1010. #BlogElul 20: Fill (in remembrance of 9/11)

Last Monday was the 16th anniversary, which much of this country seems to have overlooked. I did, too, to some degree—there's so much else to worry about right now.

When I think of important dates in my life, birth, graduation, and so forth, and then count back 16 years, the distance feels like another era. Things that happened even a year or two before I was born are firmly entombed in my mind's history. But 9/11, in many ways, still seems like yesterday. What helps fill the gaping chasm in my soul is to look at this installation at the 9/11 Museum:

"Trying to Remember the Color of the Sky on That September Morning" by Spencer Finch

Somewhat reluctantly, I visited the museum two years ago at the invitation of a visiting friend who wanted her children to experience it. I'd done my best to avoid even having to go to that part of the city. Although I had to skip the graphic exhibits that were too close to my nightmares, others—photos of first responders, salvaged steel posts covered with marker scrawls of love and hope—were good to see, and reminded me that we humans can be great at times. The tour guide was calm and respectful, as if we were at a memorial service.

And then we reached this artwork, in front of a wall behind which unidentified remains still sleep. I thought of earlier that morning, when I went running in the park and marveled at the impossible color of the sky. Keeping that blue in my mind's eye, to retrieve when blackness was all I could imagine, filled me with strength and hope throughout the day and unreal weeks and followed. It still does.

1009. #BlogElul 19: Speak

Nothing came to mind for this one, which tells me a lot. I'm not so great at speaking my mind. I have many strong opinions, and often do act on them, but am more likely to do so in private. The downside of this approach is that my actions usually don't beget more action, nor energize me to continue to act. Stoking a fire in one's belly requires a community to fan the flames. It's all well and good to volunteer quietly, but every once in awhile a loud announcement is required to demonstrate that we all have the power to prod along change. Volume is not my strong suit. I hope I can figure out a better way to raise my voice this year, and speak what needs to be said, without going too far beyond my comfort zone. (A little beyond, though, is just fine.)

1008. #BlogElul 18: Ask

What dare I ask God for at this time of year? My heart wants so much, so much of which is too petty to voice. I need to remember that God knows this, and so my job is to prioritize and push the really important questions to the fore so that God (meaning, the part of God mirrored in me) can try to make them come true.

1007. #BlogElul 17: Awaken

Since I mostly work for myself, there are days when I have to sit in front of the computer for hours on end. Unless I go out of my way to make it happen, on those days I may well not see another human being. Luckily, a wonderful little coffee shop opened in the lobby of my building, practically in my living room. I stumble in almost every morning as soon as they open, along with an equally ragged crew of regulars: The prim and proper young woman who works for a non-profit, always typing intently on her laptop. The garrulous, friendly man in his 60s of unknown profession, who pays for his cappuccino from a massive wad of bills. (I don't want to know.) The German musician, whose friendship with the other German-speaking guy with the dog I watched blossom. The cable TV producer who occasionally talks about her famous boss. A few impossibly fit trainers on the way to early appointments, who sometimes stay for awhile and have deep conversations about working out. We all smile and acknowledge each other's presence, and unlike the usual custom, make room at our tiny tables. Sometimes there are animated conversations; mostly we remain in our own little worlds and fulfill early-morning obligations (like writing in this blog) over the best coffee in the city.

I love waking up in the company of this eclectic group, who help me feel connected to all those other New Yorkers I don't really know. No matter what, we're in this together. And caffeine really helps.

1006. #BlogElul 16: Pray

I really do love to pray. As a kid, as I've written somewhere before in this blog, I never understood what the whole business was about. Adults murmured words to themselves in a strange language; then they sat down, mumbled some more, and did it all over again for a few hours. My father (and, I assumed, all men) engaged in this exercise at home before work, a tallit-draped silhouette standing by the window in my parents' Wedgwood-blue bedroom.

Whenever I tried the mumbling, or followed along with the English thees and thous, they were just words. God didn't answer. When I needed to talk to God, I did so in my heart and soul, with no hoary paragraphs getting in the way. I concluded that praying was an ability that people acquired as they became adults, like how to pay taxes or know when the eggs were about to run out.

