tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226885802024-03-07T22:12:01.800-05:00Bungalow Babe in the Big CityA woman. A computer. Musings in the middle of the night.Shira Dickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05875369712259812316noreply@blogger.comBlogger372125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22688580.post-74463695922903698792020-06-04T19:28:00.002-04:002020-06-04T21:40:36.957-04:00A Lesson from the Goddess Jeannette<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQQtXpO76SSnIrwCGw2toXvlfu1CcQ3trh8efrIEqIk_jXzFDol8mfB7MqdlbAkcAgngtYJIPw6oClOs4MY2pNb09Aa3vRySU1qHhbev2T0s5yee6kCiEV9HapWRxU0oQvWgfM/s1600/The+Goddess+Jeannette.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="864" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQQtXpO76SSnIrwCGw2toXvlfu1CcQ3trh8efrIEqIk_jXzFDol8mfB7MqdlbAkcAgngtYJIPw6oClOs4MY2pNb09Aa3vRySU1qHhbev2T0s5yee6kCiEV9HapWRxU0oQvWgfM/s320/The+Goddess+Jeannette.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">(Note: I wrote this post two weeks ago, before the sudden death of our beloved Pomeranian Nala, the galvanizing murder of George Floyd and resulting rash of protests and violence, a death in the family and too many things to even recount. I was so knocked off my axis that I was unable to post in a timely fashion, thought to update this entry to reflect recent events but decided to keep this as I wrote it, complete unto itself.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">M</span>onday
dawned bright and crisp, spring arriving in a pandemic-scarred Manhattan,
nature asserting her glorious self despite the human crisis. I awoke
bleary-eyed, having been roused several times in the night in tandem with my
husband, recuperating from a serious ankle injury some three weeks earlier.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">My
time in quarantine has been bracketed by the <i>Before</i> and <i>After</i> eras of his
accident, just as all of our lives are bracketed by the BC – <i>Before Coronavirus
</i>and the now.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In
the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Before the Accident </i>era of the
quarantine I found myself possessed of energy, good humor, a sense of optimism
and focus. I was busy with several projects that engaged my interest and felt
productive and creative. I divided my time at home with careful visits to my
elderly parents, wearing a medical grade mask and protective gear, bringing
food and good cheer. Even the week following his fall -- which included a terrifying
breathless journey to a safe Urgent Care and then a COVID-free ER (in NYC!!!), the
hospital admission, tests, swift medical consultation and emergency surgery –
found me proactive, organized, calm, competent.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Perhaps
I should not have been surprised that following the initial week home, I
crashed. Big time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I
stopped wanting to speak with friends. I slept in the clothes I had worn during
the day. I began obsessing over the ubiquity of science- and reality-denying Trump
supporters on my Facebook feed. I found myself increasingly unable to tune out
the daily antics of Trump himself. The death toll kept climbing. Mother’s Day
was approaching and I hadn’t seen two of my three adult children in months, was
sharing my grandson’s first year through FaceTime.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A
steady theme running through my days was the safety of my parents, living
independently but with shifts of caregivers. The thrum of anxiety was my
constant background noise. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Going
outside was wrought with peril, beginning with navigating the common spaces of
our apartment building. A refrigerated morgue was parked down our block, next to the hospital. Sirens pierced the air day and night. I avoided the elevator, taking the stairs...which is where my husband had fallen. I held my breath
while bringing the garbage down to the basement, despite my mask. I veered away
from unmasked people on the sidewalk, some smoking, other running uncomfortably
close by. When we had a visiting nurse and physical therapist come to the
apartment, I ran to open the door for them, then retreated inside the
apartment, shouting directions for them to my husband in our bedroom. A
post-operative visit to the orthopedic surgeon on the Upper East Side was
nightmarish as we encountered a crowded waiting room, receptionist without a
proper mask and no hygienic protocols observed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Like
most everyone else, we lost friends and loved ones, attended Zoom funerals and
shivas. There were days that Facebook seemed like one long obituary section.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">At
home, I was on-call in a rather intensive way, given the extent of my husband’s
injury. The trauma he suffered was not limited to the fall itself; he was also
processing the freaky corona-time hospital experience. The nurse’s bell I
bought him clanged constantly and I contemplated throwing it out the window. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I
alternated between feeling sorry for him and for myself.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Though
I was sharp and strategic on Zoom calls, the second I hung up, I could not recall
what I had promised, what I was supposed to do, what the project was even
about…and subsequently did nothing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Actually,
that is not true. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I was occupied nearly full-time in a completely new endeavor:
active, full-time despair.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Despair
wallpapered my daily life. It provided my every meal. It served as my sidekick.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I
was totally adrift in an ocean of hopelessness. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And
then I saw a text from Jeannette, also known as The Goddess Jeannette, my
friend and partner in a remarkable project.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Her
text told me that she missed me, wondered how I was. She knew about my
husband’s accident and was checking in with me. She had a few things she wanted
to share with me as well.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Guiltily
(because I had dropped my correspondence with her) then gratefully, I texted back to
let her know I could speak during my daily walk on the nearly empty Columbia
University campus, which was the only place I felt safe to walk. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I
swam through the familiar murky waters of hopelessness but somehow managed to
wash my face, tie up my sneakers, grab my mask, phone and hand-sanitizer and
head out the door. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Hitting the campus, I
made the call and when I heard her voice…rich, melodic, multi-dimensional, warm,
wise…everything changed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Early
into the pandemic, my friend Rabbi Ellen Bernstein pointed out the blessing of
our technology in keeping us connected. Newly isolated during the most
social/communal season of the Jewish calendar -- Passover -- we connected through Zoom,
FaceTime and our cellphones. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">While
it has become fashionable lately to bemoan the ubiquity of our screens, the
pandemic reversed that concept. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">How
blessed we are to be able to be together in our quarantine, defying the laws of
physics!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And
now, owing to this technology, I was together with Jeannette, she in her home
on Long Island, me tentatively treading this unpopulated section of the
Columbia campus, glancing around nervously before removing my mask. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I
asked my friend how she was.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“Darling,
you know that I’ve been in quarantine my whole life. This is no different,
really.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I
knew Jeannette’s story well, after all, I am editing her memoir. Afflicted with
Multiple Sclerosis since her early 30’s, Jeannette grew up on the premises of
institutions for the criminally insane, the child of Holocaust survivors. Since
I was first introduced to her story, I marveled at her optimistic spirit, keen
sense of humor and sheer strength of will…made all the more remarkable by the
adversity she has faced her entire life, the sheer amount of which seems nearly
statistically impossible.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Jeannette
Perutz Elsner was born to Shoah survivors from Poland who arrived on this shore
alive in body but decimated in spirit. Seeking cover, they opted for a life of
hiding in plain sight, living among the “feeble-minded and criminally insane”
residents of three separate “snake-pit” state institutions. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Even
before her MS was diagnosed, Jeannette survived a number of improbably freakish
medical conditions. Her best friend was killed in an accident when she was a
young teen. She survived sexual assault at the same time and managed to
extricate herself from a coercive, abusive relationship with her married mentor
as a young student in clinical psychology. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Now,
despite her inability to walk, despite her diminishing vision,
despite the excruciating pain that is her constant companion, despite the multiple failures of her neurological system, Jeannette wakes
up each day, spends hours completing tasks that take minutes for those of us
who are neuro-typical, exercises to Motown music and faces each day…not <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">without </i>despair, but in the face of
despair.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Her
decision to live each day is a big Fuck You to MS, a big Fuck You to her fate.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">She
accepts her fate and rejects it at the same time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">That
is why I call her the Goddess Jeannette.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Over
the course of the past three years, I have dived into Jeannette’s life as a
reporter, a voyeur, an investigator, a detective, a spy, an admiring friend. We
have spent countless hours talking…on the phone, in upscale restaurants, at her
dining room table. We attended a glittering, celebrity-studded MS event
together in Los Angeles one year ago. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Just a year ago...but a lifetime ago. <i>Before Coronavirus.</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Nearly
two years ago, with her adult son David, we revisited the heart of her
childhood horror -- Letchworth Village – the now-abandoned NY State institution
where her father served as an on-site doctor, consigning her to a childhood
where abnormality was her normal. David had just learned the truth his mother
had kept hidden from him and his brother. As we climbed through the haunted,
abandoned buildings, the true shape of her childhood – the true dimensions of
his mother’s character – became known to him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Now
here she is, facing another bit of improbable adversity, this time in good
company. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“To
tell you the truth, aside from the fear of infecting myself because I cannot
wash my hands easily, my daily life has not changed under COVID-19,” she said
to me in the first weeks of the pandemic.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>Before
the Accident</i>, I told Jeannette that I wanted to write about the secret that she
holds; the life hacks she can teach us to transcend this terrible moment.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>Before
the Accident,</i> when I was possessed of the determination to overcome the
adversity, I committed myself to serving as a megaphone, publicizing the
secrets of survival known to many survivors of trauma.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And
then I allowed myself to fall into the snake-pit of despair.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But
that Monday, Jeannette threw me a lifeline.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“You
are dealing with a holistic sense of threat,” she told me, after listening to
me recount my experiences of the past two weeks. “You have lost your illusion
of safety. Here’s the difference between us: I never had this illusion. I’ve
lived under extreme threat my entire life.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Jeannette
named the amorphous monster that had overtaken my existence.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">My
new despair was a reaction the new and unwelcome sense of daily menace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most of us have no antibodies to
threat. Born into the most secure and prosperous era of history for Americans,
we have no reflexive ability to respond to the new normal.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Let’s
be real. Before COVID-19 came to our shores, our lives have been a Hollywood
rom-com, a day at Disneyland. Unless we have personally encountered death or
devastating disease, unless we have experienced hunger or crushing poverty, unless we are survivors of violence or assault or war, we
know nothing about surviving this present moment. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">What
we need to do is find the survivors among us – of the Holocaust, of adversity,
of battle, of disease, of political unrest, of hunger, of neglect, of violence –
and hear their stories. We need survivors to kick us in the butt, teach us how
to shout a loud Fuck You to the adversity of the present moment.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The
antidote to despair is the knowledge that the human spirit is resilient. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The
antidote to despair is perspective, the knowledge that crisis has happened to
humanity before. The extended period of comfort, ease and safety we experienced
is actually an anomaly in the history of humankind. Disruption and crisis are
the forces that have changed the course of human history.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We
are now in a historic turning point whose trajectory – and meaning -- will only
be revealed over time. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">That Monday, my dear friend and collaborator Jeannette, survivor of an
improbable number of traumas lifted me out of my despair by naming my new
adversity – a pervasive sense of being under threat -- and reminding me that
survival is embedded in our DNA.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">My
conversation with The Goddess Jeannette restored me to my warrior woman
self.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Warriors know the importance
of shouting when they confront an enemy and so, I have woken up each day since Monday
shouting: “Fuck You COVID-19!” I am also shouting a big Fuck You to the corrupt
clown-king occupying our White House and his administration and cronies. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It
feels good to shout back in the face of threat. It feels good to be reminded of
our capacity for fighting the good fight. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I
never knew until the present moment that the archetypical struggle of Good vs.
