Random Meanderings at Middle Age

random musings on a january night..

In no particular order:

• More and more I feel as though we are on the brink of living every dystopia I have ever read. The whole SOPA issue is just one example. Once again we seem close to giving away our rights to not be censored and to have a free exchange of information because of private, profit-making, companies who are too lazy, too cheap and not interested in finding solutions to their copyright issues that don't have a chilling effect on the rest of us.  

• A number of interesting videos, blogs and websites have recently shown how sick the transformation of womens bodies , as portrayed in the media, has become. Through photoshopping and other techniques actresses and models who are already unhealthy and too thin are presented as being even thinner-creating an ideal for girls that is not attainable.  Boys and men are coniditoned to expect these unrealistic body types as their due and I have heard otherwise reasonable and caring men of my aquaintance point to young actresses and claim that they are "cows" or worse after they have had a child or otherwise gone from a size 0 to say 4.  "Plus-size" models are now rarely larger than a size 12. In the last season of Project Runway, a male designer complained that his model had breasts and they were icky and he just wanted her to be a hangar for his clothes. That's what our daughters have to contend with-they are expected to have bodies that weigh nothing, have no shape, no curves, no bumps that will intefere with a designers "vision".   
• In less ranty news, I've recently become delighted with the website, The Rumpus. I belong to their book club (the first book, a collection of stories by Diane Williams titled, Vicky Swanky is a Beauty, arrived today and is completely engrossing, thought provoking and magical with a little bit of disturbing thrown in. There is an online group that discusses the books each month which I know I'll enjoy. They also started a new "club", one where you get a letter from a writer in your mail box each week. I am thrilled. I love getting personal mail (yes, I know this will be one letter reproduced and sent to all members, but still it is not a bill or junk mail) and expect to be intrigued. I believe this weeks letter will be from Margaret Cho.
• I have already read 8 books, most of them novels, this month and expect that number will double by the end of the month. I still find myself torn between the ease of e-books and my delight in holding an actual book in my hand.  There honestly isn't a rythme or reason to it. Often I will download a book I'm too impatient to wait or look for. I wish I had downloaded IQ84 because at 900+ pages it's not a fall asleep with it in your hands kind of book.
• 
  
  

I felt this post was going downhill so inserted a picture of Rosie because hedgehogs make everything better!

I'm also abandoning my whole bullet point idea...it wasn't working for me.  Really, life has just been kind of crazy. My youngest continues to struggle with health issues and has been out of school (with some tutoring provided) for nearly two months now. He tried to go back today, but the nurse called and he was so exhasuted after less than 2 hours that he slept from 11a-5p. My oldest is well but it's mid-terms. John and I never really have time to do much more than update each other on things or when the drama is really high nit-pick at each other (I am being so diplomatic here that I deserve a medal). We did escape for a few hours to the ICA on Sunday, just the two of us and even caught a play there I had wanted to see. The play was truly wonderful and had all the elements I had hoped, it used Warhol's movies as a launching pad for  developing ideas and themes around identify and it's use of audience members really worked well and didn't feel forced or hoky. 

Here is a recent version of the Gob Squad's Kitchen:

It was great to see some thought provoking art (some more thought provoking than others) and theater, have a nice lunch and a little time for the two of us that wasn't in constant crisis intervention mode. With any luck we will be able to repeat the experience Saturday when the Decordova open it's 2012 Biennial show. This show includes work by a yarnbombing group, the South End Knitters !

No. I haven't started the exercise regime I really wanted to although I've got the occasional walk in as weather permits. I feel pretty guilty and self-hating about all this but am also trying to cut myself some slack. I'm fat. I don't pretend otherwise because that would be silly (as I've said here before, I find it funny that whenever I declare that I am large someone quickly chimes in "no you're not! Don't be so hard on yourself!" as though I am a size 0 and pretending to be overweight. Trust me, at 50 years of age, 5 feet 9 inches and 275+lbs I am not petite.). I have no need to become skinny, but know that if I don't exercise daily and get myself back into better shape and for me that means dropping the weight I've gained, my long-term health scenarios get scarier-hell, the short term ones as well.  So. Something I need to do and need to work through the various things blocking me from doing so.  

(Actually, I'm not overweight-it's the Doctor Who scarf, it adds a lot of pounds. No really, it literally does!)