Then I became an actual adult, and still couldn't do it. Singling in a choir felt like I was getting close, but the God I was addressing in the words of Bach and Brahms was, most of the time, a Christian one, which was very, very confusing.

When I stumbled upon my synagogue, and learned that my own tradition also had music and beautiful poetic translations that made a great deal of sense, prayer began to work. I hope and pray that I never stop learning.

1005. #BlogElul 15: Intend

Rosh Hashanah is in less than a week; the sleepy summer really is over. Last week I began teaching a design classes at a local college, tackling very many more work deadlines and meetings, and going to High Holy Days rehearsals. This is also the week when I traditionally start praying that no one sneezes on me in the subway.

From now until Sept. 20, I intend:

• to get a lot of sleep (or at least more than usual)
• to remember, every single day, how lucky I am
• to go running at least once or twice (the pool where I swim is closed for cleaning until the end of the month, which I know is necessary to do once a year, but I just wish it weren't this month)
• to enjoy the practicing part as much as the real thing, which won't be hard
• to be patient with myself and others, and remember that we are all flawed human beings, and are trying our best
• to do whatever I can to fulfill these intentions during all the months after Tishrei, as well.

1004. #BlogElul 14: Learn

This summer, for a new creative idea that I hope will soon become an actual venture, I learned to sew. I started with a 2-hour class at a sewing school and then graduated to College of YouTube, which boasts approximately a million videos about everything from how to pin (not so simple) to how to make your own upholstery (definitely not what I'll be doing). Despite the sewing class I was forced to take in 7th grade, I had no idea of the kind of hand-eye-foot coordination involved. I'm a designer, and so haughtily assumed that picking up the skills of a craft would be a breeze.

Nope. I guess over-confidence was good to get me started, but learning this hasn't been easy. I'm getting better, slowly but surely, but have far to go.

One of my commitments for the month of Elul, and beyond: Every time I sit down at the sewing machine, I will try to remember to thank God for giving me the ability to learn, grow, be creative, and find joy in all those things.

1003. #BlogElul 13: Remember

A few years ago I was asked to sing Psalm 23 after Yizkor at Yom Kippur services. (Usually the more senior leaders or real cantorial students do this, but there were none around that particular day.) I was nervous—not because of the singing part, but the emotional. I have many people to think of at Yizkor. More of my family is no longer on this earth than are. The remembering part of Yizkor is what makes the prayer meaningful for me, and I didn't want to bypass that so I could focus completely on singing. But of course I didn't want to screw up the singing because I wasn't concentrating.

I decided to just let the moment happen, and trust that my brain and heart would find the right direction.

I had four uncles, my mother's four older brothers, who all died by the time I was 18. I have very strong memories of them all, even though two died before I was 6: Ruby, dark, quiet, and always smiling. Charlie, sandy-haired, a little louder, a font of funny malapropisms. Moe, proud businessman with a voice like Archie Bunker's, minus the politics, thank goodness ("my little goil!"). And last but not least, Ben, the oldest and quietest, who offered few words in his soft, gravelly voice, and loved me fiercely.

And for some reason, even though their existence has seemed almost mystical for many years—did they really exist, or did I dream them through my mother's stories?—I suddenly felt them next to me at the bima, two on each side. Memories became as close to flesh as possible, just at that moment when I needed someone to put a hand on my shoulder. They remained there throughout the song, making sure I wasn't alone.

1002. #BlogElul 12: Count

For many years, whenever I didn't want to do whatever it was I had to do, I'd consult The List. Often it was an actual, written List, and sometimes just a long scrolling one in my head. I'd count the items, and figure out how crossing out some would organize my life--and by definition, solve all my problems—and also become a wonderful—logical!excuse for procrastinating. The List was mainly filled with things that needed weeding out: Boxes of old clothes. Pre-internet-era photos screaming to be in albums. Almost definitely viable art supplies dating back to the 80s. This stuff required careful examination before I could decide whether to discard it, or give it away to a worthy recipient. Then and only then would the earth balance on its axis.

I did not actually possess a whole lot of stuff. I was an average keeper of things, fairly neat. I made my bed every day. But I always yearned for the apartment version of In-box Zero.