Evil was actually real. I thought Hollywood dreamed it up, didn't know it was ripped from real life. What we are understanding now is that our lives, <i>Before Coronavirus</i> were charmed. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">After
my conversation with Jeannette that day, I returned to my apartment and promptly located
the short essay she had written at the beginning of the pandemic, in response
to a query from David Brooks of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">New
York Times.</i> As it was not printed, I am presenting it here.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Read it once, then read it again.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Read it often.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">You will need it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I
Have Been Here Before<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">By
Jeannette Perutz Elsner<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #181817;">I have lived in some form
of isolation my entire life. I am the child of Holocaust Survivors and
when my father came to the States, he found work as a residential physician in
various mental hospitals, including Matteawan State Hospital for the Criminally
Insane, Letchworth Village and other "snake-pit"-like institutions of
suffering and terror. It was on the premises of these houses of horror that my
childhood unfolded. My formative years were characterized by a sense of
quarantine, being locked away from normal life, imprisoned within a hellish
alternate reality, subject to outrageous and traumatic events.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #181817;">More than three decades ago, as a
young mother in my early 30's, I awoke to find myself fully
paralyzed. Thus began my personal plague: Multiple Sclerosis. While the
paralysis eventually lifted, the tell-tale symptoms replaced them. Over the
intervening years, as my illness progressed, I have felt alone and isolated,
overwhelmed by the awareness that normalcy or even health is all illusion.
Reality can change in a heartbeat. Everything is fluid; changeable, unreliable.
We all live at the mercy of the moment.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #181817;">Now, with the advent of this
horrific global pandemic, we are united, seized by an invisible virus that
has violently and abruptly broken our core illusion of
emotional, physical , financial stability and safety.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #181817;">For most of humanity, this
experience is novel but for me, it is familiar.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #181817;">I've been here. When you have MS,
you live in lockdown, you are quarantined within yourself, isolated from
humanity and the flow of daily life. </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #181817;">As such, I believe I have some
wisdom to impart right now. Here are some useful tips for survival amid
brokenness:</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #181817;">Accustomed to being alone, I try to
find emotional purpose in my physical and emotional isolation. Many
mornings I am broken. My tears frighten me for wiping my tears with my
imperfectly cleansed hands can prove deadly. I try to find connection with
people and family, even at the risk of being met with the avoidance and
impatience that many people have for candid conversation surrounding sickness.
or hardship. With the entire world united in this perverse manner -- we are all
victims of COVID-19, infected or not -- I find that the bonds of humanity
sustain all of us. And paradoxically, ironically, I find myself oddly calm and
confident, knowing that I already disabused myself of the illusion that any of
us have control over our lives or fates. Strangely, I realize that those of us
who live with suffering have an edge right now, a resilience. Used to being
imprisoned within our bodies, we are strangely empowered with superhuman
strength and purpose during this uncertain and terrifying time.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #181817;">Talk to us. We will help you
through. </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
<o:AllowPNG/>
</o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:TrackMoves>false</w:TrackMoves>
<w:TrackFormatting/>
<w:PunctuationKerning/>
<w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing>
<w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing>
<w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery>
<w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:DontGrowAutofit/>
<w:DontAutofitConstrainedTables/>
<w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/>
</w:Compatibility>
</w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="276">
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]-->
<!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
</style>
<![endif]-->
<!--StartFragment-->
<!--EndFragment--><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Shira Dickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05875369712259812316noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22688580.post-36559609277369701672020-04-24T16:15:00.002-04:002020-04-24T16:19:16.643-04:00Trumpensschreckenswut<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXr1S910QxDV5h3uOjDzKY66Sl3aX3wR7fVaUtrWn3lC5GbRR9LiolHGCakdfFcZUktTCKwxPFfnu0YofFhsdrYoA1gFrMQ4HAO6Zaa-xhpG8eQ9NOg00Epgz2U4mKNPwhWc_-/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-04-24+at+3.03.38+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="413" data-original-width="640" height="206" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXr1S910QxDV5h3uOjDzKY66Sl3aX3wR7fVaUtrWn3lC5GbRR9LiolHGCakdfFcZUktTCKwxPFfnu0YofFhsdrYoA1gFrMQ4HAO6Zaa-xhpG8eQ9NOg00Epgz2U4mKNPwhWc_-/s320/Screen+Shot+2020-04-24+at+3.03.38+PM.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">I</span>t was shortly after the bleach-injection/UV lung treatment idea unleashed by Donald "Mengele" Trump and slightly before I happened upon a Christian Trump supporter's Facebook page where prayers were being solicited for God's anointed one (who seemed to be suffering from a case of "loosened tongue") that I realized what I need -- <i>what we all need</i> -- to get through the double-plague of COVID-19 and 45. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
What we need, my friends, is one word that contains the amalgam of shock, horror, rage and fear we are experiencing as Americans at this moment when it appears that our president is literally TRYING to kill us.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
(A measure of how horrifyingly sick this present moment is is the fact that I find myself wishing for a president who was merely incompetent...not incompetent and resentful, incompetent and narcissistic, incompetent and science-averse, incompetent and sociopathic, incompetent and racist, incompetent and homicidal.)</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
As English is disadvantaged by having a limited number of syllables permitted to individual words, I knew that this was likely to come from German, a language famous for words of impressive length that convey entire <i>weltanschauungs</i> (world views).</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
But who to consult in the dead of the New York night as I gnawed away at my cuticles, chewing Elderberry gummies (high in Zinc and vitamin C!) and counting the cans of tuna, cans of diced plum tomatoes, cartons of Oat Milk and boxes of lentil pasta on the floor of my office/emergency food storage locker?</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
It came to me in a brilliant flash. My oldest son, a culture writer living in Germany for the past 12 years was just greeting the Munich morning as I stared balefully out the window at an idling Mt. Sinai Ambulance parked on the corner of Amsterdam and W116th Street.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
As one of his gigs, for the <i>New York Times</i>, entailed covering the German language theater scene in Europe I felt this was a reasonable ask. And even if he were not up for the task, his wife, my Italian daughter-in-law, was fluent in German as well. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Perhaps their best credential was that THEY WERE AWAKE!</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Through our WhatsApp call I conveyed what I was seeking. I did not have to give too much of a preamble, shorthanding the assignment as my search for the schadenfreude equivalent for this state of mind. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Two brilliant minds went to work. I humbly suggested that the word end in "angst," which every American could relate to. There was a first version. That was amended. Angst was in it. Then angst was taken out. Angst, they explained, was implicit. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Include his name or not? I thought not. They argued for specificity. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Some more back and forth, some family gossip and then my daughter-in-law produced the word: <i>Trumpensschreckenswut.</i> If I could figure out how to place an umlaut over the u in Trump I would, so add your own if you can.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
What does this mean? This word of twenty-one letters encapsulates this moment, names the unique and horrible psychological state we find ourselves in as American citizens being held hostage by the Mad King Donald.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
It literally means Trumpish Horror/Rage. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
This word is a world unto itself. A terrible world, to be sure. A world with monsters, straight from our childhood nightmares.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
The length of the word reflects the length of our quarantine, the interminable sentence of the Trump presidency, the endless ability to be shocked afresh, anew, every day, several times a day.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
But being able to identify a free -floating threat is helpful. We named the thing. We know what it is. We can examine it. We can talk about it. Soon we can overcome it.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
And the <i>kinder </i>were correct. There is no need to add the word "angst."</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Angst is implicit.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Angst colors the dawn of every day that 45 is the American president during the crisis of COVID-19. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
Shira Dickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05875369712259812316noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22688580.post-67048841015768052672020-04-22T01:23:00.000-04:002020-04-22T06:59:46.963-04:00There is a Make-Shift Morgue One Block Away...And Other True Tales of the 2020 Pandemic<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUAZgwwpxzXVafyE_V3Ab33dVxEdrBt-75jwALH2XKIY3xkt8V8mEB-0Kxz9uyi4_U-G_1aGA91o-AT6T2Kg6cBp1coVO9mbKouhpoKV7oBpTJ66-33g_-6LdjV5ssWC1qZlSP/s1600/Me.Blog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="481" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUAZgwwpxzXVafyE_V3Ab33dVxEdrBt-75jwALH2XKIY3xkt8V8mEB-0Kxz9uyi4_U-G_1aGA91o-AT6T2Kg6cBp1coVO9mbKouhpoKV7oBpTJ66-33g_-6LdjV5ssWC1qZlSP/s320/Me.Blog.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
1 a.m. April 22, 2020.<br />
<br />
Week seven...or is it eight?... of the quarantine.<br />
<br />
I am camped out in my home office, aka Emma's old room, aka Adam and Anna's guest room, aka the pandemic food storeroom.<br />
<br />
I am here because it is where I feel safest right now.<br />
<br />
As is my habit, I just spent about an hour reading the latest news reports...on CNN's live update feed...on Twitter...on Facebook...on NYTimes.com.<br />
<br />
Others need to immerse themselves in escapist fare -- which I wholeheartedly salute, by the way -- but for me, staying informed is a way of staying sane, keeping control or equilibrium.<br />
<br />
This is coming to you from Manhattan's Morningside Heights, from Amsterdam Avenue and W116th Street, to be exact. We live in faculty housing, opposite Columbia University.<br />
<br />
Two blocks south is the former St. Lukes hospital, now Mt. Sinai West. To accommodate the number of dead, a makeshift morgue in the form of a refrigerated truck is camped out on W115th Street.<br />
