addresses that I was happy to remind myself of, some shuk grocery lists (at least one written by someone else who had a much better sense of menu and proportions), some thesis thoughts, many quotations from classes (generally marked by quotation marks), and the occasional prompted freewrite. Twice, our teachers asked us to write prayers. Or at least to start. To try, to see.

The cymbals hang in the stormy wind and they clang G-d! G-d! Let His name be part of everything! Bed squ[e]aks and rattling chains, the song of stars and the rustle of footsteps, let all praise G-d and be part of G-d's ways. How can You know all? But it is so. With every moment the universe rings; with every blink it all becomes clear. It is to G-d that we must turn our eyes; it is to G-d that we must turn our ears. How good it is, that melody in the air! Let us match it with our lips. G-d on high has released my lips, that I may sing of G-d's glory forever. How you shed light upon the world and unto the innermost parts of my soul! Knower of secrets, my light reaches to your light, aching to bask and rejoice in your presence.

July 12, 2010:

"Where do I begin?" "If you want to start somewhere...start with the one-line blessings....One word is important: Ata....the word that makes or breaks the blessing." -Mike Feuer/Tovah Leah [Perhaps I didn't remember who spoke this.]

"The essence of the words...the word to emphasize is Ata."

"Prayer is new every single day."
 -relationships being new every single day


  my life reaches out to you and the blue pen writes. the lines gray and straight dictating the forms of my praise. How to praise? I will tell you a story. This chair, right here, once an old man sat in it. He furrowed his brow and hrrumphed, then smiled, let his shoulders relax and his eyes open. In this moment he praised G-d. Where are the words? With what words can I praise you? What has not already been said, should I just switch into Russian, how can my words merit reaching you? do they need to reach you? Perhaps not. Ata ata ata ata ata

                                                                                            אתה
                                                                                            אתה
                                                                                        אתה פה
                                                                                            אתה
                                                        אתה
                                              אתה
                                                          אתה
                                                                               אתה  

Faya found me

Faya, someone I have been trying to reach for years, just found me on the Russian version of Facebook. She no longer lives in Saint Petersburg. She got married. Maybe I'll still bring her flowers someday.

Blessed day, today