High Hanging Fruit

I still have the scabs on my knees to prove it, that I was perched precariously on the branches of an apple tree last week, reaching for a cluster of perfect ginger golds. Perfect in that they were out of easy reach and far enough away that my eyes couldn't make out any blemishes, if there were any. I was emboldened by a bloody Mary -- Wisconsin style, with a beer chaser -- risking life and limb (both mine and the tree's) to get the best life could offer. 

Growing up in an apartment in Brooklyn, I was a bit challenged about anything related to nature. I always assumed pumpkin seeds grew in cellophane bags. I never gave it much thought actually, but I certainly had no reason to connect them with the eerily carved out orange gourds that seemed to be everywhere in other neighborhoods -- neighborhoods with stoops.

As far as I knew, apples grew in large bins in the fruit store on Avenue J. The most perfect ones were always on top, much easier to reach than the bruised ones underneath. Life is tough enough in Brooklyn; finding a parking space within walking distance of the fruit store was a lot more challenging than climbing some little old tree. 

For Jews, the "Days of Awe" are winding down, and the moment of truth is upon us. I think about fasting, something I've never been able to do. I think of it though, sort of like a last ditch effort to cram for the big test. I will convince myself, as I always do after I've survived about an hour without coffee, that I should just roll the dice. If I haven't done the work all year, cramming isn't going to make a difference. 

And, anyway, being "good" is certainly no guarantee. Nor is praying, for that matter. But it couldn't hurt.

I got caught up in the emotional return of Steve Scalise to the "People's House" yesterday. I loved the bipartisan embrace, the reminder that, at the end of the day, they're all human. I loved the absence of sniping and back-biting. It gave me hope, but it gave me pause, the sad truth that it took violence and the near death of a colleague to get both sides of the aisle to stand and clap together.

When the applause died down, Mr. Scalise leaned on his braces and spoke. He began with God and prayer. The power of prayer. I get it, but I couldn't help wondering why prayer only works for some and not for others. Life isn't always fair. The good sometimes die young, and the bad sometimes hang on forever. If there's a plan, I'd like somebody to explain it to me.

I loved what the congressman said about humanity.  About how people who didn't always agree with him, and people who had never even met him, all reached out. About how people, as a rule, seem to care. I like to think his words and his return will have an impact that lasts more than five minutes. I like to think that the apple at the top of the tree is always worth the climb. 

Correcting the Propagation of Heresies

Here in secular America, the silver lining to our steady regression is our short history. Though there certainly is much to take away, there is, at least, an endpoint, a limit to just how far back we can go.

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were early concepts, but we really didn't start putting our money where our quills were until we were a century into our great experiment. Progress has been slow but steady, and, at least in my warped bubble, I have always taken my freedoms for granted. How difficult can it possibly be to recapture only a century or two of progress?

It sometimes seems a bit more complicated in the Old World, with its long history of alternating darkness and renaissance (with both big and little "R's"), with a generous helping of persecution and murder in the name of religion and nationalist fervor. Things are confusing there these days, as here, as the tug of war continues.

Correctio filialis de haeresibus propagatis. A "filial correction against propagation of heresies" -- a tool that has not been used since the 14th century. Kind of like autos-de-fe and other clever ways of eliminating "otherness" and shielding the "faithful." It's refreshing to know that the backwards moving voice of the Catholic Church is alive and well, with a group of ultra conservative theologians issuing a medieval style rebuke of Pope Francis for his softening of Church policies on divorced and civilly remarried Catholics, not to mention clergy who choose marriage over other forms of human frolic.

Pope Francis' brand of heresy may indeed prove to be one of the things that save the Church, with its dwindling membership and the recent weeding out of child molesters from the priesthood, but that's certainly not my business. We Jews have enough trouble with assimilation, and the likes of Ivanka and Jared giving us a bad name. We Americans have enough trouble with the presidential seal of approval on white supremacy. Do we not all have bigger things to worry about, after weeks of news coverage of what looks to be Mother Nature's push toward the "end of days," than what other folks choose to do in their adult bedrooms?

