Sick

It's been a few years since I've been really sick. Part of that is because I had the flu shot every year because of my parents. This year, I was going to have one anyhow, but the doctor didn't have them yet. I think I caught an early flu; so much for that.
This is an odd bug. It started with R, whose illness came on overnight. Perhaps his throat felt a little scratchy before that, but he wasn't complaining. With me, it started with stuffiness in the nose, and then escalated, gradually. I thought I had it licked with zinc tablets, but I couldn't sleep last night, and it got much worse.
I should just get up and do something when I can't sleep. There's nothing worse than just lying there being anxious about not sleeping. Let's just hope I can catch up on sleep today.

Yom Kippur Reflections

It's Yom Kippur again, and I have a lot to think about this year, with so many changes and some regrets looking backward. It just shows me that one never knows what is coming around blind corners, and this can be to one's advantage as well as to her detriment.
Yom Kippur is the most solemn and significant holiday of the Jewish calendar. It is, as most people know, the Day of Repentance, but what does that mean for people who do not, as Christians do, believe humans to be born sinful and in need of salvation?
Rather than believing that human beings are sinful, inherently flawed creatures, Jews think of sin as "missing the mark," as an arrow misses its target. Our actions go astray, we make the wrong choices, or something not intended in a negative way has negative consequences we have not foreseen. At any given moment, we have these choices before us; sometimes we make the correct ones, sometimes not, but it is fully in our power and our responsibility to make them. This is very different from saying we are powerless without a deus ex machina to sweep down and correct our inevitably corrupt and broken lives.
This holiday gives us the opportunity to mend our relationships ourselves, to repair any broken links in our lives or to start over again. In the middle ages, when many Jews were forced to foreswear their faith and become Christians or die, Yom Kippur allowed them to tell God, sotto voce, as it were, that they didn't really mean the oaths the had sworn, that they were still Jews, under the surface.
In the modern world, Yom Kippur is a very psychologically-oriented day, when one mulls over what in her character she would like to change. I'd like to become less brittle, less stubborn, less prideful, less fearful, more apt to let my light shine. When I think about the years I have wasted because I have been afraid of one thing or another, it makes me angry at myself. I have to keep in mind my father, how he lived those last 5 unabashed and happy years to their fullest. With any luck, I have much more than that, time to do good things for others, to write, to love, to give.
Thanks for checking in here and being part of my life, all year round!

Snug As a Bug

Yesterday it rained very hard. People here don't know how to drive in the rain, so it is best, if one can manage it, to stay off the road. It may also be because the drainage is next to nil that the streets get more slippery than one would expect. The first big rain of the season is also the slipperiest, so that makes it even more dicey.
So after yoga yesterday, I decided to go home and catch up on some work. I promised myself I was going to work on my workshop syllabus for the synagogue, though I don't know for certain whether it is going to happen or not. It is one of few classes that is not free, and people are not signing up in large numbers. For some reason, perhaps how tentative it feels, I have been having a very hard time doing my syllabus.
So I revised my manuscript for the book, had it copied, and sent it out to a publisher. I had to pay a small reading fee, but it was smaller than most, so I didn't mind too much.
I also did some reading, prepared the menu and shopping list for Friday afternoon and the dish I am doing for break-fast on Saturday (Yom Kippur), when I am invited to a pot-luck after services.
I am part way through Grossman's new book, which I am enjoying, but I think his first book, Codex, was better. Perhaps the next one, The Magicians, was also slightly better than this one. It is still worth reading though.

Torah Comments for a Wet Wednesday

Today, supposedly, the storms we have been expecting will finally hit, and I should plan a long day, following yoga class, of reading, writing, and reflection on the writing workshop I may or may not be teaching at the synagogue.
Last night I went to Torah class, which was full of the usual suspects. We discussed an interesting portion, Mishpatim, in which God presents yet more rules and regulations to the people of Israel prior to their moving forward on their long journey out of slavery.
Intriguingly enough, these extra laws, aside and apart and on top of those in the decalogue, include many that make it clear that slavery was a regular part of life for these people who had been slaves so recently themselves. For a people whose central tenet, enshrined in the heart of the culture and the faith, was the necessity of being a free people, they accepted slavery very blithely, as did God.
The rules here outline specific legal formulae for punishing various kinds of infractions or running everyday life. There were apparently many Israelite debt slaves. If they were men, they had to be freed in the 7th year after their enslavement. If they were women though, sold by their parents, they would not be freed unless the master was displeased by them. Then they must be given back to their parents or freed, even though to free them meant they would utterly lack protection and might starve or be open to attack.
This rule, seemingly so harsh to us, actually apparently was an effort at kindness, but it certainly makes it clear what the status (or lack thereof) of women in that culture was.
And should that woman be a foreign captive, she was never entitled to be freed, unless she were by chance married to an Israelite former slave, who chose to buy her freedom and that of his children with her, should the master be amenable to this arrangement.
There were many other odd formulae, which seemed arbitrary to us, but would probably have made sense in the culture of the time. Among these was the odd precept that if a master beat his slave and killed him outright, the master would be executed for murder. But if the slave was just badly injured and didn't die till later, the master would not be punished. However, if the slave lost an eye or a tooth the frey, he would go free. Strange!
The lex talionis shone front and center in this portion. It was clear that this was never meant literally. No one who cut off a hand would have his own hand cut off, for example. It was all about proportionality in punishment, a principle we hew to today.

