Monthly Archives: November 2008

Hope Finds A Way

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The Sheheyanu:

Finally, let me share with you the one last blessing for this morning, the sheheyanu. We bless God who has kept us alive, who has sustained us and who has enabled us to reach this season.

I had begun to think recently that these three terms: keeping us alive, sustaining us and enabling us to reach this season speak of the three ages of human beings, First, we are children awe-struck by the world and grateful for being alive. Then, we are middle aged adults struggling to remain stable within the direction we have set for ourselves thankful for being sustained. Finally, we are elderly individuals grateful for just reaching a new day.

That’s a nice interpretation. But, I have been inspired by words I heard this year to look at it differently. Our lives need to be a combination of all of those every day. We must never give up the thrill of being alive, always seek to find our direction and be grateful at the end of each day, knowing we have navigated the dangers of life successfully.

I credit this understanding of the Sheheyanu to a quotation I heard from a former astronaut, Pinky Nelson, commenting on flying the space shuttle after the tragedy of the Columbia.

He said: “You really have three things going on at once. There’s the professional astronaut that’s cool and calm and watching the instruments. There’s the little kid who’s got a ticket to Disneyland is having the ride of a lifetime. And there’s the older person looking over your shoulder trying to take it all in. You know if you’re not scared during a shuttle launch, then you don’t appreciate what’s going on.”

If we’re not scared during life, we don’t appreciate what’s going on. And if we don’t feel like a kid in Disneyland each and every day, we don’t appreciate what’s going on. And if we’re not watching every step of the way trying to stay in control, we don’t appreciate what’s going on. And the Sheheyanu reminds us that we should acknowledge the deep enjoyment of life, the living of life with meaning and the acceptance and overcoming of our fears at every age of our lives.

Welcome to our new lives, to this new day.

That Emptiness Brings Fullness

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I can’t form a coherent sentence anymore about politics. The absolute worst thing I’ve ever heard was the suggestion that the Democratic candidate killed his grandmother today for sympathy votes. My response to this has been swift and direct: god damn it, I’m going to knit some fucking cat blankets in my extreme and shitty frustration that reprobate howler monkeys qualify to vote, and put some Good after Bad. Fuck!

And I urge you to give a street person a quarter and a granola bar, put spare change in a parking meter, feed some stray cats, because we have seen enough, and you’ve probably still got a quarter.

That Delicate Satin-Draped Frame

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At the family store, where my sisters Anya and Corinne and their mother Ellen show and sell the wares and works of artists and artisans, people ask very interesting questions. The first time I noticed this thinking at work, a woman browsed the little store for over an hour, then asked an exciting question: “Do you have any vases?” My heart skipped a beat. For a moment, I couldn’t speak. Then I said, “Yes,” because the store is a room – and I cannot overstate this – full of vases. Yesterday, a woman walked around in circles and finally asked, “Do you have anything with butterflies?” I gulped, then started at one end of the store and made a pile in a shopping basket for her that would have cost her hundreds if she hadn’t exclaimed, “Stop! Stop! I don’t like my friend that much.” The other question that boggles my tiny mind is, “What would you do with these?” – meaning the pocket vases made by Daniel Latta of Latta’s Fused Glass.

I make lists: love notes, pencil holder, bud vase, chopstick dispenser, spaghetti organizer, handy eyeliner file, recipe card stand, spare change jar, safe place for used razors, container for your shredded credit card bill (pay it first!), cat toy caddy, fresh herb frame, brilliant storage for your favorite stranded wire bundle, haystack for a beloved needle, rainy day cash safe, seed cup, display case for your tail comb collection. I could go on.

Pete and I were wandering through Acme, of all places, when I stumbled on a basket of oversized cinnamon stick bundles. I’d surmised I’d only be able to get them at an Indian grocery, but there they were. This hangs in our bedroom, a warm beige bearing little resemblance to this color, where lamplight appears to flicker and even with the camera’s candlelight setting, the vase appears to move. Or we were having an earthquake no one else noticed. Either way, we couldn’t take a picture of this vase that wasn’t an action photo. Doesn’t it look athletic?

In other news: Miss Sasha reports that Panky has begun to crawl: her life changed in a flash when he got up on all fours and made for the dog bowl.

Yes. I am still laughing.