#BlogExodus: Tell

Telling can be so hard.

I want to tell you off, but instead, I nod in agreement, smile, and go back to what I was doing, seething all the while.

I want to tell you that I love you, but the words stick in my throat. I know you know, in your heart, so I don’t say it.

I want to tell you what I think, how I feel, what I want, but you don’t ask, so I remain silent, suppressing the words, afraid – without even knowing it.

I want to speak up, say my piece, state my opinion, but I get flustered, flushed, the words jumble in my mind, my tongue grows thick.

Inspired by Ima on (and off) the Bima , this post is one in a series marking the days of the Jewish month of Nisan leading up to Passover, which begins at sundown on Friday, March 30, corresponding to the Hebrew date 15 Nisan 5778. If you want to play along, check out this year's #BlogExodus and #ExodusGram prompts .

#BlogExodus: Hide

Finally! Finally, the weather predictions came true and New York City’s actually getting the nor’easter the media’s been hyping for the last three days!

It’s snowing like the dickens out there and I want to hide.

I want to hide in snow angels, swinging my arms and legs so wide that the depth of the snow makes me invisible.

I want to hide in the fluffy, sweet softness of the marshmallows floating atop my hot cocoa when I come in from the cold, wet play land.

I want to hide in the pages of my book, engrossed in the lives, adventures, and misadventures of characters who are not me, whose worries and triumphs are not mine.

I want to hide in the afternoon’s reruns, shows from my childhood that I have to explain to millennials, shows they don’t want to binge watch.

I want to hide in a nap, stretching out and, wrapped in warm fleece, shutting down while the world goes on for a while without me.

Alas, this is the age of connectivity and there is no hiding.

Inspired by Ima on (and off) the Bima, this post is one in a series marking the days of the Jewish month of Nisan leading up to Passover, which begins at sundown on Friday, March 30, corresponding to the Hebrew date 15 Nisan 5778. If you want to play along, check out this year's #BlogExodus and #ExodusGram prompts.

#BlogExodus: Grow

I know today has grown entirely too long because I am just now, at slightly after 10 p.m., lighting the yahrzeit candle for my grandfather, who died 32 years ago tomorrow... and having no luck with either the wick or the match.

I wasn’t home to light the candle earlier in the evening because I was facilitating the NYC meeting of FORCE: Facing Our Risk of Cancer Empowered , a grassroots organization that offers information, resources, and support to individuals and families affected by hereditary cancer.

Ironically (or perhaps not), my grandfather died from BRCA-related metastatic prostate cancer before “BRCA-related metastatic prostate cancer” was in the lexicon. For the last seven-plus years, though, it’s been part of my lexicon, as I’ve worked to raise awareness about the prevalence of BRCA mutations in Ashkenazi Jewish families – and most especially how they can lurk in the background, undetected for generations.

Making the tough decisions to undergo multiple surgeries and long recoveries to prevent cancer and ensure my genetics would not determine my destiny has helped me grow.

Learning the ins and outs of these mutations, advocating on behalf of the community affected by them, and offering advice and information to women (and men) following me on this path has helped me grow.

Perhaps most of all, the warm, wonderful embrace of others in the hereditary cancer community has helped me grow and enriched my life in untold ways – ways I could not have ever imagined back when BRCA wasn’t part of the lexicon.

Inspired by Ima on (and off) the Bima , this post is one in a series marking the days of the Jewish month of Nisan leading up to Passover, which begins at sundown on Friday, March 30, corresponding to the Hebrew date 15 Nisan 5778. If you want to play along, check out this year's #BlogExodus and #ExodusGram prompts .

#BlogExodus: Cleanse

After yesterday’s buying spree at the Bryn Mawr-Wellesley Book Sale (eight books for $10), I needed to clean up my Want-to-Read list on goodreads.com to add the new purchases:

1. How Doctors Think, by Jerome Groopman, M.D. (I’ve browsed this book many times, but something else always won out in the get-it-today category…until yesterday, when it could be had for $1.)
2. Midaq Alley, by Naguib Mahfouz (recommended to me by my father)
3. Woe is I: The Grammarphobe’s Guide to Better English in Plain English, by Patricia T. O’Conner (Another book I’ve browsed often, and now am glad to own.)
4. Bel Canto , by Ann Patchett (recommended to me by my sister)
5. The Medical Detectives, Volume II, by Berton Roueché (I read the first volume several years ago and didn’t even know there was a second volume…until yesterday.)
6. Mothering Sunday: A Romance, by Graham Swift (recommended to me by my sister)
7. Eats Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, by Lynne Truss (Another volume I’ve picked up many times, but never purchased.)
8. On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction, by William Zinsser (This book seems to be a volume no writer or editor should be without.)

Although I’m not sure I’ll make it through all these books in this calendar year, I’m well on the way to beating out last year’s woeful showing.

Forget about cleaning for Passover….I’m going to read!

Inspired by Ima on (and off) the Bima , this post is one in a series marking the days of the Jewish month of Nisan leading up to Passover, which begins at sundown on Friday, March 30, corresponding to the Hebrew date 15 Nisan 5778. If you want to play along, check out this year's #BlogExodus and #ExodusGram prompts .