<br />
Columbia has always been our backyard, since we moved here in 1994.<br />
<br />
Now it is our only yard, the sole stretch of outdoors where we feel safe to walk, aside from the grassy lawn in front of our bungalow up in Monroe, NY.<br />
<br />
Until a month ago we were walking around the reservoir in Central Park, along the Hudson in Riverside Park or around the perimeter of Morningside Park.<br />
<br />
As the virus spread, the crowds began to feel threatening. Even thinned out, there were too many people.<br />
<br />
Because the campus is our only haven, which we walk with masks and sometimes even gloves, I have raised holy hell with the administration to ensure that people on campus comply with public health policies. For the space of an entire week, I sent pissy"Karen" emails to important individuals, prompting one of them to ask if I was "Mrs. Bollinger," that is, Columbia President Lee Bollinger's wife.<br />
<br />
I must say that I stand by my letter, my pissy tone and actually do not think that I acted like a Karen, I acted more than an Erin...as in Erin Brockovich. What I wanted to know was: if Governor Cuomo AND Mayor deBlasio BOTH said that wearing masks in public is required...WHY WERE AT LEAST HALF THE PEOPLE ON CAMPUS WITHOUT MASKS, SMOKING, SOCIALIZING AND RUNNING SWIFTLY PAST ME, SENDING ME INTO A TAILSPIN OF FEAR???<br />
<br />
It is amazing how many people truly do not think that a basic, commonsense public health policy applies to them...and I'm not even talking about the so-called "protesters," aka "Covidiots" waving guns around because they think their personal liberties have been taken away by a bunch of wussy scientists who are only trying to keep them alive.<br />
<br />
I'm talking about some neighbors. I'm talking about security personnel at Columbia. I'm talking about the students staying in East Campus.<br />
<br />
But I don't want to dwell on this. And I also want to say that I got a personal email today thanking me for my "tenacity," (YAY!) and assuring me that signs were going up on campus shortly informing everyone that it was mandatory to wear a mask.<br />
<br />
I want to be more general, talk about the incredible disruption to normalcy, the lives spent indoors, the cessation of street life, night life, restaurant life, regular shopping life, the sirens, the 7 pm applause, the clever videos, the heartbreaking videos, the silly videos, the memes, the co-created concerts and benefits, the glimpse of celebrity's kitchens and backyards and basements, newscasters without make-up, none of us with neat hair or nails, weight gained or lost, food stockpiled, the fear of going hungry, the fear of not having, the uncertainty of what tomorrow will bring.<br />
<br />
I want to talk about the fear, the despair, the anxiety, the flickering hope, replaced again by fear, despair, anxiety.<br />
<br />
I want to talk about my awareness that as tough as this is personally for people like me, it is infinitely more horrible for others. If you have a roof over your head, money for food and are healthy, well, then...that is a<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dayenu"> Dayenu.</a> You are one lucky bastard.<br />
<br />
I want to talk about the heartbreaking deaths, how Facebook has been turned into a vertical obituary column, how people die alone, how people grieve alone, how Judaism's magnificent rituals have been constricted, how Purim turned into a death factory for so many, how so many rabbis have risen to the enormous challenge while others have failed their flock by worshipping the Golden Calf of disdain for truth and science. I want to talk about the shocking infection and death of our frontline medical personnel -- whom we call heroes when they are really being martyred, or maybe murdered -- about the stunning lack of preparedness in this nation, about critical supplies deliberately being withheld, about a president who has failed to say even ONE empathetic, unifying word, about how America might be ending, or over or dying and we...the same.<br />
<br />
<i>Will we survive this</i>?<br />
<br />
I want to talk about my shock that we are hostages of an insane and evidently homicidal president (how did this happen that we cannot be guaranteed safety from our government????), my horror at the enablers who are still -- STILL -- propping him up, fueling his insanity.<br />
<br />
I want to talk about the horror of this moment. The horror of listening to FoxNews when I visit my parents. The horror of Ivanka and Jared whom I hate more than I imagined I could hate people I do not personally know. The horror of governors who put wealth over health, who lead their people to slaughter.<br />
<br />
I want to talk about my rescue fantasies ala Deus ex Machina. Of Biblical justice meted out. The splitting of the Red Sea. A miracle.<br />
<br />
I want to talk about my valiant friends who are alone. Truly alone. In their homes. What that is like. How it is different from being with others, even others you may not like.<br />
<br />
I want to talk about my parents, ages 89 and 86, in their apartment in Great Neck, with two caregivers...and how terrifying it is to love someone so vulnerable during this time.<br />
<br />
I want to talk about the deaths in the nursing homes, the bodies piled high, the terror of the administration at being discovered, families astonished and aghast and robbed of final hours and even truth and especially the dignity of a proper death for their loved ones.<br />
<br />
I want to talk about the work I have been lucky to have. I want to talk about my adult children who bring me such joy and hope. Who are the sources of light in my life. Whom I miss...except for the one who lives with us, next to us, with his wife, with his music, with his wry observations and calm.<br />
<br />
What a blessing.<br />
<br />
And I want to say that one of the teachings of this terrible time is that love really does traverse distances. Love knows no bounds, no geography. It is here even when the person is not. I feel my children and my little grandson even though we are not together...just as I feel my sister, brother, parents and all my beloved friends.<br />
<br />
This is my first foray at documenting this time aside from Facebook posts...of which there are many. It is late at night. Or early the next morning. Look, the new day has arrived. America is still here. We are still here.<br />
<br />
Our story is not over yet.<br />
<br />
<br />Shira Dickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05875369712259812316noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22688580.post-62385595239014493292017-01-05T09:57:00.001-05:002017-01-05T09:57:58.685-05:00Let's Make America Sing Again!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/IGvBlckye2k/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/IGvBlckye2k?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">C</span>oming soon to Kickstarter:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">A campaign for my new multi-platform gonzo journalism project:</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </span><b style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i>I Hear America Singing, </i></b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">which will take me coast to coast
in search of the song that resides at the heart of contemporary America.</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Since Election Day, I have been visiting karaoke bars in New York
City to hear people sing and speak about their hopes, dreams and fears in the
aftermath of the recent presidential election. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Why karaoke bars? Because they are the new Town Square, that
friendly place where people gather after work to connect, relax and express
themselves through song.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">At a time when words are being used as weapons in our
newly-divided nation, the power of song is great and profound. It heals rifts.
It unites. It expresses what cannot be conveyed through words alone.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It is said that a person's name is their destiny. My name is
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tlhpq9Qb2Bo">Shira, which means song</a> in Hebrew, and my life has been influenced and enhanced
by the sheer joy of singing...solo or in a group, in school, synagogue and
summer camp, in times of joy and sadness alike.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Inspired by my love of singing, I am now continuing the journey I
began in local karaoke bars and taking it on the road, coast to coast.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Built around that great American tradition -- the road trip
-- <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I Hear America Singing</i></b> is journalism of the people. It is
unvarnished, gritty and real. It is democratic. It is journalism of the here
and now, capturing this epic moment in our nation's history, documenting it and
striving to make sense of it all.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Featuring interviews with regular Americans in a variety of cities
and towns across this great nation, my intention is to head out on the road
over the course of <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">several </b>cross-country
trips within the first year of Donald Trump’s presidency. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">While on each leg of my <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I Hear America Singing </i></b>road
trip<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">, </i></b>I
will be visiting places with current social and political resonance, changing
up the landscape, seeking to capture the widest possible sampling of incomes,
professions, backgrounds, faiths and political leanings by visiting local
karaoke bars, getting to know their patrons and documenting the local mood. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It is my hope to zigzag from "red" to "blue"
America, making my journey as diverse as possible. Among locations I hope to
visit are Charleston, SC; Flint, MI; Ferguson, MO; Indianapolis, IN; Atlantic
City, NJ; San Bernadino, CA; Orlando, FL; Whitefish, MT and dozens of others
cities marked by tragedy or fame; popular or forgotten.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The purpose of my Kickstarter campaign is to launch the pilot phase of the
project.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">How do I envision <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I Hear America Singing</i></b>?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The essence of my project is an up-close-and-personal invitation
to YOU to join me on my journey, which will be documented in real time. By reading
my daily blog and Facebook page where compelling videos and photographs will be
posted, you will be able to follow me as I leave the bubble of New York City in
search of America.<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> <o:p></o:p></i></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">As additional funds are raised, a website and podcast will be
added to the suite of products documenting my adventures.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Details on how you can support <span style="background-color: transparent;"><i style="font-weight: bold;">I Hear America Singing </i>will be available on the Kickstarter page. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<b style="background-color: transparent;"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Now is the time to document America's hopes, dreams and fears through the songs
of its soul in this uniquely 21<sup>st</sup> Century journalism.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I hope you can help put me on the road in quest of America's
resonant song, that which rises above the divisive rhetoric of our nation. I
hope you can become a supporter of my multi-platform storytelling
project, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I Hear America Singing</i></b>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<br /></div>
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
<o:AllowPNG/>
</o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:TrackMoves>false</w:TrackMoves>
<w:TrackFormatting/>
<w:PunctuationKerning/>
<w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing>
<w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing>