I have not had many priests in my life, but I remember fondly my first one -- Father Ed. As decent and pious, to me, once he married a woman as he was when he was at the helm of my in-laws' church, and always welcome, even after his official defrocking, in my in-laws' home. I remember the kind priest who insisted I join him in the sacristy before my father-in-law's funeral mass, a Jewish woman in a sea of male Catholic clergy, preparing for our readings. My mother-in-law was always amused, years later, when he would ask after me, by name, and my husband (her son; old whathisname).

We've had our own stake burnings here, sadly much more recently than the middle ages. We might as well take a few more pages from those dark times, maybe take a stab at a correctio filialis -- to stop, once and for all, the propagation of heresies and other abominations from the Peoples' House.

Bitterness and Sweetness on this New Year

My local Starbucks is going to be closed next Monday. As if things haven't gone haywire enough.

Claudette, the brassy and buxom blond barista with the thick Colombian accent who refers to me as "grande blonde" (I am neither) on days when she's slower to remember my name than my order, delivered the bad news along with my coffee yesterday. Still in an un-caffeinated stupor, I could muster up little more than shock and a smidge of panic. 

Rosh Hashanah has arrived, and almost everyone I know -- religious affiliation notwithstanding -- seems to be banking on this day for a shift in collective perspective. I posted my official Facebook wishes for health and happiness to everyone I've ever met early yesterday, thinking I'd get a jump on a little positivity. Lots of folks seemed to share my impatience; virtual hugs and kisses exploded like fireworks on my newsfeed. 

Was it enough to soften the edges of the catastrophes dominating the "real" (or, if you will, "fake") news? Not even a little. Hurricanes to end all hurricanes. Earthquakes to end all earthquakes. Climate change and rings of fire, conspiring to remind us just how small we really are. Kleptocrats and a good chunk of the Grand Old Party, conspiring to remind us just how small our government has become. I watch footage of regular people, some of whom have already lost a lot, picking through debris with their bare hands, emboldened by the faint hope of rescuing just one person. I watch footage of others, more fortunate, rushing in to give hope to the hopeless, lend a hand and a little bit of heart. 

I watch footage of clusters of white men in dark suits, working feverishly to ensure that privilege remains just that -- privilege. The good fortune reserved to a select few, entitlements for the entitled. That which the forces of nature cannot take away, Republicans will.  A president consumed with his own personal gain, chomping at the bit to sign his name to anything, no matter how inhumane. Soiling the White House, taking a break this week to soil the United Nations and insult entire continents. Still, he almost seems less repulsive than the buffoons on the Hill. There's something to be said for being genuine. At least he never had a soul to sell. 

It's going to be sunny today, the way its supposed to be on the Jewish High Holidays. A little warm for late September, but far be it from me to complain about the weather this hurricane season. The ground beneath me, here in Illinois, is quiet and still, and the air conditioning is working. 

I will pray, in my own way, today, for peace love and understanding and other stuff, like health care and human decency and generosity and compassion -- the things that lots of ordinary and not so ordinary people still seem to value. And I will pray, early and often, for a good coffee option on Monday, and a return to brassy and buxom Claudette on Tuesday. 

Squaring the Circle

On September 11, 2017, I went square dancing.

The day is always weighty, a time for reflection. I stop dead in my tracks if I happen to have the news on at one of those moments -- when a plane hit, when another plane hit, when the towers imploded, one, then the other. The Pentagon. The field somewhere in Pennsylvania. Every year, in between my moments of silence, I hold onto a faint hope, when I watch the images of the day, that the ending will be different.

This year, Mother Nature stole the show a bit. Images of the ocean rushing past houses. A woman desperately searching for her terrified cat in a half-submerged bush. Defiant folks determined to ride it out. First responders, as ever, certain of only one thing: that not responding is not an option.

As time rolls by, hurricane ravaged towns will be rebuilt, and the memories -- at least for those of us who were not there -- will fade. Lower Manhattan gleams and thrives now, sixteen years later, with little trace of the torn up streets and debris and makeshift memorials and gaping ash-filled hole that remained for what seemed like an eternity, no trace of the surreal horror of a beautiful September morning obliterated, the deafening roar of a city's -- and a nation's -- silent scream.