#BlogExodus: Bless

At 85, my dad doesn’t come into the city as often as in the past. Instead, my sister and I have been visiting our “country estate” about once each month, including this weekend.

Due to her business travel, she’s already there, occupying our “suite” that includes a bedroom smartly outfitted with two twin beds, like when we were kids, and our own bathroom. Not a bad set-up at all. I’ll travel there tomorrow morning and our plan is to go right from the train station in New Brunswick to the annual Bryn Mawr-Wellesley Book Sale at the Princeton Country Day School.

According to the book sale’s website, “We specialize in top-quality hardback and paperback fiction, non-fiction, academic, university press, and rare books, all sold at bargain prices,” which means the day will be a guaranteed good time for we three book-lovers. Experience tells me that after we’ve had our fill of books, we’ll perk up with coffee and a shared “sweetmeat” at Small World Coffee or Panera , before heading back to the estate and then out to dinner.

As my dad would say, “A good time will be had by all,” and he would, as usual, be right.

Indeed, we are blessed – all of us.

Inspired by Ima on (and off) the Bima, this post is one in a series marking the days of the Jewish month of Nisan leading up to Passover, which begins at sundown on Friday, March 30, corresponding to the Hebrew date 15 Nisan 5778. If you want to play along, check out this year's #BlogExodus and #ExodusGram prompts.

The Presence and the Loss

A friend, after reading my annual pre-Pesach letter to my mother, had this to say:

Poignant piece.  The ache never fully goes away.  Yizkor on Pesach was a wise decision of our rabbinic forebears.  We feel the presence...and the loss...of our dear ones most keenly on this festival.

Indeed, I felt the presence and the loss intensely today...

This morning, having made it uptown with time for a leisurely walk from the bus stop to the synagogue, I took this photo along the way:

The morning came full circle when, during the Yizkor portion of the service, the rabbi read "We Remember Them," the well known poem by Sylvan Kamens and Rabbi Jack Riemer:

At the rising of the sun and at its going down, we remember them.
At the blowing of the wind and in the chill of winter, we remember them.
At the opening of the buds and in the rebirth of spring, we remember them.
At the blueness of the skies and in the warmth of summer, we remember them.
At the rustling of the leaves and in the beauty of autumn, we remember them.
At the beginning of the year and when it ends, we remember them.
As long as we live, they too will live, for they are now a part of us as we remember them. 

When we are weary and in need of strength, we remember them.
When we are lost and sick at heart, we remember them.
When we have joy we crave to share, we remember them.
When we have decisions that are difficult to make, we remember them.
When we have achievements that are based on theirs, we remember them.
As long as we live, they too will live, for they are now a part of us as we remember them. 

Today, a day truly marked by the opening of the buds and the rebirth of spring, did I feel intensely the presence and the loss of so many, but none more keenly than my mom's.  Indeed, it is her presence and her loss that live in me, each and every day, from one spring to the next, from season to season for all time.

#BlogExodus: It is What You Make of It

If Ima on (and off) the Bima posted this image and story on her blog today, can Pesach be far behind?

I'm in!  Watch this space for my first #blogExodus post of 5774 which, with any luck, will appear next Tuesday.

But, as the Ima says, "There aren't any rules.... It is what you make of it."

Hmmm...sounds a lot like life.

#BlogExodus: Changing

It's relatively easy to change this:

Into this:

It's much harder to change attitudes, jobs and long-time ways of doing things, especially if that change takes us out of our comfort zone.

It was that way for the Israelites--and it's still that way for us.

For even as they fled slavery in Egypt and wandered in the desert for 40 years (kvetching all the while), they were becoming a people--a strong people that endures today.

It's a good lesson to keep in mind:  change is hard, and often makes us uncomfortable.  At the same time, it can make us stronger, better people.

So, even if we want to kvetch about it, this is a good season to step gently out of our comfort zone into a new attitude, a new job or a new way of doing things.

Who knows...making a change could land you (or me) smack in the middle of our own personal Promised Land!

Inspired by Ima on (and off) the Bima, this post is one in a series marking the days of the Hebrew month of Nisan leading up to Passover 5773.

#BlogExodus: Leaving

Images from a New York City Day

Inspired by Ima on (and off) the Bima, this post is one in a series marking the days of the Hebrew month of Nisan leading up to Passover 5773.

#BlogExodus: Cleaning

Dear #BlogExodus,

Thanks to you, my apartment is cleaner than it's been in a long time and--with the exception of finishing up the chametz and stocking the cabinet with matzah--nearly ready for Pesach 5773.

Since we spent the night of the 14th of Nissan 5770--and many additional ones--at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital and then Haven Hospice, this has not been an easy holiday for any of us, but I'm grateful to you for helping me bring the spirit of Pesach back into my life--and into my home.

Wishing you a ziessen Pesach, #BlogExodus.

xoxo,
~ JanetheWriter

Inspired by Ima on (and off) the Bima, this post is one in a series marking the days of the Hebrew month of Nisan leading up to Passover 5773.