<w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery>
<w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:DontGrowAutofit/>
<w:DontAutofitConstrainedTables/>
<w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/>
</w:Compatibility>
</w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="276">
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]-->
<!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
</style>
<![endif]-->
<!--StartFragment-->
<!--EndFragment--><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Shira Dickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05875369712259812316noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22688580.post-20913083797377081762016-12-28T00:46:00.001-05:002016-12-28T00:48:13.237-05:00I'm Back and WTF 2016!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwmZOYlqFL_M-4pnK0ypopvL_5lqY3JvvTarT1hDOz-qcG7f-0JOkpyJi-JhSw9V8tXlbnnYEu-rfgn0BG91_kuzTJeNsQ1lZ3J-hZmgckYJCTjb1qflNFmYUXX6S3c9npOCjC/s1600/WTF2016.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="209" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwmZOYlqFL_M-4pnK0ypopvL_5lqY3JvvTarT1hDOz-qcG7f-0JOkpyJi-JhSw9V8tXlbnnYEu-rfgn0BG91_kuzTJeNsQ1lZ3J-hZmgckYJCTjb1qflNFmYUXX6S3c9npOCjC/s320/WTF2016.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Y</span>es, I've been gone, doing that thing called Life Undocumented.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Life got intense. Intensely good. Intensely bad. Intensely weird. Intensely intense.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And suddenly the rest of the world...or at least AMERICA...caught up to me.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Okay, so we are all now in that WTF moment.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As the Chinese or Yiddish curse has it, we are living in interesting times.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">First, all the deaths. David Bowie. Glenn Frey. Patty Duke. Prince. Elie Wiesel. Leonard Cohen. George Michael?? And Carrie Fisher!!! (and all the wonderful others I simply cannot remember at this late hour.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And then t</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">he impossible.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The unthinkable.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">President Trump.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Think back to last year at this time. Who would have imagined that that big-mouthed bully would win the White House?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Or, as HOBB* commented just tonight, "How did Hillary NOT win??"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It is like a recurring nightmare. Reality, that is.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As for me, I keep reliving the hideous moment I awoke from my depressed slumber on the living room couch to see the CNN banner announcing Trump's win. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And since that time I've vacillated between disbelief, anger, fear, despair, sadness and...hope.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Condensing countless hours of contemplation, therapy, soul-searching, meditation and conversation with people wiser than myself, I've arrived at the following:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>I can resist. I can fight the good fight. I am a born warrior.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Trump's victory pushed me hard into existential mode, forcing me to leave a respectable, well-paying office job in favor of the insecure life of the freelance journalist.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There was a particularly intriguing multi-platform project kicking around in my brain for the past year that I had researched, developed, polished, vetted and then shelved.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But November 8th made me sit up straight, grab it off the shelf and get to work. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Now I'm about to launch a crowd-funding campaign to help put me on the road, going city to city speaking to Americans in the Public Square of the 21st century: the humble, local, democratic karaoke bar.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It is called I Hear America Singing. After the great Walt Whitman Poem. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The next post will have further deets. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">For now, it is great to be back.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">______________________________________________________________________________</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">*Husband of Bungalow Babe</span>Shira Dickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05875369712259812316noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22688580.post-45015443137285467192015-04-23T02:52:00.003-04:002015-04-23T08:38:22.433-04:00The Blessing of an Arthritic Hip<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xfQrS-cksjQ" width="560"></iframe><br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">M</span>uch like Ben Stiller's Josh in the movie<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1791682/"> <i>While We're Young</i></a>, I greeted the news that I had the beginnings of<a href="http://www.arthritis.org/"> arthriti</a>s with disbelief verging on denial.<br />
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
I was in the office of <a href="https://www.ratemds.com/doctor-ratings/2921426/BAOKU-LIU-New%2BYork-NY.html">Dr. Liu</a>, my acupuncturist, wearing running shorts, a towel covering my chest and belly. He bent my right leg this way and that.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
"OWWWW!" I shouted. "Why does that hurt so much?!!!!"</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
"You misled me," scolded Dr. Liu who had told me just last week that I had bursitis. After four treatments failed to heal the inflamed hip, he investigated further, pelting me with questions about the specific nature and location of the pain and expertly prodding me in my hip, my thigh, my lower back as I yelped in affirmation of painful spots he hit.<br />
<br />
"Arthritis!" he pronounced as I immediately envisioned myself in a motorized wheelchair, wizened, determined, steely-haired, careening down Broadway, zipping in and out of traffic.<br />
<br />
Me? The party animal? The hiker? The dancer? The singer after hours? The gym rat? The traveler? The drinker of tequila?<br />
<br />
But the diagnosis of arthritis -- <i>arthritis arthritis!</i> -- did make sense. For the past month, my right hip hurt as I ran up stairs and now, late in the day, the pain had started to radiate down my thigh to my knee.<br />
<br />
I searched frantically for reasons to blame myself for this affliction. If I had caused it, perhaps I could remove it!<br />
<br />
"Should I change my diet?? I semi-wailed as Dr. Liu progressed to inserting needles into the soft skin just to the side of my hip bone. A vibrating electrical current went through my leg and something else deep and horrible.<br />
<br />
"Yow!!!" I howled.<br />
<br />
Though I have been know to vocalize at Dr. Liu's office -- where regularly moans emanate from behind closed doors -- I had never made a sound like this, which was akin to a female Moose in labor.<br />
<br />
He instantly looked concerned and patted my shoulder, withdrawing the needle.<br />
<br />
"Don't worry," he said kindly. "We will fix."<br />
<br />
Arthritis!<br />
<br />
What the...!!!!!!!<br />
<br />
"Seriously...what should I do differently?" I asked Dr. Liu. I had a jumpstart on the nutritional no-no's of arthritis, as I obsessively read health manuals. "Can I still exercise? Should I cut out the inflammation-causing foods-- dairy, nightshades, wheat, meat, sugar..." I paused and gulped. "Alcohol?"<br />
<br />
"Alcohol," he said, gravely. "It causes necrosis."<br />
<br />
Though I wasn't sure what necrosis was, exactly, it scared me. It started with "nec," which I'm pretty sure has to do with death. Could there be something dead or dying inside my hip joint? And could I have caused it with my late-in-life love of...well, getting drunk?<br />
<br />
As I limped out of Dr. Liu's office, I was fueled by a coked-up optimism: I would grab the arthritis bull by the horns, continue acupuncture, eliminate inflammation-causing foods, take supplements and vitamins, seek physical therapy, read everything I could find and modify my exercise, which he told me I could still do, just not at crazy intensity.<br />
<br />
I had been using the elliptical at a rather challenging setting lately. Could that have caused this? I fretted.<br />
<br />
Heading to a Vitamin Shoppe to stock up on anti-inflammation goods in their <i>Joints</i> aisle, I found the wind knocked out of my sails by a singular thought. I ate fairly well and was active. My weight was good. I was mostly gluten-free.<br />
<br />
But I would be kidding myself if I denied that in the past few years -- and especially recently -- drinking had become a fun, new habit. What started as once every month became weekly and then several times a week.<br />
<br />
Yes, I was a cheap drunk, getting wasted on two glasses of wine or two shots of tequila. I would note everyone else guzzling so much more than me but Dr. Liu sounded unambiguous.<br />
<br />
<i>No alcohol.</i><br />
<br />
Digesting the news of my diagnosis of arthritis, I wondered: could I have brought harm to my body through this indulgence?<br />
<br />
And what would it be like to no longer have my reliable party friends -- Pinot Grigio and silver tequila -- in my life? What will I discover without the hazy embrace of that altered consciousness that I so crave at the end of a long day, the recklessness that it invites, the conversations that it enables, the inconvenient, uncomfortable truths that it blurs until the next day?Shira Dickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05875369712259812316noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22688580.post-29534867701487967682015-04-20T10:11:00.000-04:002015-04-20T11:03:08.277-04:00Emergence or the Essence of Spring<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIQkELmnXkOesTBRpP7Gs4Ztfbw2ylpupyfY3P8i7FCRvGNFvLHASUHV_kKpEd4ugPZiWLcv5NEEhlRYzgBrZ4Rdghotn75D3w_UwQrVOVde5LH84Yuo7kdFS8SyzvQ47GI5gX/s1600/Lenoir_Contemplation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIQkELmnXkOesTBRpP7Gs4Ztfbw2ylpupyfY3P8i7FCRvGNFvLHASUHV_kKpEd4ugPZiWLcv5NEEhlRYzgBrZ4Rdghotn75D3w_UwQrVOVde5LH84Yuo7kdFS8SyzvQ47GI5gX/s1600/Lenoir_Contemplation.jpg" height="320" width="194" /></a></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">A</span>fter two days of dazzling sunshine -- long overdue -- the rain arrived, heralded by a nippy wind that dismayed us as we rushed from our friends' house last night on West 106th Street to our car, parked on Amsterdam Avenue in front of a karaoke bar where a twenty-something guy was drunkenly belting out a <a href="http://www.backstreetboys.com/">Backstreet Boys</a> hit from 15 years ago.<br />
<br />
It was the tail end of a complex Sunday constructed with the colliding stuff of life: a <a href="http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/nytimes/obituary.aspx?pid=174661645">funeral </a>on the West Side, a birthday party on the <a href="https://www.wavehill.org/">banks of the Hudson,</a> a visit to an old beloved friend in a northern New York suburb, a <a href="http://www.violoncellosociety.org/">lecture</a> on the East Side, numerous phone conversations with family and friends and finally, the ritual of watching <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/04/20/mad-men-s-weirdest-relationship-returns-creepy-glen-got-hot-and-is-back-for-some-betty.html">MadMen</a> with dear friends, which we have been doing for the past three years.<br />
<br />
After a winter of unprecedented harshness, New Yorkers were treated to a Saturday of sterling perfection: clear skies, temperatures near 80, abundant light, the kindness of strangers liberated from the prison of extreme weather. Jolted out of bed by an optimism and lightness of spirit I hadn't felt since my trip (#4 this winter) to Florida last month, I made the most of the gift of sudden spring, walking the <a href="http://alfie-pomeranian.blogspot.com/2007/03/welcome-to-fabulous-life-of-alfie.html">dogs </a>at leisure, strolling to my<a href="http://www.blinkfitness.com/"> gym in Harlem </a>(instead of bolting there, hands dug deep into the pockets of my North Face parka, nose numb, eyes tearing), eschewing <a href="http://www.anschechesed.org/web/minyan-m-at/about">shul</a> for the much-needed communion with sunshine in the form of an impromptu hangout on the lawn of the Columbia campus with book, water and a beach towel.<br />