As they say, be careful of what you ask for: you may get it. In Dec. 2015, I was gifted with bedbugs by my upper middle-class next-door neighbor in my lovely, upper middle-class building. She didn't mean to do it. OK, that's too kind: she didn't care, either way. Her only goal was to banish them, in shameful secrecy, from her own apartment, which drove them screaming through the walls to their next victims: me, and the neighbors above and below me. The bugs liked us better than her, and fought with their cold, little hearts to remain as long as possible.

Maybe one day I'll write a book about this, or a whole bunch of blog posts. Dorothy Parker's famous words (upon hearing her doorbell ring),"What fresh hell is this?", will summarize, for now, how I felt upon waking up each morning in my furniture-less bedroom in, successively, a sleeping bag surrounded by a moat of Vaseline; an Amazon rainforest-quality tent; and finally, curled up on a piano bench, wondering how my lovely middle-class life had come to such decrepitude. Finally, after three months of exhausting the talents of four exterminators and a beagle named Sophie, my building and I were bug-free

During this process, I also had to inspect every single item I owned. Everything: each piece of paper, sock, earring, pillow, book, photo. (Not the stuff in my kitchen, thank goodness; that was the sanctuary where I camped out amidst piles of clothing.) Remaining possessions were quarantined in plastic bags with horribly toxic bug strips, and then inspected again in an alley behind my building, just in case. I thought of the aria from Handel's "Messiah": "For He is like a refiner's fire." What remained, at the end, was what counted. I've now retired The List, since I no longer have anything to organize. There isn't enough left.

I still have plenty, though. More than enough. This state of essential spareness feels good. Maybe one day I'll thank God for the lesson. I'm not quite at that stage.

1001. #BlogElul 11: Trust

Only as an adult, long after both my parents had left this world, did I understand the extent of their trust in me. When I was in college, in that long-ago era before helicopter parenting, I was embarrassed whenever they called, showed up, or did any of those keeping tabs kind of things that mortify young adults. Truth is, though, I loved it. I wanted my mother to know what happened each day; telling her seemed like the of love, as well as a necessary record-keeping part of life. I didn't share everything, of course—and so when my parents told me how proud they were, which was often, it made me feel guilty enough to not do so much of those things about which I knew they wouldn't be so proud.

In none of those calls did they tell me what decisions to make, or what to major in, even after I chose the most impractical major in the history of majors. They made it clear that whatever my decision, they were certain I was adult enough to have reached it honestly. I remember this gift of trust whenever I doubt my direction. Even when that direction turns out to be wrong, I try my best to believe in myself and understand that I got wherever I did with full intention and conviction.

1000. #BlogElul 10: Forgive

There's one person in my life I need to forgive. I've been trying to do this for the past 5 years; I have not yet succeeded. We grew up together, and she was like a sister to me. Throughout the years and the ordinary markers of life and loss—loved ones dying, boyfriends moving on (or vice versa), friends (or me) changing—I was certain, in the deepest part of my soul, that she'd always be there. I imagined us approaching 100, in rocking chairs on a porch somewhere in the woods (never mind that we were both city people to the core; fantasies are not rational), laughing hysterically at that thing we did at 15.

I was so invested in our permanence that I chose to ignore signs that, in any other friendship, would send me running. For years I made excuses: she's going through a rough patch; despite [fill in the blank], she really does have a big heart; as soon as she [fill in the blank], she'll start acting normal. When I brought up these issues, I'd be either dismissed or assured that everything was under control. She told me she hated emotions. We argued; I thought we made up, but wasn't sure. She talked a lot, but said nothing.

And then she got sick, and I was worried and offered to help, and she stopped talking to me. I understand the trauma of illness; I waited, and waited some more. I reached out. I learned from a mutual friend that she had instructed everyone not to tell me if she was dead or alive. I felt like I had been stabbed, and was on the way to being dead. I reached out again and again, gently, then forcefully. No response. I'd been unfriended, on Facebook and everywhere else, as if our past had simply ceased to exist.