I'm happy we had a little snow last night. I need my winters to have some snow or the landscape is far to bleak. I'll get to work on my health issues, I'll keep trying to put the stresses in perspective and make time for my relationships as we deal with them, I'll be reading and writing and knitting and creating things. I'll be thinking, hoping and wishing for more health and strength and grace for  those in my life that are struggling with truly devastating challenges and changes. I'll still be making inappropriate jokes that make my kids and everyone else cringe. I'll try and be happy more than I am sad but I'll still let sad happen when it needs to.

And. When all that stuff gets to be a bit much I'll just think about Cape Cod and how in a few months we'll be back there. Kayaking, exploring the tidal flats, walking, biking, farmer's markets, board games and lunch on the deck, fireflies, crazy birds, hermit crabs and roses.

in which i ramble on about knitting...

I'm staring at a New Year and trying to make sense of my knitting, both the stash and the works in progress (wips).

I've decided to be really honest about unfinished projects and to rip the ones I clearly gave up on for one reason or another. Sometimes it's just boredom, sometimes the yarn chosen wasn't working right, sometimes it just got away from me and I lost interest or can not figure out where I was in the pattern. In any event, those are all being frogged and headed back into the stash.

The stash is in pretty good shape. I recently went through most of it and got rid of stuff I will never use. One of these days I'll need to adjust my Ravelry stash data to reflect reality, but most of what's in my stash is stuff I would use. honestly, much of my stash is swanky, high-end, hand-dyed sock yarn. Sometimes I think I like looking at and fondling this stuff more than I like knitting with it.

In any event, projects I would like to finish and/or start this winter include:

The second sock from January 2011's BMFA sock club.

Buttonwillow>/a>

Another Clockwork, this one for my son. He wanted one in black and grey and I've got some yummy STR coming from BMFA for this.

I've ripped the Colorful Kids I started for Noah a long time ago. He'd rather have a vest, so I am repurposing this wonderful chocolate colored Brown Sheep Bulky and plan to make a daughter sized OWl with it.

I do need to get some grey worsted wight , ideally a tweed, to make Green Mountain's for Noah.

If all of the above happens (it is to laugh) then I am also hoping to restart myMelponeme shawl and any other Romi Muse that might come along.

What is so amusing about all of the above is I am the slowest knitter ever, but we'll see. I didn't even mention the second Kilim Glove or the long awaited second

I live and dream.

be here now.

I no longer look at old years and think " oh good riddance, that year really sucked, I hope the new one is better" . It's silly. Years are just arbitrary collections of days we've corralled into a system of time keeping. There will be joy and sorrow and likely a whole lot of tedium in any one of those blocks of time. I'm ok with that.

I'm not going to burden 2012 with having to keep me happy every step of the way. I know with certainty that isn't going to happen. There will be good and bad days and how I deal with that will be entirely up to me. I expect I will be stellar sometimes and an absolute whiny child at others. It hardly matters.

On any given day, I treasure the joys and challenges of time spent with family and friends and those moments collect and became hours and days and months and years and good or bad or indifferent I am simply present for all of them.

Now, I'm going to snuggle back under the covers with a book. I can hear my family breathing quietly and sleeping in their beds. The birds are waking up and chattering at each other. Mostly, it's a blissfully quiet morning.

Happy New Year.

small things

I know that I've somehow come to use this blog to mostly dwell on sad or stressful things and really my life is pretty wonderful. So, while Noah may be under the weather and there may be other bumps in the road, it's been a pretty good winter holiday season over all.

There's been games of Dominion, battles of various kinds via the Wii or PS3, walks in the woods, visits with family and friends, rock climbing, movies (a lot of movies!), sleeping in, reading, knitting,baking, loving and being generally silly.

I can't think of much to say so here's some pictures in no particular order-as always-click to enbiggen.

random urj biennial ramblings

I'm in DC for the URJs 71st Biennial. Just me and 6000 other Jews praying, singing, talking with and listening to each other. It's my third national Biennial- I was in Houston in 2005 and San Diego in 2007. This one has surpassed them for me for many reasons.

In 2005, I travelled with a large contingent from my congregation, we had a new rabbi and I was thrilled with everything but stayed pretty close to my comfort zone. In 2007, I was a bit overwhelmed by the venue, which was a little difficult for me to navigate, although I loved that Biennial and treasure that I was able to purchase my daughter's beautiful tallit there which she wore to her Bat Mitzva a few months later.