Tuesday Adventures

On Tuesdays, I often take adventures with Liz. This morning early, we started out on a short hike, then drove to a beading class in Orange. Unfortunately, that had been cancelled, though the teacher didn't tell Liz this. We hung around Barnes and Noble for a while, picking up some books (I had a gift card R's student had given him, which he directed me to spend on myself; I gladly obliged). Then we took Liz's dad out to lunch near his assisted living facility.
I had long heard about her dad, about how intelligent, good natured, and sweet he was, so I was interested to meet him. Though he looked nothing like I imagined (more like a silver-haired model of men's clothing), he was all she said--a good listener, though he evidently was having some hearing problems, a problem I share, so I sympathize-- and very kind and generous.
After lunch we went over to the Irvine Museum, a very small art museum housing Joan Irvine's collection of California landscape paintings (or a small selection of them). These were lovely, well worth a visit if you find yourself in this area.
Tonight I will go to Torah group! Never a still moment, though in the interval, I have managed to send out my poetry collection online to one of the few publishers who will read unsolicited collections of poetry without a charge. Wish me luck!

Gauging my State

Yesterday I took my first hike with OC hiking, accompanied by Judy from choir and Liz. It was rated an "advanced beginner" hike. Now I have absolutely no equipment to speak of as far as hiking goes, but am an avid walker, though I have not recently (before yesterday that is) undertaken that walking in any particularly organized way. Mostly I am a tireless shopper and walker of streets, used to walking the city for days at a time from an early age. Regular hiking? Not so much... though R and I have gone on some walks, and used to run together in years gone by.
I don't have proper hiking shoes, but figured a pair of suede Vans with traction would do the trick. I also bought a new water bottle for the occasion, one that was supposed to be absolutely leak proof. Ha. It ended up leaking all over me, which was a nice cool bath on a hot day, but didn't do much to hydrate me internally. I managed to conserve about a quarter of the water because Liz had a plastic bag I put the thing in, but if it hadn't been for another hiker with frozen water bottles to spare, I would have been in big trouble.
Apparently, I wasn't very realistic about my abilities. This hike truly was much more challenging than I expected, and I ended up in the rear for the whole way, just about. There were so many hills, and they were so challenging to me that I was dizzy and nauseated for much of the time. I also felt embarrassed that I had undertaken a hike that was so difficult for me. It just showed me how out of shape I was.
Luckily for me, the leader of the hike was very supportive and kind. She gave me her bandana, with ice cold water I could drip on my face, head, and body, and put an electrolyte tablet in my water bottle, so I could make it the rest of the way.
I left resolved to become inured to hills, if it kills me. I also decided to pay a trip to REI today to get more prepared for these hikes in the future, especially with a better way to assure I have water!
Despite the fact that I was rather shaky for much of the day, and spent it reading the paper and watching cooking shows, I went to Denise's Costa Mesa class in the afternoon, and toughed that out, feeling humbled and a bit ashamed that menopause has been able to make me this fat and weak.

Evening at Tebot Bach

At their worst, literary readings can be lifeless and boring, a plodding chore for both audience and authors. Even when the work itself is fine and worth reading, not all authors do justice to the performative act, though it is true that to some degree a poem is best realized in the accent and tone of its author; it's just that one might not want to sit through 40 minutes or so of it.
But when the work and author are totally in synch, and the audience is receptive and eager to hear what the author has to say, readings can be a totally different matter. Last night, the little room at Golden West College that has so often seemed dingy and unwelcoming lit up with the 1000 watt talents of readers, featured and open-mic alike, each very different from the others, most eminently worth hearing.
Tamara Madison was the first featured reader. She read from her new book Wild Domestic, published by Pearl Press, with its wonderful cover featuring an old vacuum cleaner stranded in a field. The poems ranged from lyrical and emotional to heavily cerebral, focused on linguistic nuances, like one pun-heavy poem examining the difference between "lay" and "lie."
Clearly, she is very comfortable with live reading and with her material.
She was followed by Daniel McGinn, a long time local poet, whom I have managed not to meet before, probably because he haunts north county readings, while I, still hampered by an inability to fly the freeways as easily as I might, generally go no farther north than Golden West College. Apparently I am missing a lot.
McGinn is a masterful, practiced reader, who just returned from a reading tour to promote his new collection 1000 Black Umbrellas, which has been nominated for a National Book Award.
His work and his presence was very different from the delicate Madison's. A great hulking man who writes poems that would be easy to identify as coming from a man, his poems were open and moving, wildly imaginative and imagistic.
The open readers, which included me, I confess, were enjoyable too. They created an experience that showcased what is best about poetry, the notion that a room can be filled with 50 different voices, each distinctive, each representing a unique experience in the world.
I am very glad I drove those many miles of night-time road to be there. It was a wonderful experience being part of this evening. I recommend these writers and these books to you. Both will be at the Long Beach Poetry Festival on October 15. Sadly,
I will probably not be able to be there, since I am signed up for a pranayama workshop that day, but the festival is an all day affair, and I may manage to get there for a while. All the same, I recommend it to you. Check it out.