My son, eleven years old at the time, told me, back then, that he wanted to be an air force pilot when he grew up. Maybe it was irrational of me to encourage him, all those years ago, tell him I'd be so proud. More likely I was being realistic; time and maturity and his own growing sense of mortality would cure him of this selflessness, and I would come through it all with both my patriotism and my precious son in tact -- a win/win. These days, as proud as I am of my daughter, I wonder if I would have offered up full-throated encouragement, a few weeks ago, had she told me before she and some friends set out on a road trip to Houston to help. Would I have been able to suppress the mom piece, the one that worried about all that water and all that bacteria and wanted to tell her she should just stay safe and toss some extra dollars in cans. Would I have been able to misguide her so badly, just for my own peace of mind? I hope not.

When my son moved to Japan five years ago, I had not so secretly hoped the threat of repeated tsunamis and radiation would give him pause. It did not. These days, with North Korean missiles flying over his adopted island country on a regular basis -- at least as I see it -- I thought maybe he'd think it was time to leave. He gave me the standard rational explanation -- that he's not in Seoul, so there's no need to panic. He mused, though, that he had contemplated moving to Tokyo -- a more likely target than his smaller city and, given evidence of pretty bad aim, the one place most likely to be missed.

I laugh at myself, wishing he would come back to this side of the world, where crazy things like missile fly-overs don't happen. Ha. Safety is a crap shoot; the best I could hope for if he came back this way is a greater chance of sharing a meal together. Nothing to sneeze at, but certainly not a good enough reason to interfere with his journey.

Square dancing on September 11 was a good thing. It made the day seem ordinary, to the extent that figuring out what it means to allemande left or wheel around means is an ordinary thing for me. What else is there to do, really, with so much craziness outside the square?

Somewhere on Peachtree Road

A woman I just met told me she had recently met a much older woman in the elevator of her "senior living" building, somewhere in a leafy and hilly section of Atlanta. As it turns out, the older woman was from Jackson, Mississippi.

"What the heck would a Jew be doing in Jackson, Mississippi?" My new friend has a refreshingly endearing way of saying (or asking) whatever comes to mind, but she admitted that, this time, her hasty blurt had been a surprise, even to her. I silently chastised myself for my own ignorance, having assumed that the older woman from Jackson, Mississippi in the elevator must have been an employee; I hadn't noticed any residents who weren't white. 

As it turns out, the 97 year old woman from Jackson, Mississippi had perfectly good reasons to be from there, not the least of which was her years of civil rights activism -- with commendations and citations on her apartment wall to prove it. My new friend -- a much younger Jew (at about 85) from Philadelphia -- was fascinated by her new friend's story, even wrote about it in a a piece titled something like "Everything I ever knew about the South I learned from Gone With the Wind." 

Everything I ever knew about Jackson, Mississippi I learned from my drive through there with my daughter last January, at night, in a snowstorm. The roads were slick and desolate; everyone, except us, apparently, had heeded the warnings and stayed inside. It was dark and cold in Jackson, Mississippi, and we felt conspicuously White when we ran into a fast food joint to get dinner to eat in the car as we continued to speed toward civilization. Well, New Orleans. My daughter's veggie burger and my chicken sandwich both turned out to be leathery hamburgers. We pitched those, just ate the fries. If there's one thing you can depend on in the South, it's the fries. Speaking of stereotypes. 

My new friend was thrilled about all she had learned from the lady from Jackson, not just the stuff about being Jewish in the deep South and civil rights movements from long ago and sacrifices made by folks who would turn over in their graves if they saw the giant and hopefully temporary steps backward we have taken lately, although, at the very least, that stuff gives us hope. My friend was even more thrilled, though, about what she had done for this one, grand lady, a quiet survivor of a life well lived. Elderly, infirm, tucked away in a "senior living" building somewhere on one of the zillions of roads called "Peachtree" in Atlanta, she had become invisible. Many of us might have looked right through her, never knowing this Jew from Jackson, Mississippi had a lifetime of stories to tell and lessons to teach. 

I cannot wait to read my friend's article, inspired by a fortuitous lack of tact and endless curiosity, and a rare willingness to see the world from outside the comfort of the bubble that beckons us all. Different bubbles, same concept. Theoretically, they help us to make sense of things. Well, that hasn't worked out very well, now, has it? 

Fiddle-dee-dee, Scarlet. Frankly, it's high time time we all give a damn. 

Pregnant Pauses

I'm getting accustomed to the idea that people my age are becoming grandparents. It's only natural, with our kids coupling up and getting married and launching themselves into lives that don't really require our input. Yes, input. It must be why grandchildren were invented.