So here we are in 2011, 9 of us, this time with our interim rabbi as we are in a search year. We manage to find each other for plenaries and dinner but mostly all go off to our various areas of interest and debrief later. Now, rather than envy all the folks who seem to know each other and shout greetings in the halls- I have a sizable group of people outside my congregation that I know and connect with.

What's the difference? Social media. There is absolutely no question in my mind that Facebook and Twitter have helped make and maintain Jewish connections in the intervening years since my last Biennial. I am able to "speak" with any number of fellow Reform Jews on a wide variety of issues that concern me and I am able to share in their joys and struggles, personal and professional. There is a knitting social media site called Ravelry and I have connected with fellow Jews there and some of them are here and, really, how freaking cool is that?! I posted a semi-humorous comment on FB about how I knit during sessions and have been stopped in the halls and asked what knitting I brought by people I've never met! These small conversations, often lead to larger ones, conversations about our movement and our congregations and suddenly this group of 6000 people seems very small and intimate and not so impersonal.

I've heard great speakers, prayed with joy and experienced awesome music these past couple of days and there's more to come. The best part though are the conversations I have. I've spoken with others about issues in our movement that mean a lot to me in a place where others "get it" even if we may not agree at all times.

I have an intense desire to see our movement and it's member congregations continue to move forward and recognize the true diversity of its members. I want our congregants of color, GBLTQ congregants, congregants with physical, developmental and social challenges and more-I simply want ALL our congregants to be welcome in ALL our shuls. I don't think we do enough, which isn't the same as saying we don't do anything. I'm proud of how much we have done and proud the movement has folks working to push this issue along, but I want *us*, you know, those of us slogging along in our home congregations, to recognize that we can do more. That letting people know you are truly a welcoming congregation is ok. In one of the discussions about diversity I attended a participant speculated that perhaps some are reluctant to be more "obvious" about being welcoming because of a fear they will ( in this instance) get so many members that were GBLT that they would be known as a "gay" synagogue. I think she was spot on. I think that this is a fear people have, if we let to many of "them" in we won't be ourselves. In that particular discussion we all chuckled at the likelihood that such a thing would happen ( really, with so many synagogues struggling to grow membership one should be so lucky) but later I felt uncomfortable.

My kids aren't Caucasian, but they are absolutely Jewish. My Chinese-American daughter is president of our youth group and is a madricha in our religious school. My Cambodian-American son is in our Chai School and expects to be confirmed in a few years when he is in 10th grade. I work in our shul as well as chair our Ritual committee and my kids have been members as long as they can remember. They are accepted and loved there. So why did that conversation in the diversity discussion bother me a little later? Let me ask another question: Would it be wrong for my kids to look around their synagogue and see more people who looked like them? Would it be wrong for them to see most people look like them? If I went home to my congregation and told the board we should call ourselves a white congregation they would think I was crazy, but if the logic is you are what the majority of your congregation is then maybe we need to rethink the labels.

My congregation has people of color, people that come under the GBLTQ umbrella, people with challenges of various kinds , but maybe that's the wrong way to think. Regardless of what majority or minority any one congregant might be a part of, our congregation is overwhelmingly a congregation of young families with children in the the religious school. You could argue that the minority in our shul are empty nesters, seniors , young adults and those who choose to not parent.

I have no idea where I want to go with these thoughts, most of which are still jumbled, but the cool thing about biennial is I will get to talk, face to face, with others about them. Later, I can continue the conversation with new FB friends, on twitter and in email. I am being reminded that just like my own congregation, all of us believe ourselves to be welcoming and we kind of all are but because myself and many others come from a place of privilege we can be blind to the inadvertent messages we send or don't send to our congregants and to the unaffiliated Jews who might be looking for a Jewish home. It's a work and a conversation in progress and here I get to geek about it and discuss it in a safe place with like minded folks.

Switching directions. Worship here is truly moving and there are always moments I am almost moved to tears because it's so great to be part of this with so many other like minded folks. Some worship styles work better than others ( in my humble opinion, your mileage may vary) but all are heartfelt and open and joyous and it's pretty infectious.

