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Monday, March 28, 2011

Birthday blog.

Here - tonight I'll let the photos do most of the talking.

Spring flower (but, actually, it blossomed before spring started, so it's really a winter flower, but still, a flower! Color! Warmth! Growth!)

Birthday friends

Birthday cake

Birthday hike

Birthday girls

Birthday party (with more birthday cake!)

So, that's the pictorial update. The other update is that I am growing tired and weary of my blog. It's the same old stuff. I use a lot of exclamation points, I use a lot of colloquialisms and turns of phrase and a lot of run-on sentences, I throw in a deep and meaningful, thoughtful post every once in a while, and I paint the picture that this is me and this is my life. Well, I suppose it is, in a way. This is part of me. Some of me. What you see and read in this blog. But it's not enough to satisfy me these days. Based on those photos above you'd think that this past week/weekend my life was great. And much of it was; the part that's portrayed on the blog. But then there were the two nights that I was tossing and turning and thinking about curling up in a little ball in the corner of my bedroom, over near the coat rack with the mounds of fuzz and dust-bunnies, because my stomach was so uncomfortable. And then there were the fights that I was having with Doug, both out loud and in my head. And then there was the funeral for Doug's grandfather. And then there were all the messages of Happy Birthday! for me on facebook, the vast majority from people I haven't actually spoken to in about fourteen years. So, you know. There's all of that stuff that doesn't make it onto my blog. It could, and sometimes it does, but when it does I feel so boring and old and washed up, and I feel like the look of those two deep lines in my forehead that you can so plainly see in the birthday girls photo above. I guess I feel wrinkled. I don't want to feel wrinkled, so most times I post about the good stuff, and thankfully there's enough good stuff to post about, to keep this blog going. But today I wonder if I even want to keep the blog going. I do because of posterity. I do because of the historical record it keeps. But I also don't because of the historical record it keeps, the record of that slice of me that I frequently tire of. Maybe I'm just tired from all my birthday celebrating, and maybe I'm just too full from all the cake I've been eating, but I certainly don't feel much motivation these days to keep this thing going. I'm ready for a really big dose of sunshine and fresh air; I'm hoping that will revive me, because it's going to be a long, long year if it doesn't.

Monday, March 21, 2011

First day of spring.

It's the first day of spring! Who cares that it's snowing and wet and gross outside and that I'm wrapped in a wool blanket inside. It's spring and I'm happy about that. So happy that I've decided to break my (unintentional) blogging silence and catch you up on a few things.

First: This is how not to spend time with your friend Julie who comes down from Maine for a much-needed visit. Of course, she's doing it, too, because we're all of us addicted to those little electronic devices, aren't we, but still. We should have been talking or something. Or watching the belly dancer who was gyrating and wiggling directly in front of us. She was inspiring. Her hips made moves that most only dream about. Perhaps jealousy drove me to bury my head in my phone.

Second: We can see clearly now, the ropes are gone. All of the bad feelings have disappeared... at least in our bedroom. And in the kitchen (so take your mind out of the gutter!). WE HAVE NEW WINDOWS! Man, oh man, oh man, do I love those new windows. I can raise them! I can lower them! They will stay open without needing a little piece of wood or some kind of prop for support! Oh, they are such things of beauty. And they soundproof so well. Who cares about all the cold air that's not rushing in from those old drafty windows - it's like we're living in a sound proof chamber. It's wonderful. We haven't heard the 11pm or 12am trains go by at all since we've had these windows. If we weren't so responsible in our old age, we'd finance new windows for the whole house. But we are, so I'll just rave about my three new ones. Have I mentioned yet how much I love them?

Three: If you are going to make one new meal this spring, try this Tomato Ricotta Tart. I'm sure it would be even better to make it in the summer with tomatoes from your own garden, but if you're like me and don't grow your own tomatoes or can't wait for summer for eating this kind of dinner, then try this. It's really, really good, and actually quite easy (obviously, since you don't see any photos of kitchen mishaps here).

Four: Finally, my bibs. My third bib project. Done! Sewed, snapped, washed, and sent on their way. It's a good thing that I am still working on my quilt. I need these kinds of crafty projects to occupy my mind and my hands. I can't just sit around with nothing to do (not that I ever really get that chance, so maybe I could just sit around with nothing to do. It might actually be nice to try that, now that I think about it...); I get antsy and I need something to entertain me, and not enough people I know are having babies. But once my quilt is done (which will be very soon... that's going to be the subject of my next post, I can feel it), I'll be left with what? Reading? More recipe-copying? Spring cleaning? Yes, it's time for spring cleaning again, and my yard, with all those sticks and twigs and clumps of leaves and schmutz, is calling to me. Screaming is more like it.

Five: My kitties! Look at them. Don't you just love them? My poor, beautiful brown bear, desperate for a place to sleep, and my fat, little Buddha bear, not lacking for any place to plop down. They are keeping me going these days. And to think, just a few days ago Doug and I were on the verge of adding a third to our nice, even-numbered collection. What were we thinking? Meg and Sasha, be glad that your mom and dad were distracted by chores and fighting and homework and work-work. Otherwise you would be terrorized right now by a cute tuxedo with green eyes and a boxy face. For once, all of us should be glad that life got in the way.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Fill me up.

Tonight was my last violin class. Eight weeks of violin and already I can play Mary Had a Little Lamb and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. And a few scales, but just don't ask me to play without squeaking or without going outrageously out of tune. I look pretty good when holding the violin, though, so maybe that's all that I need to succeed.