My friend put it all into perspective for me yesterday when she introduced me to a prospective grandmother -- well into her third trimester. She didn't look old at all, until my friend reminded me that she is, now,  who our mothers and mothers-in-law were back in the day, waiting for the call so they could come and help out. Wise. Ancient. Never too busy with their own lives to drop everything and take care of us. I looked at my new acquaintance through a different lens. Wise. Ancient. A has-been. She is a year younger than I.

She seems unfazed by her sudden descent into old age -- excited even. I thought about my other friend, newly "grandmothered" and looking even more spectacular then ever. I could swear she glows, especially when she announces how many ounces the baby sucked down yesterday. I gasped with enthusiasm at the news, though I had no idea why it was news. It's been a while since I've measured (or cared) what any of my kids have eaten.

Come to think of it, it's been a while since any of my kids have required my input. If anything, I am the seeker, not so much of input but of approval and validation and reassurance that they still need me, even though they really don't. Suddenly, I realize all is not lost. I remember those disconcerting feelings of incompetence, those early days when, suddenly, somebody's very existence depended on me. I had lost my status, I was no longer the omniscient and capable adult who wondered how her own parents managed to get through the day without doing something really stupid. I needed my mother, I needed my mother-in-law, I needed anybody who might be able to tell me what to do.

It didn't last long, that desperate need for input from the very people I had long discounted as somewhat ignorant and incompetent. But for the grandmothers, the new found joy long outlasted my temporary desperation. They had gotten a taste of "input," and they weren't about to let it go. It would be a long time before the grandchildren would catch on, begin to roll their eyes, figure out just how little their elders know.

Kudos to the guy or the gal who invented grandchildren. I think I get it.

Pink Houses and Soggy Blankets

Suddenly, it's late August.

Right on schedule, Mother Nature has unleashed its fury on our southern neighbors, while we here in the Midwest are enjoying what appears to be an early autumn. My town's last art fair of the season will be dismantled later today, and, soon, the outdoor concert traffic will dissipate --  the ribbons of creeping cars, the shuttle buses, the endless parade of visitors dragging coolers and chairs and blankets and folding tables and movable feasts.

As the harbingers of summer that put a spring in our step in May and provided us with welcome diversions through the dog days begin to signal the transition into shorter and cooler days, I start to savor my last gasp. Yesterday, I spent hours wandering among the art fair tents, searching for the reasonably priced memento that is different enough from everything I already own to always remind me of the summer of 2017. I will resume my search today.

Last night, I felt particularly lucky to be squeezed into a tight rectangle of grass with friends to enjoy tacos and tequila and wine and brownies and grapes (grapes?) while we waited for John Mellencamp to blast out the oldies that would bring us all back to our own separate pasts. The rain came in fits and starts, but most of us stayed, didn't even bother with umbrellas. I was acutely aware of how blessed I was, last night, enjoying a concert in a little bit of harmless drizzle.

Two of us ventured off to get some ice cream, tiptoeing around the mosaic of soggy blankets, tripping on coolers, squeezing past the motley array of makeshift living rooms. Nobody minded the jostling, and lots of people even pointed toward the quickest paths through the maze. We strolled around the perimeter, forgetting about the ice cream -- just enjoying the show, on and off the stage.

And, re-entering the sea of soggy blankets around where we thought we had exited, we got lost. The golden 40th birthday balloons that had been our landmark had disappeared, and suddenly, in the dark, everything looked the same. "Do you remember us?" we asked as we moved from cluster to cluster, hoping we might have made an impression on someone on our way out. We hadn't. We found ourselves in the middle of a big party. Colleen, the ringleader, begged us to have some chicken. She had brought crab dip, but everyone else had brought chicken. She introduced us to her friends.

Eventually, lots of folks started to recognize us. "You again?" They couldn't believe we were still lost. "It feels like Groundhog Day," one of them said. A guy in one of our favorite groups insisted we take some beers with us. There would be more waiting for us at our next pass.

We found our friends. We told them about our harrowing journey. They had not even noticed we were gone. We danced, we packed up our little makeshift living room, and we made our way out of the park -- a little fatter, a little drunker, and very content.

I glanced back at the end of another summer filled with simple pleasures. Now, if that ain't America, I don't know what is.