Wow. I've done enough babbling. Time to get back into it and today will be pretty intense ( can't wait to hear President Obama speak!) and then Shabbat will arrive and after evening services I will join my fellow congregants and have an intimate dinner with those 6000 others I mentioned.

Shabbat Shalom.

Refuah Shlema.

     Monday I was driving around doing errands when a friend called and her voice made it clear I better pull over and brace myself.  I was pretty sure I knew why she was calling and I started thinking really hard at myself to accept the news and not fall apart because I had kids to pick up and chores to do and there would be time later.  I was wrong. She wasn't calling for the reasons I thought, she was calling to tell me that one of our dear friends was seriously ill.  I was stunned. I don't know why this kind of news still stuns me but I think a part of me still sees all of us as young adults and not the 50+ year olds we really are.  She and I spoke a bit, she asked me to call some people, I offered to come sit with his wife at the hospital later that night and then I moved through the rest of my day in a kind of haze.  

     My main concern was simply for my friend-for the doctors working on him to be successful, for him to be able to have a full healing, what in my faith we call refuah shlema.  My second and almost equally great concern was that his wife, his family, have my full support and not have to worry about anything while facing this crisis.  Of course, it doesn't hurt that he has some of the best friends on the planet and they had already kicked into high gear and in a very seamless way were handling all the ephemera as well as being there for  emotional support.  I was and am moved by how amazing they all are.  

    All this though isn't so much to tell their story or my ill friend's story because the details aren't mine to share. What it does have me thinking about is grace and healing and community.  Sitting the past two nights in an ICU waiting area I wasn't just moved by our group, but all the groups and solitary people-keeping vigil, holding each other, telling stories, crying or laughing.  I saw huge family groups and solitary individuals wrapped in blankets and clutching a cup of coffee.  Hushed conversations, loud conversations but everyone in the strange space-time continuum rift that is a hospital waiting room, everyone focused on each other and on the loved one on the other side of the doors. Time kind of stops.  It's truly a between time place.  For almost everyone in that ICU, their well-being doesn't depend on who is in that waiting room and yet whether you believe in grace or God or simply good will-the strength and love and the so palatable you can taste it strong wishes of all these folks are a true presence and I believe truly helps.

     As I get older I seem to spending more and more time in these in-between places but they never get less meaningful, less sacred or less important.  The words from the refuah shlema prayer that run through my head, are not so much directed at God but more just an expression of fervent hope , could be translated: May those in whose care they are entrusted, be gifted with wisdom and skill, and those who surround them, be gifted with love and trust, openness and support in their care. And may they be healed along with all those who are in need.  

     Sadly, there are others I hold in my heart these days when I think of healing and grace and strength but I also feel joy at the community surrounding each of them and the love and support they and their loved ones are being given. 

     Love really is all we need.

 

thanksgiving.

Honestly, we tend to focus so much on family gatherings, the cooking and the food and the time off or extra work involved in the holiday that the whole concept of gratitude can get a little lost.  Over the years I've worked to ensure that at least at some point during the holiday meal we share or contemplate things we are grateful for. Which is fine and which we did this year and it was lovely. We shared our meal with my mom and dear friends and it was delightful and bountiful and the gratitude shared was heartfelt and sweet. 

It was a hard holiday though. Holidays often are. They can dredge up every single personal issue you have ever had with yourself, other family members or the world and they can then magnify those things to scary proportions.  Typically, for me, the holiday (any holiday) itself is fine but the day leading up and the day after can be...as they say...triggering.

So. I am left now, a few days later with unsettled feelings about those demons I know might never leave us but with a lot of gratitude and true thanksgiving for our ongoing dedication to facing them head on, battling with them, making mistakes, forgiving them, remembering the underlying love and goodness that brought us under this roof and accepting, grudgingly, that as always there is more work to do.  

I gave everyone little cards this year to, if they chose, share their thoughts about what they might be thankful for this year.  I wrote that mostly, I am thankful for second, third, fourth etc chances and this messy, loving, crazy family I share them with.

I'm always going to get a little crazy around big holidays because big expectations slay me. It doesn't help that with my oldest a junior in high school every holiday, every trip, every little thing feels close to "the last" (not the last ever, but last as a family with minor children). I can barely breathe when I get caught up thinking about that stuff. 