<br />
Following numerous false starts and broken promises, spring officially arrived in winter-scarred Manhattan. Returning from <a href="https://www.ramathorah.org/"><i>his</i> shul</a>, HOBB found me on the campus (I left a minimalistic message -- "outside" -- made of <a href="http://www.scrabble.com/">Scrabble</a> tiles on the dining room table, just next to the challah), we ate a light lunch, played a round of Scrabble and then propelled ourselves outdoors, virtually sprinting to Riverside Park to join the jillions of joyous humans, dogs and others creatures who were walking, running, climbing, cavorting, ambling, rambling, scrambling, shedding themselves of the too-tight skin of this recently departed season.<br />
<br />
In midday, Riverside Park resembled nothing more than a grand, public rehabilitation facility.<br />
<br />
Along the river, we walked down to the <a href="http://www.nycgovparks.org/facilities/marinas/10">79th Street Boat Basin</a> and back uptown, bumping into innumerable friends, joining the crowded, grungy party that is the <a href="http://www.boatbasincafe.com/">Boat Basin Cafe,</a> witnessing a bike accident, dodging speeding cyclists to avoid getting hit ourselves, holding hands, allowing conversation to flow freely, punctuated by periods of placid silence.<br />
<br />
Recalling Saturday -- the most perfect urban Shabbat in recent memory -- I find the strength to face the backsliding temperatures of today and revive my habit of documenting my life in this public forum.<br />
<br />
Why have I not written this winter in this, my online home, repository of my musings, struggles, activities, inspirations? (Full disclosure: I have written elsewhere and for others but not here. Just two weeks ago, I published a <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shira-dicker/why-long-married-spouses-should-write-a-singles-ad_b_6977322.html">rather naked essay</a> on the <a href="http://huffingtonpost.com/">Huffington Post.</a> And I have pounded the keyboard of my laptop in pain, despair, fury, frustration and the quest for transcendence since my last meandering, meditative post, two seasons ago, choosing to keep my thoughts sealed and concealed in my personal files. Some things are too private or perhaps it is simply too soon to examine them publicly.)<br />
<br />
When I stopped at the home of my former neighbor in New Rochelle yesterday -- a soul sister of sorts -- she asked me this very question: why my blog went into blackout mode.<br />
<br />
The winter, I answered, meaning more than the weather.<br />
<br />
Which she instantly understood.<br />
<br />
Earlier that day, at the birthday party I attended at Wave Hill, I met a musician and psychologist with whom I spoke for close to two hours. Given to spontaneous connections with strangers, the fact of our impromptu conversation was not unusual but the substance of it was so significant and relevant to me that I had to wonder about angels placing us at the same time and place in order to connect.<br />
<br />
Among the many things we spoke about was creativity and mood. A third person joined the conversation, also an artist. We discussed the importance of the ebb and flow of our feelings, the deep dive into difficult introspection that leads to breakthrough and outpouring.<br />
<br />
Heads bent inward, we excitedly shared our accounts of the ways in which we managed our moods, our conviction that feeling all ends of the emotional spectrum was essential to the integrity of our artistry and the emergence of our authentic selves.<br />
<br />
Twenty four hours later, I feel myself transported to a faraway galaxy with the warmth of the sun on my bare legs a distant memory. "Taking the dogs out today was an act of animal abuse," reported HOBB, returning with two miserably soaked pooches just a short while ago, his canvas Crocs sloshy.<br />
<br />
I dried and fed the dogs. Outside our window overlooking Amsterdam Avenue, I saw cars and trucks driving through a downpour, tires turning on wet pavement. Dreamily, I drifted back to my bedroom. The sound and scene chilled me, made me burrow into my blankets.<br />
<br />
But my allotted time for self-expression has come to an end and the demands of the workday begin.<br />
<br />
It is time to get out of bed, where I have cozily arranged myself -- laptop on pillow, a mug of <a href="http://www.zabars.com/">Zabar's</a> coffee on my night table -- in response to the weather that reminds me of the recently-departed winter.<br />
<br />
Today forces a close and candid examination of what transpired over the past few months.<br />
<br />
It was an ordeal but there was insight, beauty, new bonds, self-knowledge and discovery.<br />
<br />
It was an assault but the absence of pain is a form of pleasure.<br />
<br />
There was adventure because I crave and create it; there was escape and travel and sunshine. I cannot misrepresent reality. While new acts of insane and cruel religious extremism were broadcast into our lives from faraway places -- destabilizing us as human beings, recalling the potential for destruction, terrifying us -- I had the luxury to slip into sadness, to sit in dissatisfaction, to taste disappointment, to dream.<br />
<br />
Perhaps because I so love the essence of paradox, I prefer to view the Winter of 2015 through that particular prism.<br />
<br />
Gazing reluctantly backwards, I feel like a survivor, brushing myself off, stepping gingerly but with spirit and great dignity over the Finish Line, moving towards the rising sun, palms raised, heart open, face tilted upwards.Shira Dickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05875369712259812316noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22688580.post-19356102424661164712014-12-04T12:57:00.001-05:002014-12-05T11:57:38.325-05:00Don't Cry for Me, Mandy Patinkin<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBtx0ceENEc-zqRHv94IySC7J6g2eN_cmyL2SNFtXqQr6f49f1gIFW9rr5k544kTu2q4yrDzVnc50TdDgBERn3_a-j3JhzzWWv3meqRhG6DSeHQ_Q1DZ2sYBceAQRxUGxxZNp5/s1600/Mandy+Patinkin++As+Che-Evita-Original+Broadway.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBtx0ceENEc-zqRHv94IySC7J6g2eN_cmyL2SNFtXqQr6f49f1gIFW9rr5k544kTu2q4yrDzVnc50TdDgBERn3_a-j3JhzzWWv3meqRhG6DSeHQ_Q1DZ2sYBceAQRxUGxxZNp5/s1600/Mandy+Patinkin++As+Che-Evita-Original+Broadway.jpg" height="262" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">O</span>n the final Friday afternoon in November, Concord's <a href="http://www.newenglandtravelplanner.com/go/ma/boston_west/concord/sights/monument_square.html">Monument Square</a> was congenially crowded with ruddy-cheeked, good-natured pedestrians arrayed in colorful outerwear, toting oversized holiday shopping bags, gracefully skirting the coconutty mounds of unsullied snow banking the sidewalks of the street leading up to the <a href="http://www.newenglandtravelplanner.com/go/ma/boston_west/concord/hotels/colonial_inn.html">Colonial Inn</a>, our destination, established in 1713.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
We had arrived in the heart of this historic Massachusetts town with only a couple of hours until <a href="http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/310830">Shabbat</a>, eager to track down food and local cultural offerings...not necessarily in that order. Stumbling into the hotels's reception area with my too-numerous bags and Manhattan black-on-black attire, I set about the task of finding out what was showing, playing or otherwise open that we would need to purchase tickets for before the 4:12 sundown.<br />
<br />
One of the hallmarks of people like me who straddle the worlds of traditional Jewish observance and the cultural cornucopia of secular society is an insistence upon celebrating Shabbat while also availing ourselves of shows, concerts and other local offerings. In other words, we want to be part of the wonderful world at large even as we honor the restrictions that are part of a religious life.<br />
<br />
What this typically means is a mad dash to purchase tickets before the advent of the Day of Rest and being able to walk to the venue and back to one's hotel from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday. It means figuring out what to do for Friday night dinner; it means museum admissions secured ahead of time so that a Saturday visit can take place. It also often means a tote bag or knapsack filled with snacks so the day of adventure can unfold without compromising any of the Sabbath day restrictions on making purchases. <br />
<br />
Depending on one's denomination, all kinds of creative solutions may be found and the season greatly impacts this experience as the long days of summer provide the opportunity for Friday evening travel before it gets dark and the short days of winter mean that secular Saturday night endeavors can begin as early as 5 p.m.<br />
<br />
Whether one carries a credit card that is used only until sunset on Friday or just after sunset on Saturday has to do with the willingness to interpret the law in a flexible way. Still, the pursuit of this ideal binds all Jews who seek that precarious balance between the spiritual and the secular.<br />
<br />
Grabbing a local fall going-out guide from the rack of tourist brochures in the lobby of the Colonial Inn this past Friday, I impatiently perused a plethora of uninteresting holiday offerings until the very item I had been seeking came sharply into focus.<br />
<br />
"There's an 8 p.m. performance of <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evita_%28musical%29">Evita</a></i> at <a href="http://theumbrellaarts.org/">The Umbrella</a> tonight," I happily informed HOBB, breathing a sigh of relief. The Umbrella is a new arts collective and performance space that occupied a local elementary school, just a five minute walk from the Colonial Inn. After settling into our room, we could buy our tickets online, light Shabbat candles in the bathroom, read, go down for dinner in one of the hotel's restaurants and leisurely make our way to The Umbrella...a most perfect way to start our weekend vacation.<br />
<br />
We had driven to Concord as a spontaneous, last-minute weekend vacation after a fall of unusual work-related stress. In the days following Middle Babe's wedding at <a href="http://www.greentreeclub.com/">Greentree Country Club</a> in New Rochelle on August 28th, I longed for a period of calm that never quite arrived; in fact, it seemed that the end of the wedding ushered in a season of new challenges, extending an unfortunate trend of dealing with difficult and unreasonable personalities.<br />
<br />
After a charming overnight stay in Philadelphia the week before, we spontaneously opted for another great American city for the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. With memories of many marvelous restorative winter vacations in the area, of hikes around Walden Pond and visits to the local cemetery where many of the great transcendentalists are buried, I instantly went online and booked the last available room at the Colonial Inn.<br />
<br />
Our room was as quirky, old-fashioned, overheated and quaint as I had hoped...complete with beamed ceilings and slanted floors with broad wooden planks. We happily unpacked, set our <a href="http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303849604579278740124684748">Scrabble </a>set on the bed as we readied to go downstairs for dinner, uncorked the excellent <a href="http://jwines.com/index.php/wines.html?producer=152&gclid=CMr61Pj4rMICFVCCMgodyCsAjQ">Borgo Reale</a> Pinot Grigio we had brought from Manhattan and began our long awaited Day of Rest.<br />
<br />
After a short traipse through the magical snowy streets of Concord a couple of hours later, mellowed by the wine and the Louisa May Alcott landscape, I sat in the auditorium of the new community arts center, utterly enchanted by the surprisingly professional and inventive production of the show I had last seen 35 years earlier when it opened on Broadway, starring Patti Lupone.<br />
<br />