I wallowed in anger, hurt, guilt, and grief for quite some time, but slowly came to understand the extent of her damage, and I that I'd known about it for quite some time. I just didn't want to see it. Even more slowly, I inched toward forgiveness. I'm not there yet, but every Elul brings me closer. I really want to remember how much I once loved her, and be able to recall those times with joy. Besides, the other, less pleasant emotions just take up too much energy, and I know that carrying their weight is a choice. I want to be able to take the other road, toward love and compassion.

998. #BlogElul 8: Hear

"Despacito"

https://vimeo.com/204469177

I *love* this song. I am responsible for some (OK, many) of the almost 4 billion views of the video—really 4 billion, more than half the population of the world. My musical tastes usually gravitate to classical, with big detours to The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and piyutim, but this one hit me like a truck. The words are kinda dirty, and the poetry, well, not great. ("Let's do it on the beach in Puerto Rico 'til the waves scream 'my god.'") But the Spanish sounds so lovely and lilting that they could be singing the phone book for all I care, and the utterly beautiful people in the video look to be having more fun than I've had in my entire life. They're not just acting. I've been around enough truly happy and sad people in my life to tell that they're having a genuine blast.

Oh, and the music itself. I love how the slightly electronic tinge of DY's rapping bounces off Fonsi's vocal lugubriousness. I love the insistent reggaeton beat, brand new to me, and the part at the end where the solos disappear and we hear everyone kid of ragged and joyous in the background as if we were at that party, too.

Most of all, listening to (and watching) this song is a reminder to have fun in a world with very little of that right now. And to succumb to the charms of an earworm every now and then.

999. #BlogElul 9: See

These are drawings and paintings by the artist Vija Celmins. Whenever I'm overwhelmed, and forget that peace and order are all around me if only I remember to see them, I listen to Bach and look at the art of Vija Celmins. They both remind me that it's possible to find beauty in details without forgetting the bigger picture. How exquisite those details can be!—the tiny crest of the granddaughter of a wave, a shy congregation of stars. I've been swimming laps this summer, a new hobby; feeling the water against my limbs and watching blue of the pool change as I travel down the lane past peripheral arms and legs is another reminder. The smaller parts of a thing or idea that we forget to see are often the sweetest.

997. #BlogElul 7: Understand

The older I get, the more astonished I am by how little we understand one another.

I remember the moment, as a child, when I realized that no one saw the world exactly as I did. No one else but me could occupy the universe in the exact same physical space. I was my own self-contained universe, formed and fueled by the wind hitting no one's arms exactly as they did mine, light entering my eyes from a perspective unique to me alone. It was an overwhelming awareness.

So I began to understand why human beings find it so hard to agree: when you get down to it, we all base our decisions on a different set of facts. As I sit in this chair at the coffee shop, I have no way of knowing that the boy at the counter is experiencing the pain of the formation of a lifelong scar. His father, through the filter of my own experience, seems to be engaged in harmless parental scolding. Or: wait, is she just moving on, or is this a betrayal? Or: locker-room talk, or horrifying misogyny? The answers can be completely different and completely true to both perpetrator and observer. And even if one answer is the right one, and the other so completely wrong—as is often the case—we get nowhere by insisting that our side is right. The only solution, I'm slowly beginning to understand, is to try to force ourselves through painful, narrow crevices into the utterly alien place of the other.

996. #BlogElul 6: Want

My first thought, upon reading this prompt, was that this would be a very short one. Only one want consumes most of my waking hours these days: a new president.

But I—we—can't have that right now, or perhaps (I gasp and choke to even type these words) for many years to come.

So, in the interim, I want:

• To find the strength to remain calm and rational when reading the news.
• To become a little less obsessed with reading the news.
• To seek out small, quiet acts of goodness around me that I often overlook in the course of mundane life: The friend who calls to check up. The stranger in the coffee shop who asks how I'm doing. Community members who come together to scrub off the swastika graffiti defacing a church (yes, this happened), and instead plaster the wall with messages of love.
• To remember that all these little goodnesses will continue to multiply as more people witness them in action, and understand that action is possible.

Sure, I want lots of other personal stuff. But all the above has to take precedence right now.