Right here though. Right now.  We're ok. And I'm grateful.

just one breath, then another.

Scenes from a week-end.

MFA. Cape Cod. Knitting. Music. Music? One of Richard Thompson's finest:

hist. wist.*

hist whist
little ghostthings
tip-toe
twinkle-toe

little twitchy
witches and tingling
goblins
hob-a-nob hob-a-nob

little hoppy happy
toad in tweeds
tweeds
little itchy mousies

with scuttling
eyes rustle and run and
hidehidehide
whisk

whisk look out for the old woman
with the wart on her nose
what she’ll do to yer
nobody knows

for she knows the devil ooch
the devil ouch
the devil
ach the great

green
dancing
devil
devil

devil
devil

wheeEEE

*e.e. cummings

rainy days and reading in bed

I have a reading "problem". I always have. Somewhere in my closet of ephemera from my childhood is an old Worcester Telegram and Gazette article about my reading habits. The writer was doing a Sunday feature on avid readers and my middle-school Engish teacher mentioned me. The write-up quotes me, at about 12, mentioning how I re-read Tolkien's LoTR every year and that I read a book almost every day etc ( also that my favorite spot to read was in the maple tree on our front lawn and that I brought LoTR to Europe with us on a recent family vacation). I was routinely told to get my nose out of books.
I sleep best with a stack of books on the night table and one or two scattered in my bed. It's a good thing I married someone with similar needs.
In our house a request for a new book will never be denied. While others may see such purchases as a luxury, here, it is understood that we all (yes, we infected our children) suffer from the same disease.

I am no more easily pinned down in my reading habits than I am in any other aspect of my life. I read it all! Smutty paranormal romances? Check. Science? Check. Cozy mysteries? Check. Multi-volumed epic fantasy? Check. "Important" literary tomes? Check. Poetry? Art? Graphic novels? Check. Check. Check. I read and read and read. I wake up and reach for a book before my glasses and the last thing I do before sleeping is drop whatever I am reading beside me in bed. I have been known to panic if I didn't have, not only my current reading, but back up reading as well.

This week my reading includes:

Fantasy: Heartless, Gail Carriger-the fourth volume in a paranormal, victorianesque, romance style with a smidge of steampunk thrown in.
Craft: All Wound Up:The Yarn Harlot Sits for a Spin, Stephanie Pearl MchPhee-the latest collection of essays on knitting by an "A-list" knitter-blogger.
Graphic Novel: Habibi, Craig Thompson-his Blankets,published a few years ago, remains the most moving and truly transformational graphic novel I have ever read. Habibi is equally magical and thought provoking.

Science: The Toaster Project or a Heroic Attempt to Build a Simple Electric Appliance From Scratch, Thomas Thwaites-I heard this guy on NPR a week or so ago and ordered the book right then! He reverse engineers a cheap toaster and tries to make one as close to "from scratch" as he can: digging raw materials out of the ground and refining them being part of that. I think Noah and John will love this as well.
The ticker at the top of this post is for the latest in a mystery series starring a very funny Jersey girl named Stephanie Plum. These books will not solve any world problems or advance the cause of world peace but they entertain so many and provide me with a brief interlude where I can imagine myself a feisty, if klutsy, bounty hunter.

I don't know where the heck I'm going with this. It's a lot of words to basically say "I really, really, really like to read". Which I do. A lot. So do my kids and husband and in my fantasy world all 7 birds and the hedgehog. The frogs are illiterate I think. Happy Wednesday.

P.S. I have finished plying two bags of fluff from Spunky Eclectics Fiber Club Night Owl and Angkor Wat. They have been bathed and are now hanging in my shower to dry. Unlike all the sublime and wondrously perfect skeins of yarn all the other spinners make, my plied goods remain chunky. Which I have made peace with. I am mostly a self-taught spinner and don't know anything about plying really (one could argue I don't know a lot about spinning singles either.). What I do know is spinning is relaxing and I love the feel of the fiber slipping through my fingers as it twists onto the bobbin. I love that the stories of Sleeping Beauty or Rumpelstiltskin are not about abstract concepts-I know what a spindle is. I have spindles. I use spindles. So..I end up with hats or enough yarn to accent something else I am knitting. Eventually I'll spin the processed fleece I got last year and make something more substantial. It's all good.