There are the shows we are conscious of loving, the shows whose scores we sing in our heads, the shows whose themes seem intertwined with our lives. <i>West Side Story; Phantom of the Opera; Little Shop of Horrors; The Lion King; The Rocky Horror Show: Hair: Jesus Christ Superstar; The Sound of Music </i>and <i>Fiddler on the Roof</i><i style="font-weight: bold;"> </i>top my personal list.<br />
<br />
Over the course of my life as a parent, part of the joy of loving -- and sharing my love of -- certain musicals has been my penchant for speaking in lyrics or dialogue to my kids and certain trusted friends. The snide, "What do you mean by that?" from "Pontius Pilate's Song"in <i>Jesus Christ Superstar</i> has been one of my popular refrains. "She asks me why I'm such a hairy guy," from <i>Hair</i> has peppered conversations about the need for waxing. "Very smart Maria, very smart!" snarled by Anita in <i>West Side Story</i> has been employed as a way of defusing criticism.<br />
<br />
Sitting in The Umbrella abuzz with excitement -- singing every lyric along with the actors in my head -- I recalled how much I had loved <i>Evita</i> and wondered why it slipped from my consciousness, especially since the sarcastic "Oh but it's sad when a love affair dies," has escaped my lips a few times and "I kept my promise. Don't keep your distance," has also been known to be on my spoken lyrics list.<br />
<br />
I remembered how I had excitedly bought the cast recording on cassette after the show and how I sang along with it together with my sister, a musical actress. I recalled how insulted and stung I was when a critic from <i>The New Yorker</i> (or maybe it was the super-nasty John Simon of <i>New York Magazine?) </i>made fun of the lyrics, which I thought were great.<br />
<br />
I also remembered that I had seen <i>Evita</i> just before I left for <a href="https://overseas.huji.ac.il/usap">Hebrew University</a> for my junior year semester abroad; my parents presented tickets to the show to me as a gift before I left home. For a city college kid, leaving the country for a year abroad was a big deal, especially for my parents who had insisted we live at home and commute to school. For the oldest daughter of a rabbi who changed careers just two years earlier -- becoming a clinical psychologist, borrowing money to buy a house for the first time, working around around the clock to earn enough to pay his friends back and keep his three children in school -- it was a big expenditure as well.<br />
<br />
All this I thought of on Friday night in Concord, Massachusetts, in the auditorium of The Umbrella, 35 years after the fact. "This is very good," HOBB whispered to me as each actor debuted, their sweet and strong voices carrying the music of Andrew Lloyd Webber. I nodded vigorously, staring at the stage in a state of rapture.<br />
<br />
Somewhere in the middle of the show-stopping number "A New Argentina," I nearly cried out with an emotion that blended revelation, joy and shock as I realized that the young bearded actor I had seen 35 years ago playing the narrator Che Guevara revolutionary on the Broadway stage was none other than he who played the avuncular, grey-haired<a href="http://homeland.wikia.com/wiki/Saul_Berenson"> Saul Berenson</a> of "<a href="http://www.sho.com/sho/homeland/home">Homeland,</a>" a show HOBB and I follow with a passion that borders on religious devotion.<br />
<br />
"Ari!" I whispered in a hoarse voice. "I just remembered that I saw <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/25/magazine/mandy-patinkin-i-behaved-abominably.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0">Mandy Patinkin</a> for the first time in <i>Evita</i>! How crazy is that?"<br />
<br />
"What?" he whispered back, unable to hear me above the swelling, soaring music.<br />
<br />
"I'll tell you later!!!" I whispered, sitting alone with my mind-bending realization, wrapping myself in that most universal human experience -- the stunning experience of past and present blending, the sensation of standing still while being hurtled backward through the tunnel of time.<br />
<br />
As often happens when I return to a cultural touchpoint of the seventies -- the movies <i><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074285/">Carrie,</a> <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075686/">Annie Hall </a></i>and <i><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075314/">Taxi Driver</a></i>, the music of <a href="http://davidbowie.com/nhc/">David Bowie</a> and <a href="http://www.donnasummer.com/">Donna Summer</a>, <a href="http://laserium.com/culture/index.html">Laserium</a>, shag hairdos -- I recall the pre-cyber era. I remember a world before we were points along a worldwide GPS grid, a focused world before the habit of distraction, a wide-open world before it was possible to find just about anything within seconds by staring at a screen, a sincere world where "virtual" and "text" had far different meanings, a world strictly of the here and now.<br />
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
I remembered the seventies buzz about Mandy Patinkin, his super-Jewy bonafides -- the Yiddish, Hebrew and cantorial songs he had performed, the Old Testament appearance, the name -- and the communal pride that "one of us" had again made it to Hollywood, the Broadway stage and great stardom. </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
In truth, I didn't think about him much over these intervening decades until I became obsessed with <i>Homeland. </i> I knew he had other starring roles but he was off my personal radar screen until <i>Homeland, </i>playing the former head of the CIA and looking quite a lot like our friend, the best-selling author <a href="http://josephtelushkin.com/">Rabbi Joseph Telushkin</a>, at least according to Middle Babe, who introduced us to the show<i>. </i><br />
<br />
But being reminded of the 1979 production of Evita and of the spirited and youthful version of the actor now beloved to me as <i>Homeland</i>'s wise yet weary Saul Berenson, I fell down a temporal rabbit hole as the 1979 Patinkin met up with the 2014 Patinkin...at least in my mind.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<br /></div>
On that Friday night in Concord, Massachusetts, watching a local performance of <i>Evita </i>with tickets bought before sundown, I wondered about the Jewish life of the man who brought Che Guevara to life on the Broadway stage. I wondered about his Shabbat observance. I wondered about the journey he had taken as an artist and a Jew. I wondered about his personal life, his web of connections. I wondered what he thought of his accomplishments. I wondered what he was really like.<br />
<br />
But mostly I wondered: how could it be that -- in the very same number of years that Mandy Patinkin went from newcomer to legend -- I feel <i>exactly</i> as I did at the age of 19, unformed, unaccomplished, focused, wide-open, sincere, eager to leave home for the first time and begin my own true journey?<br />
<br />Shira Dickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05875369712259812316noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22688580.post-62878074650101406842014-09-29T04:08:00.002-04:002014-09-29T21:59:12.797-04:00In the Velvet Darkness of the Blackest Night* or The View from 2:45 a.m.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNWRwywP_CztnxqaeZntTWfcelKqxtj0j2aJBUBbHKKapOAP5mILpPEei_DViiHybWViuuRtP5emUyTF6EzPqt3IcV0gcB-YlnxPdGDNE_oRqray_2eTJc5fBde2REgTxrTs01/s1600/photo-195.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNWRwywP_CztnxqaeZntTWfcelKqxtj0j2aJBUBbHKKapOAP5mILpPEei_DViiHybWViuuRtP5emUyTF6EzPqt3IcV0gcB-YlnxPdGDNE_oRqray_2eTJc5fBde2REgTxrTs01/s1600/photo-195.jpg" /></a></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">T</span>he Urban Bungalow is quiet at this hour, Alfie and Nala the Pomeranians respectfully camped out next to me on the mattress in Little Babe's room that is, in fact, his bed, arranged teenage-style.<br />
<br />
Minutes earlier, my Israeli nephew quietly came through the front door, returning back home after a farewell night with friends before he leaves for his post-army American road trip.<br />
<br />
Midday, the two of us spent more than three hours at the <a href="http://www.whidc.org/festival/home.html">Medieval Festival at Fort Tryon Park</a> in Upper Manhattan. Wandering amid throngs of people, we were dazed and dazzled by the sunshine, the spectacle, the booths, the music, the dance, the cups of mead, the oversized turkey drumsticks, dripping with grease, the duels, the human chess game played on a field beneath the Cloisters, the meditative glass blower, the purveyor of ancient dentistry and other forms of merry entertainment.<br />
<br />
Endlessly fascinating was the profusion of era-fetishists -- the civilians who came attired in their version of the Dark Ages Best Dressed List -- looking like goths, members of a punk band or residents of Williamsburg, Berlin or Middle Earth. In velvet, leather, chain-mail, animal skins, corsets, spilling cleavage, heavy boots, helmets, tattoos, bared midriffs, wreaths, veils, capes, caps and other archaic finery, they touched me with their wish to wear the wardrobe of another time and place. I wondered what they were drawn to or what they sought to escape. They were multi-ethnic pre-modernist postmodern performance artists, wandering the paved pathways of Upper Manhattan, transforming the landscape with their costumes and their poignant quest, which seemed prayerful, reverential, deeply and sincerely religious.<br />
<br />
At the festival, I longed for the presence of my three grown children, recollected our long-ago visits to the legendary <a href="http://www.renfair.com/ny/">New York State Renaissance Faire</a>, held in Sterling Forest in Tuxedo, New York. I recalled the swords and shields we had bought our sons -- eleven years apart; the jousting matches we had cheered on; the wreaths and fairy wings our daughter wore. I remembered awkwardly shooting arrows at the archery range and wandering worriedly through the labyrinth and falling off a shaky contraption called Jacob's Ladder. How my kids would have loved the quirky fun of the Fort Tryon festival; how its very proximity to our Manhattan home would have delighted them, even as adults. Especially as adults.<br />
<br />
Several hours later, sunburnt and slightly dehydrated, heading for the A train with possibly three thousand strangers, I heard about the<a href="http://www.sca.org/"> Society for Creative Anachronism</a>, a group through which enthusiasts of pre-17th Century Europe connect and find out about opportunities to dress up and celebrate their favorite historical epoch. For perhaps the billionth time, I praised the Internet for the mitzvah of bringing people together.<br />
<br />
Regarding anachronisms, the summer-like weather of the past few days was both a worrisome sign and a delight. Having heard reports that the upcoming winter is shaping to be even worse than last year's relentless reign, I welcomed the heat that insisted upon loitering into late September and yet, with the urgent message of the <a href="http://peoplesclimate.org/">People's Climate Marc</a>h still ringing in my ears, I knew that this gift comes with a steep price tag.<br />
<br />
But it is not my aim to write about the weather at this hour, nor even the marvelous fair overlooking the Hudson River.<br />
<br />
Instead, it is my intention to document this moment of wakefulness, this sliver of soul disturbance following a flawless fall day. It is my duty to examine the act of staring into the velvet darkness of a liminal moment -- poised between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, between midnight and morning, unmoored, one week after Big Babe, my oldest son, returned to Berlin after a month's stay, five weeks after the return of Little Babe, my youngest son, to his Pennsylvania college, one month after the wedding of my daughter, Middle Babe and three weeks after HOBB and I marked our 31st wedding anniversary.<br />
<br />
As someone forever in search of connection, I experience transitions and separations as invariably tinged with pain. The many morphings of a family take emotional adjustment. Milestones occasion great introspection and evaluation. Marriages go through grand upheavals when children are grown and the respective dreams of the liberated spouses collide like comets.<br />
<br />
Though I ponder these matters during daylight hours, the deepest processing happens in the middle of the night.<br />
<br />
