Shabbat, February 28, Adar 9… 5 years.

Shabbat, February 28, Adar 9… 5 years.

Beautiful humans,

I have been torn open again today. It sort of feels like, “Fiiiinally.” This Keats poem from the lovely “Poem-A-Day” emails was one of the tipping points… I think it was the first line that did me in – the recognition of infinite.

On the Grasshopper and Cricket

BY JOHN KEATS

The poetry of earth is never dead:    

  When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,    

  And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run    

From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;    

That is the Grasshopper’s—he takes the lead      

  In summer luxury,—he has never done    

  With his delights; for when tired out with fun    

He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.    

The poetry of earth is ceasing never:    

  On a lone winter evening, when the frost     

    Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills    

The Cricket’s song, in warmth increasing ever,    

  And seems to one in drowsiness half lost,    

    The Grasshopper’s among some grassy hills.

Thank you for being here to bear witness and see me in my smiles and tears.

I have many words to share, but I’m not sure that they will come to me so clearly.

I want to say … thank you. Thank you for everything. I feel most held in this community than I have anywhere else this month.

It’s interesting to be away from home during this period. I don’t have you all right here, and I don’t feel like I have a Jewish base, and I certainly don’t have a way of going to the cemetery to sit with my mom. And yet, in my work on building a relationship with myself, I have created a sanctuary for my tender soul. The part of Allie’s post that most struck me was how many of you on this list are my home. 

I guess the main factual things I want to share are…

- Today is Shabbat, the last day of February, the 9^th of Adar, the 5^th yahrtzeit (anniversary) of my mother’s death.

- Last night, at the beginning of the yahtzreit, I cried with a friend who many of you probably know about our parents being dead and what it means to be going through our twenties without them. I said something that I really mean. My relationship with my mom continues to inform every part of my life, and in that way, she gave me every thing I needed in 23 years.

- Then, around 1am Tel Aviv time, I got a text message from my dad, “Last views from 140.” You see, yesterday, we said goodbye to the apartment where I have the most recent memories with my mother, the apartment where she died, but more importantly, the apartment where Ima and I most recently cuddled while watching Gilmore Girls, where her dissertation materials were beautifully displaced, where every corner had a little bit of Ima in it, from the chamsot at the entrance to the early Zionist coasters on the coffee table. The pictures my dad sent are here…  End of a beautiful time, and also, it is time.

It got me thinking about how I have written about this view before. To many of you, in July 2010. 

“the fourth of july has not ever held much meaning for me, but tonight it did, so i thought i'd come to my kehilah-sangha (community of loved ones) to share. tonight, we were at my apartment on the fourth of july for the first time since we've lived here. the day was crazy because our entire street was closed, the west side highway was completely blocked off (pedestrians had a great view from up there), so we were basically on lockdown, an enforced shabbat, if you will. even though i had multiple dilemmas with facing my own privilege today, i mostly enjoyed the atmosphere brought about by a car-less neighborhood. even more, it was one of the first joyful occasions we've had at this apartment in almost a year. with family, we relaxed and brought life back into the apartment; we brought my mom's energy back into this space.

my mom cherished the view from our apartment in ways that i didn't really understand. she liked most the moments when the river was quiet. she'd wake up at 5am, sometimes before, watch the sunrise, see the buildings cast shadows over the river, stare patiently at the slow movements of the huge cruise ships pulling into their docks. she always noticed the underdogs too -- she loved those charming little tugboats. and she loved sunset, and i feel it's a time when i can most seamlessly connect with her. i included a glimpse of today's. (sidebar: akriti and i have spoken often of how we might live if we believed that we were each sunsets. "you can live your life believing you are a sunset, loving yourself, being in awe of yourself; it is a reason to be alive," akriti once said to me.)

… it was a night when she, just like me, would have been smitten with new york, with its romantic summers that remind you you're living. a night when it's not even a stretch to start talking kabbalistically about shattered vessels, emanations of holy light, shards that we're piecing together. 

i felt you all with me tonight, holding me. thank you for the magic you bring to my life daily.”

So, on this last day of the shortest and longest month of the year, I want to recognize our community – sangha – brothers and sisters – chevre – spiritual seeings of one another. I want to bless us with many more Februarys together, many more everythings together, with many more moments of bringing magic sparks into the darkness. Because really, that’s what we do, we live and we are awake and we see each other so that no one feels alone.

Thank you, Ruthie, for connecting us and keeping us together and giving us rays of sunshine and moonlight in the moments when we need them. You are a gift.

I cherish you all. May your last day of February be what ever you need. May it be Shabbat and holding and caring and may you feel the comfort and care of this community, hugging you, sitting on your shoulder, witnessing you in your full rawness and beauty. See you next year, and also, see you tomorrow, you know?

Always yours, with love, gentleness, love, 

einat

Some more sharing…

1) This Tiny Desk Concert by Nickel Creek (which you can even download) is holding me. Especially the second song, which starts our around 4:55. “What a great way to start the first day of the rest of my life…”

2) These photos of one of your silly friends participating in the Chocolympics on team Red Hot Chocolat - an event in which Sackler medical students let out some steam by eating a lot of chocolate competitively (duh). The bottom one here is me with a whole lot of smores getting shoved into my mouth.

3) My mom loved Maurice Sendak. When I just searched my email for his name, to try and remember who first shared this interview with me (almost certainly Anna – thank. you.), I found that she cited Where the Wild Things Are in an academic article bibliography.

Illustrated excerpt of Maurice Sendak’s interview with Terry Gross of Fresh Air

One of my favorite lines… "I have nothing now but praise for my life. I'm not unhappy. I cry a lot because I miss people. They die and I can't stop them. They leave me and I love them more. ... What I dread is the isolation. ... There are so many beautiful things in the world which I will have to leave when I die, but I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready."

4) Ruthie recently re-shared this poem that I shared with many of you on Avi’s two? three? year yahrtzeit. Every time I reread it, it has new meaning… new hues.

Wait
Galway Kinnell

Wait, for now.
Distrust everything, if you have to.
But trust the hours. Haven’t they
carried you everywhere, up to now?
Personal events will become interesting again.
Hair will become interesting.
Pain will become interesting.
Buds that open out of season will become lovely again.
Second-hand gloves will become lovely again,
their memories are what give them
the need for other hands. And the desolation
of lovers is the same: that enormous emptiness
carved out of such tiny beings as we are
asks to be filled; the need
for the new love is faithfulness to the old.

Wait.
Don’t go too early.
You’re tired. But everyone’s tired.
But no one is tired enough.
Only wait a while and listen.
Music of hair,
Music of pain,
music of looms weaving all our loves again.
Be there to hear it, it will be the only time,
most of all to hear,
the flute of your whole existence,
rehearsed by the sorrows, play itself into total exhaustion.