But, I'm not through with the violin yet (sorry, kitties!). I'm taking four private lessons with my instructor, and I'm doing so for a couple of reasons. The first is because I'm not quite at the point yet in my violin career (ha!) where I feel like I can teach myself. I feel like I need a little one-on-one guidance on how to move the bow from string to string, how best to hold the violin, how to have good posture, and also how to get the best tone out of the instrument. But the second reason is a little less practical. I'm just not ready to stop getting out of the house once a week. Other than my weekly appointment with Doug, I go to work or I go to the gym. Those are my outings into the world. Going to violin class at least gave me something to do these past eight weeks, and gave me some other way to pass my time at home (you know, practicing (ha!)). I'm not ready to give that up, not now when I am feeling a very strong need to fill myself up a little fuller.

I was thinking about a way to describe this feeling while on the T tonight, riding to where my car was parked and where I would get in it and blast the heat for the drive home. I have this incredible need for warmth. I do not like being cold. (Note that I said that I do not like being cold, not that I don't like the cold. I'm fine with whatever temperature it is outside, as long as I am not affected by that temperature. As long as my body temperature is warm and my hands and feet are not numb. This is why I long for new windows, because the winter drafts really get to me when I'm shut up inside this house.) I am like a helium balloon when it's in the cold - I contract, and I feel shriveled and empty. Take me into a warm room and I immediately fill up. So maybe what I am looking for, or longing for, is warmth. Heat. Spring. Summer. Growth. Regrowth. Blooming and blossoming. Maybe I won't need violin to get me out into the world once I can actually be out in the world again, warm and alive. I'll be around people and I'll remember that I'm not alone and don't have to shut myself in, and the sun will be shining and the grass will need mowing and my world will be big again.

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Why I read.

I've been compelled of late to blog about the books that I have been reading, which is slightly unusual for me, since most of what I think or feel about what I read I keep to myself. I feel the need to share, though, because the things I have been reading lately, especially of late, have made me think and feel quite a lot. Have made a connection with me, have hit close to home. The book I just finished (The Lost: The Search for Six of Six Million) is no exception, though you may wonder how this book could really hit all that close to home. I am, after all, not Jewish. I had no relatives killed in the Holocaust, I know of no family members of mine who were living in Europe through any of the troubles and tragedies that took place there (though I did have relatives who served in World War II, who were in combat and who saw, I am sure, unspeakable things of their own), and I had no grandfather or older relative who was especially talkative about the past. What made me react this way to this story?



I suppose this reaction has its origins in my lifelong pull towards persecuted and marginalized peoples. I sympathize with them, and, somehow, empathize with them. When I first started to learn of Native Americans and black peoples in our national past I felt drawn to them. I wanted to learn more about people, but particularly people who went through hardships. I wished I had been born black, or born Chinese, or somehow "other." I wanted to be Jewish. I immersed myself in African-American history classes in college, doing my senior honors thesis on miscegenation and passing. I had no idea at the time why I was drawn to these stories, these histories, these lives, but when I was reading The Lost it sort-of just hit me. The tragic and dramatic elements of these pasts and these peoples reminded me of my own life. I was not a care-free kid. I had a lot on my mind, a lot to think about, and a lot to feel, and all of that is really an understatement. It is the emotion that comes from learning the stories of these people that I felt and still feel, that kind of sad and tragic feeling that I think was such a large part of my own life (though it was a sadness and tragedy that was on a much different scale; I cannot in good faith compare my life to that of a slave or that of a Holocaust victim), and this is where I feel the connection. Through the feelings of hopelessness and despair that I get out of the stories. It mirrored the intense emotions that I was feeling in my own life, and gave me a way of realizing those emotions, of acknowledging them, of expressing them. Through reading these books and histories, feeling equally outraged and sorrowful at what I learned, I was able to release what I was feeling myself, what I was experiencing myself, in a way that I couldn't through other methods. I wouldn't talk about my feelings or anything linked to emotion to friends (never really had a whole lot of friends that I would have talked about this kind of stuff with, anyway, even if I had talked about it), not with family either, and really had no god way of dealing with any of the pretty profound thoughts and feelings that I was having. These kinds of books were a release, and they served in their own way as friends or family would - or should - have.

So when I was reading this book, all of this struck me. I thought about all of this as I was finding myself so eager to get back into reading about the Bolechowers and Mendelsohn's family, and was dreaming of what it would be like to be Jewish, wishing that I was Jewish, too. Because I realized that I want a connection to something. A feeling of community, a sense of belonging. The African-American experience, the Jewish experience, the experience of these minority groups - there is a shared sense of history, of experience, that is, perhaps by coincidence, linked by the unjust and immoral, shameful, treatment of these peoples, but it is shared. All Jewish people, whether they have a direct, nuclear link to something like the Holocaust, have some kind of link to the Holocaust by their mere Jewishness. They have a shared past. They have a shared history. They have a set group of people with whom they belong, and with whom they can share their feelings and their emotions, the feelings and emotions that inevitably come out of these tragedies. I never thought that I had anyone to share my feelings with, or my thoughts (whether that was because I really didn't have anyone or because I didn't feel comfortable sharing with whatever community I did have around me is another story), and I wanted this. I suppose I still want this. And maybe that's why I so readily pick up books, still, like The Lost.

It's so strange to think of me as a little girl, or me as a teen, or even me as a college senior, unconsciously shaping my academic life, and, to some degree, my future and career, around the stories of persecuted peoples because it is through these stories that I felt connected to someone, to something, to the world, and it's strange to be just now realizing that this is why I was doing it. I will, therefore, point to this realization, this light-bulb moment, as a reason why I read, perhaps the primary reason. Yes, it's to feel the connections to the characters that I am reading about, but it is also to expand my world. To learn more about the world around me, to connect me with the world around me, and to connect me with myself. If I didn't read and didn't have my stories, these connections, I would have very little indeed.