As someone who loves deeply and possessively, as I believe one is entitled to, I ponder that which I have and seek. I take my cue from God, depicted in Scripture as a jealous God, forever outraged that His chosen people are consorting with other gods. I love that unabashed pronouncement about God; it is so honest. I, too, believe in relationships where such jealous claims can be made, where one is empowered to stake one's claim against other gods, human and otherwise.<br />
<br />
I deeply believe that some things are so sacred and basic that they are worth fighting for... or grieving over, if lost. I believe in being called to account for my own inability to satisfy the jealous God emotional needs of those nearest and dearest to me.<br />
<br />
Sacred, too, within this dark room are one's dashed dreams. The pain, outrage and sorrow experienced at the moment of this honest encounter can be either cataclysmic or a catalyst for change.<br />
<br />
This clarity comes in the space between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. It is a clarity that induces a form of madness, or perhaps is borne of madness. The quest for <a href="http://www.myjewishlearning.com/holidays/Jewish_Holidays/Yom_Kippur/Themes_and_Theology/Repentance.shtml">Teshuva</a> is not just about atonement for our sins but for the restoration of all that has been shattered and lost.<br />
<br />
In the darkened room where I am alone with God and my private self, I can name feelings without blame or reproach. I can say <i><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEd7SxiuQpE">Ashamnu, Bagadnu</a>, </i>beating my breast...or not. Alone, apart from the congregation, I can confront my sins and failures as well.<br />
<br />
Perhaps I can even befriend them.<br />
<br />
I can confess my hurt and my shortcomings and feel comforted by the maternal night.<br />
<br />
Adopted nearly 54 years ago, I can examine the wounds that will likely always be mine.<br />
<br />
And because it is night, I can dream of the time when they will be healed.<br />
<br />
In this quiet room, dreams start to take shape. At this moment, I strive for strength, steadfastness and fortitude.<br />
<br />
Deprived of external images, introspection yields understanding. I return to the task of Teshuva. I pray for honesty. I see my own misdeeds. I see pathways to restoration. I struggle, like Jacob, with dark angels. I twist and turn like I did on the aptly-named ladder at the Renaissance Fair so long ago. I fall, I land in dirt, I get up, I attempt to steady myself on the shaky rungs. I take aim at the archery range, missing the target repeatedly, trying again, gaining a bulls-eye eventually. I wander in the labyrinth, lost, found, running on instinct, fear and exhilaration.<br />
<br />
In this space, I can focus on faith, something I am deficient in, like Vitamin D. I can believe that the new day will bring insight. I can believe I will be given a gift or a key or that I will have a personal encounter that will change my life.<br />
<br />
And then, I will feel whole. Perhaps.<br />
<br />
Mostly, at this hour, I can write freely, thereby dignifying the fact of my solitude, a necessary pre-condition for insight.<br />
<br />
And like the Medieval enthusiasts who find one another through a website, I can reach out through this 21st Century portal and connect with all those who sit in the darkness of liminal moments, longing for connection, salvation, revelation, redemption.<br />
<br />
_____________________________________________________<br />
*Lyrics unabashedly stolen from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. "There's a Light."<br />
<br />Shira Dickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05875369712259812316noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22688580.post-6153698764486623832014-08-05T18:20:00.000-04:002014-08-05T19:40:49.578-04:00Broken. Together. Alone.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWOfV4ePSstZAb9kGlGvCLDbjtqMaGL1h9UkNRdXv4QWqe20hU3UgRzMs63MlqsoGqhc3crEoEYv111C3YBd75qioVV_08sd-F1LlKSmp2FhLnPfZsmaHBsdbl16ReUAr-n_4b/s1600/don_mclean-babylon_%5Blive%5D_s.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWOfV4ePSstZAb9kGlGvCLDbjtqMaGL1h9UkNRdXv4QWqe20hU3UgRzMs63MlqsoGqhc3crEoEYv111C3YBd75qioVV_08sd-F1LlKSmp2FhLnPfZsmaHBsdbl16ReUAr-n_4b/s1600/don_mclean-babylon_%5Blive%5D_s.jpg" /></a></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">I</span> promised this blog post in the morning but was so hypoglycemic from fasting that putting sentences together in any coherent form was beyond me...let alone thinking about how I felt after last night's extraordinary event -- <a href="http://labshul.org/?th_events=broken-the-night-of-ninth-of-av">Broken: The Night of the Ninth of Av</a> -- at Plaza Jewish Community Chapel, co-sponsored by<a href="http://labshul.org/"> Lab/Shul</a> and <a href="https://romemu.org/">Romemu</a>.<br />
<br />
Now, as the arc of the afternoon passes and my blood sugar has long since stabilized, I gratefully grant myself time to reflect and write.<br />
<br />
Half a year before Yom Kippur approaches, I find myself dreading its approach as it feels unnecessary since I spend most of my life in deep introspection, searching my soul. I know this is arrogant in a nearly adolescent way, so I fight with myself, embrace the utility of Yom Kippur and enter into the day with high hopes, even if I drag my feet along the way.<br />
<br />
In a similar spirit, I dreaded Tisha B'Av's approach this summer as the devastation it commemorates is too frighteningly tangible; as the descriptions of a newly-destroyed Jerusalem seem to resemble what we have been seeing out of Israel and Gaza.<br />
<br />
And I was sad that I felt this way because I have always loved the melancholy of Tisha B'Av, the drama of the lit candles and the dirges and the poetry of gloom.<br />
<br />
Now I see very clearly that the romance of Tisha B'Av was only possible from my 20th Century American Jewish perch. Now I see that Tisha B'Av is not a feel-good tear-jerker, that depressing movie we love to cry our eyes out at, again and again.<br />
<br />
Tisha B'Av is life, not art, a vital reminder to all Jews of what happened once and again and again and again.<br />
<br />
Still, despite my dread, I sought the comfort of community and went -- with a large measure of anticipation -- to<b> Broken.</b><br />
<br />
(I went alone, as HOBB went to Ramath Orah, the warm and dependable Orthodox synagogue that is his spiritual home. Ramath Orah is HOBB's community and he needed its embrace as surely as I sought my own sense of comfort. Still, when he failed to even offer to accompany me, I felt betrayed by his lack of adventure and spiritual partnership.<br />
<br />
I also felt abandoned by his lack of acknowledgement that this Tisha B'Av was indeed different and warranted different rules, including the rule of togetherness. Then, as I neared Plaza, I realized that this day was a journey I needed to take alone. Indeed, I am writing this post from our bungalow, upstate, where I retreated to be alone.)<br />
<br />
Led by<a href="https://romemu.org/rabbi-david-ingber"> Rabbi David Ingber</a> and spiritual leader/student rabbi <a href="http://amichai.me/about">Amichai Lau Lavie</a>,<b> Broken</b> promised to deliver no consolation...and did not disappoint.<br />
<br />
There was the stunned and silent audience, unusual for a Jewish crowd anywhere.<br />
<br />
There were the intermittent songs of sorrow, traditional, timeless, transcendent in their beauty, saturated in a sadness that was unabated even by the audience's clapping or swaying.<br />
<br />
There was the reading of <i>The Book of Lamentations</i>, nearly unbearable this year, ripe with the pornography of destruction, bearing the stench of the nausea that arises from watching concentration camp footage shot by proud SS officers.<br />
<br />
There were the broken voices and faces of our rabbis, our leaders who were too broken to lead us, who offered us their brokenness instead. I gazed at them and saw frightened boys. I felt maternal compassion pour forth for these young Jewish men, brothers of our fallen soldiers.<br />
<br />
They promised discomfort. They delivered it and in their authentic pain, they took us to a place beyond the borders of where I wished to be.<br />
<br />
Stranded there, I did not experience the solace of community.<br />
<br />
Instead, I felt alienated, abandoned again, perhaps a multitude of times.<br />
<br />
Over the course of nearly an entire day I have thought about what took place last night on Amsterdam Avenue, reluctantly re-entered that place of cosmic aloneness.<br />
<br />
And after 24 hours -- from the safe perch of the departure gate of Tisha B'Av, I finally have insight. It comes from a place of deep honesty, of the fine-honed habit of introspection.<br />
<br />
Last night, my overwhelming need was to sit in the sadness of the unique sorrow of Jewish Peoplehood.<br />
<br />
Last night, I wanted to grieve for my own, my loss, our loss, that thing we had just one month ago -- peace, peace of mind, heedlessness.<br />
<br />
Entering into this day of mourning, this community funeral chapel, I wanted to hear the names only of my own dead. Or perhaps, I wanted to hear them first and loudly so that I might then honor the dead of the Other after I had buried my own.<br />
<br />
But instead, last night I found myself led out of the communal shiva house and into an unrecognizable room whose walls bore charts with the allegations of our own sins and wrongdoings.<br />
<br />
There was despair in that journey and in that cramped space. And something that felt to me like dishonesty.<br />
<br />
Or perhaps truth but not the truth of Tisha B'Av.<br />
<br />
Instead, there was a quality of Yom Kippur -- public confession: Al Chet!! -- in that place.<br />
<br />
And that felt foreign or at least premature.<br />
<br />
Soon enough, Yom Kippur will be upon us and we can confess to all of our sins.<br />
<br />
But for 25 hours, I only want to dwell in the destruction of our dream.<br />
<br />
On this day, I don't want to be forced into universal consciousness for I dwell in that domain during much of my life.<br />
<br />
On Tisha B'Av, I need to experience the brokenness of the Jewish People.<br />
<br />
And I only want to weep for the Jerusalem I once knew.<br />
<br />Shira Dickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05875369712259812316noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22688580.post-6381867403306930142014-07-30T07:37:00.003-04:002014-07-30T12:08:58.566-04:00Gimme Shelter<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx0Ys4buqrYXf6VR0wX-wyvH2VLBg1vaYCkFA4wiskMtxM0iekDjr4Y_uK7p1OW-TuJV_touEHqN1OlcCmjW5vm0DbIw5MxB72S0XwvfOAh4guPVlFUHL7lPw0rCk1IlgZwq3V/s1600/12708617-256-k775970.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx0Ys4buqrYXf6VR0wX-wyvH2VLBg1vaYCkFA4wiskMtxM0iekDjr4Y_uK7p1OW-TuJV_touEHqN1OlcCmjW5vm0DbIw5MxB72S0XwvfOAh4guPVlFUHL7lPw0rCk1IlgZwq3V/s1600/12708617-256-k775970.jpg" height="320" width="204" /></a></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">A</span>s recently as two weeks ago, I was trying to design a national Flash Mob that would bring to the public's attention what is was like for Israeli civilians to go about their normal lives, only to be forced to dash into shelters at the sound of a siren warning of an approaching rocket from Hamas.<br />
<br />
Entitled <i><b>Gimme Shelter</b></i>, the purpose of this endeavor was consciousness-raising. As Israel was being rebuked publicly for its military actions in Gaza -- where the attacks originated -- I wanted to convey the threat it was facing in a creative and attention-getting manner. The anti-Israel counterpart to this idea was the Die-Ins that were being staged to simulate the Gaza civilians who killed by Israel's retaliatory fire, the tragic consequence of combatting an enemy who hides its arsenal in civilian locations.<br />
<br />
For <i><b>Gimme Shelter</b></i>, I envisioned organizing groups of participants in major U.S. cities to gather casually in pre-selected public locations, milling about in faux leisure, only to be made to stand at stark attention at the planned public sounding of a shofar blast --<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJMv1XMIf_Q"> a <i>tekiah gedolah</i></a> -- in simulation of a siren's wail.<br />
<br />
