#BlogElul 5777: 6 Things to Accept This Elul

Here are six things I'm pondering -- and trying to accept -- this Elul and throughout the coming year:

1. Transitions: They’re hard, but staying put too long in one place can be harder.
2. The World: It doesn’t always work the way we were taught it’s supposed to work. But, it's filled with beauty, grandeur, and mystery that is ours to discover.
3. Life: It is what it is, and it isn’t always fair.
4. Hard Work: It’s supposed to pay off. Sometimes it does…sometimes it doesn’t. When it doesn’t, it’s not because you didn’t actually work hard; some things just aren’t in our control.
5. Change: Despite the annual messages and lessons of the High Holidays, change is really hard, and it becomes harder with each passing year, as we become more set in our ways and in our thinking.
6. People: They are who they are and they aren’t likely to change (see #5 above). However, looking for and finding a divine spark -- or even an ember -- in each one may make accepting the nudniks, the egomaniacs, and the kvetches a tad bit easier.

Inspired by Ima on (and off) the Bima , this #BlogElul post is one in a series marking the days of the Hebrew month of Elul, which precede the Jewish High Holidays and traditionally serve as a time of reflection and spiritual preparation for the new year.

#BlogElul 5777: Choose

For nearly as long as I can remember, I’ve been indecisive. It’s hard for me to choose.

When my dad was teaching me to ride a bike and I fell off, he told me to get back on. Through tears I told him, “I want to, but I don’t want to.”

It’s been my sort-of mantra ever since, and more often than not, I’m happy to let others choose the restaurants we eat in, the movies we see, and where we sit in the theater. When I say, “I’m flexible,” it usually means “I can’t decide; you choose.”

And yet, I’ve been faced with some excruciatingly difficult and painful choices over the years – things only I could decide. Each of these decisions has made me infinitely stronger and more determined to steer my life in the direction I want it to go.

In 5778, may we all make wise and timely choices – whether the consequences are trivial or significant – and may our choices enrich and strengthen us immeasurably.

Inspired by Ima on (and off) the Bima , this #BlogElul post is one in a series marking the days of the Hebrew month of Elul, which precede the Jewish High Holidays and traditionally serve as a time of reflection and spiritual preparation for the new year.

If I'm So Swiss, Where's the Chocolate?!

Last week over dinner with a friend, she said, “You’re more Swiss than I am.”  She actually is Swiss, but I knew exactly what she meant.

I’ve been using lists to keep organized for decades.  When I was in elementary school, my mother found a list on my desk that said:  “Things not to worry about.”  By high school, I was keeping a list of the outfit I wore to school each day so as not to repeat one too soon.  Before my last surgery back in December, I wrote this blog post about all the to-do's necessary to prepare for four to six weeks of recuperation. 

As Yogi Berra would say, it’s déjà vu all over again…and I’ve got a list!

Earlier today, my father and my aunt (my mother’s sister, the one who’s going to stay with me when I first come home from the hospital) drove into to the city laden with shopping bags full of “stuff” to help ease my recovery once I'm home:  homemade chicken soup and noodle kugel (each frozen in portion size containers), several packages of Jell-O (not the pre-made kind, but the powdered version that you make at home with boiling water and sliced bananas), marinara sauce, disposable plates, bowls and cups (so we won’t have to wash dishes),  noodles (for noodles and cheese), and miscellaneous other items including bouillon cubes, cereal, canned fruit, pasta and, of course, tuna.  Aunt Claire also brought her suitcase and her shower bench, which she suspects I’ll be glad to use as well.  The last shopping bag was filled with button down oxford shirts and blouses (the wardrobe item of choice following this type of surgery) from my mother’s closet—and, no, we still haven’t finished cleaning it out.  They still smell of her perfume and, in an ironic twist, it will be a comfort to wear them as I heal.

A short while after my father and aunt left, Hiram, the building’s handyman, installed the handheld shower head I bought a few weeks ago, and I crossed that item off my master list as well.

So, here’s what’s left to do – organized by day:

Monday

1. Doctor’s appointment
2. Clean (I mean really clean) my apartment:  dust, vacuum, scrub the tub and toilet, swab the floors, change the linens, do the laundry, and tackle all those other lovely chores I won’t be able to do for a while. Click here to see how it’ll look when I’m finished.

Tuesday

1. Another doctor’s appointment
2. Pay tuition for the fall semester at Baruch College
3. Get underarms waxed (sorry if this is TMI, but thank goodness someone who’s been down this road told me to do it)  Won’t be able to shave for a while.
4. Photocopy short-term disability paperwork from surgeon’s office and send it back to HR at the Union
5. Lunch with a friend
6. Await FreshDirect, which is scheduled to deliver between 2 and 4 p.m.  (The order contains few perishables and no produce since it's just going to sit for a week or so.)
7. Pack a few things (toothbrush, toothpaste, ChapStick, iPod, etc.) for my sister to bring to the hospital on Friday.  They don't let you bring anything with you on the day of surgery.
8. BRCA support group at Mt. Sinai…what wonderful timing!

Wednesday

1. The penultimate doctor’s appointment (How’s that usage Josh Strom?! ;-)))
2. And then the last one
3. Water plants
4. Backup the laptop’s hard drive
5. Open the fold-out couch for Aunt Claire
6. Move the microwave from the top of the fridge to the kitchen counter
7. Await two calls from the hospital:  one from a nurse and one from admissions
8. The last supper
9. Shower with Hibiclens
10. Lailah tov   (Hahaha!)

Thursday

1. Shower with Hibiclens
2. Arrive at the hospital at no o’clock in the morning
3. Tie on the bungee cord and take a huge leap of faith

See you on the other side.

Was She Wrong?

This week's Red Writing Hood prompt:  

Write a short piece - 600 words max - that begins with the words, "This was absolutely the last time" and ends with "She was wrong."
 
Have fun with it. Think outside the box. Don't go with the obvious.  Happy writing!

This was absolutely the last time she’d repeat the conversation, which only stirred up negative, angry thoughts.  And yet, as much as she wanted to, she just couldn’t stop.  It didn’t seem to matter that so many others had been so gracious and generous with their care and concern -- checking in, reaching out, and helping her, in big ways and small, to hold it all together during what Queen Elizabeth surely would call an annus horribilis.  

Still, she looked for any excuse to repeat it -- as if each repetition could somehow erase a little piece of the spot where a red hot poker had seared it into her memory.

“I know she didn’t mean anything by it,” she told Meredith, as they sat catching up over coffee after way too many months without a girls’ weekend together.  “I even understand that she thought she was being supportive and funny, but Oh! My! God!  I’m in the midst of making impossibly tough choices about my body, my health and my life, and all she can tell me is that ‘it’s time to lop those puppies off??’  Really?!?” 

*   *   *

So, was she wrong to keep repeating the story, perpetuating the hurt, the anger and the disbelief she felt when she first heard the quip?  Wrong to fail to let it go, unable to exhale it forever in one deep cleansing breath?  Wrong to judge someone else’s personal best?  Wrong to let another’s seeming lack of empathy overshadow countless blessings from others?  Yes, yes, yes and yes.  On all counts.  She was wrong.

R

Red Writing Hood is the writing meme of  The Red Dress Club.  The finished piece should be no more than 600 words of either fiction or non-fiction.  Thanks for reading...and feel free to offer thoughts, ideas and/or constructive criticism.  I appreciate hearing what you have to say.