After the first shocked seconds, the participants would scurry to a safe location. Seconds afterwards, flyers would be distributed to onlookers and a statement would be read, identifying the exercise as a public action designed to alert Americans what Israelis face several times a day at the hands of Hamas.<br />
<br />
Dramatic and disruptive, the purpose of <i><b>Gimme Shelter</b></i> was to simulate terror locally; to permit Americans to experience, for even a millisecond, the threat of attack in their very cities, the shock of needing to protect oneself in the course of daily life.<br />
<br />
In New York, I envisioned such an event unfolding at Lincoln Center, with Flash Mobbers dashing into the 66th Street subway station's various entrances. Because of the wideness of the plaza, I planned on at least two shofar blowers. Stunning tourists and locals alike, captured by media which would have been alerted ahead of time, <i><b>Gimme Shelter </b></i>would be <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_diplomacy_(Israel)">hasbara</a></i> in action, building empathy and understanding for Israel's campaign against Hamas.<br />
<br />
This idea appealed to me as recently as fourteen days ago, when we/I thought that the falling rockets were the chief threat against Israel.<br />
<br />
But <i style="font-weight: bold;">Gimme Shelter </i>was a concept with an exceedingly brief shelf life.<i style="font-weight: bold;"> </i><br />
<br />
My idea was based on a delusion that the threat was coming from above. Now we have learned about the tunnels, a network of carefully executed passageways from Gaza into Israel, designed with one purpose, to visit death upon Israelis. Now we have learned of a nearly science-fiction-like scenario -- a subterranean threat -- and the very concept of shelter has changed.<br />
<br />
Hamas is the deadly threat we could see as well as the deadly threat that was invisible...until very, very recently.<br />
<br />
There is a horror in the revelation of the terror tunnels, not only a horror at what was planned, but a horror that the building of this network was, quite literally, beneath the radar screen of Israeli intelligence and the world at large.<br />
<br />
According to reports, a large scale threat against Israelis was in the planning, scheduled for Rosh Hashana.<br />
<br />
This was a valuable, critical finding, an inadvertent discovery.<br />
<br />
But this revelation has been very expensive, costing Israel dozens of lives and the Palestinians hundreds more because of their leadership's cynical disregard for their safety.<br />
<br />
Compounding the shock of the existence of terror tunnels -- built with funds that were intended to provide a new infrastructure for Palestinian life -- is the fact that the discovery of these underground portals of destruction have had little impact on a public whose favorite pastimes is condemning Israel, and Jews everywhere.<br />
<br />
There is a sickening metaphorical appropriateness in the construction of these tunnels.<br />
<br />
Jews are not supposed to believe in the concept of Hell...and yet Hell has come to Israel in the form of the terror tunnels.<br />
<br />
<i><b>Gimme Shelter</b></i> was a great idea for about two weeks. Now it is irrelevant -- quaint and naive.<br />
<br />
Now, an appropriate public action might feature armed terrorists emerging from subway stations to shoot at civilians. The role of onlookers would be to skip over the bodies of the slain, sidestepping the horror, ignoring the threat to themselves, voicing support for the shooters.<br />
<br />
Naturally it is insane to stage such a happening. Insane and irresponsible and yet irresistible.<br />
<br />
I sit in my Manhattan apartment, trying to conceive of a public action that illuminates the new, horrifying reality in Israel and around the world... and come up empty.Shira Dickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05875369712259812316noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22688580.post-59840387898240496992014-07-29T10:35:00.001-04:002014-07-29T12:58:58.344-04:00The Anti-Semitism Diet<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
<o:AllowPNG/>
</o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:TrackMoves>false</w:TrackMoves>
<w:TrackFormatting/>
<w:PunctuationKerning/>
<w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing>
<w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing>
<w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery>
<w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:DontGrowAutofit/>
<w:DontAutofitConstrainedTables/>
<w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/>
</w:Compatibility>
</w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="276">
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]-->
<!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
</style>
<![endif]-->
<!--StartFragment-->
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjfdnFwBBhMVP1haq5bAjumZ1WT28uLDU-U1GO431FdUe4tX-jbfV0h5JO63CSvgj_n-TRgahcdLLd2v61rU5mq4Vv6gSZqPFfZxwqNbSXL8TJMtnkAg2cXnPSb085LHIw0B3e/s1600/rapid-weight-loss1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjfdnFwBBhMVP1haq5bAjumZ1WT28uLDU-U1GO431FdUe4tX-jbfV0h5JO63CSvgj_n-TRgahcdLLd2v61rU5mq4Vv6gSZqPFfZxwqNbSXL8TJMtnkAg2cXnPSb085LHIw0B3e/s1600/rapid-weight-loss1.jpg" height="212" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">W</span>hile I’ve lately gotten compliments on my svelte shape, I
would like to credit Hamas and anti-Semites around the world for helping me to
lose those stubborn ten pounds I have been carrying around since the onset of
menopause. Due to my near-constant state of sadness, shock and fear, I have
lost my appetite and find myself capable of consuming only the following items,
not necessarily in this order: sharp cheddar cheese, salted almonds, Mary’s
Gone Crackers, Chobani yogurt, coffee, Pinot Grigio and tequila.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Just yesterday, I bought a pair of Gap Sexy Boyfriend jeans
TWO sizes smaller from what I normally wear. In fact, the Sexy Boyfriend jean
shorts I bought at the beginning of the summer – long before we knew that there
were terror tunnels leading from Gaza to Israel and that anti-Zionism really
was the same as anti-Semitism and Israel was going to be condemned for the fact
that Hamas was using innocent Palestinians as human shields and the media would
decide to cover the story in a manner that defies the basic journalistic ethic
of being fair and even-handed – were practically falling off my hips when I
attended the New York Stands With Israel rally at Dag Hammerskjold Plaza in the
middle of the day.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
(The solidarity I experienced at yesterday’s rally calmed me
enough to be able to eat a salad from Amish Market afterwards. Surrounded by
ten thousand supporters of Israel’s right to exist, including politicians, I
felt hopeful for the first time in several weeks.)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Let’s be honest -- the weight loss is welcome as in one
month from yesterday, my beautiful, smart, industrious, kind, funny and
otherwise fabulous daughter, Emma, will be getting married. Losing weight prior
to a wedding is a goal of brides and mothers of the bride alike. In its
service, personal trainers are procured, gym memberships hastily bought,
masochistic regimes are adapted, extreme diets adhered to.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Yes, Emma and I have gasped our way through several sadistic
spin classes – the upscale type with low lights, pounding music and fellow
cyclists who have more in common with Lance Armstrong than us – and I continue
to go to the gym regularly and hike for miles.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Still, it has been my inability to eat in the face of
extreme stress that has done the trick for me. Realizing the potential of this
revelation, in the manner of entrepreneurs everywhere, I have begun to write
the book that I am sure will become a blockbuster.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I call it <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Anti-Semitism Diet.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Like many weight loss programs that are bad for you, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Anti-Semitism Diet </i>offers a successful
way to knock off pounds, virtually overnight. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead of planning carb-rich meals, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Anti-Semitism Diet </i>recommends that readers plan safe places where
they might escape to if violence against Jews comes to their hometown. Instead of
reading pages of recipes, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Anti-Semitism Diet </i>advocates reading the news. Headlines announcing North
Korea’s offer to fund Hamas, the rising numbers of Israeli soldiers killed, the
German synagogue that was firebombed, the Jews in Paris who were hunted down
through Facebook and beaten, and signs at rallies throughout the world
featuring swastikas and such slogans as “Death to the Jews” are all proven
methods of successfully suppressing one’s appetite.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If one is a Jew or person of conscience.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The fine print in the book’s introduction does indicate that,
as a complete loss of peace of mind is necessary for this diet to work, the
dieter should be aware that the weight loss will also likely be accompanied by
crying, inability to sleep, continual shock, a sense of betrayal, panic, horror,
foreboding, exhaustion and general jitteriness.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Which is why <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Anti-Semitism Diet </i>wisely includes wine and tequila and permits the
ingestion of other calming substances, which have little or no calories. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Anti-Semitism Diet
</i>does have a special section on the importance of exercise and core
strengthening as it recognizes that being able to escape missiles (if one is in
Israel) or hate-fueled attackers (if one is anywhere else) is dependant, in
part, upon physical fitness. You will have a far better chance of making it
into a bomb shelter or outrunning the angry mob that thinks that Hitler had the
right idea if you are in top cardio-vascular shape.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A disclaimer in the book states that regrettably, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Anti-Semitism Diet </i>cannot help with feelings
of grief if you happen to be a family or friend of a fallen Israeli soldier.
But it helpfully states that the Palestinians in Gaza, who are also victims of Hamas’s
apocalyptic anti-Semitism, might wish to adapt <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Anti-Semitism Diet </i>for themselves<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>if they have a special event looming, or just always wanted to
lose some weight.<br />
<br />
Or if any of them survive being used as human shields by Hamas.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The reason I am so confident that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Anti-Semitism Diet </i>will be a bestseller is based on three
reasons:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A – It has a built-in global audience</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
B – It is extremely topical, written for this very moment</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
C – It is really short</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Indeed, to appropriate a well-known Jewish joke (what is a
Jewish telegram?), <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Anti-Semitism Diet
</i>can be summed up as follows:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Stop eating. Start
worrying. Details to follow.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Shira Dickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05875369712259812316noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22688580.post-29525494266974532482014-07-23T01:56:00.004-04:002014-07-24T06:09:39.008-04:00Cataclysm from Left Field<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixXMnRtDmQzqAc6O-Tf9yvDgP1a9eUG5ixzxAhdgJ_MQjIM2uyMQMKZE-CIQukaP-IE1LBeRW_KIF3JaDF_YRh03Nj4ATy8vzj2U_o4DBiTeYhO68bUUmu-q9K3iINRxigA1Nu/s1600/tornado-lightning-lrg.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixXMnRtDmQzqAc6O-Tf9yvDgP1a9eUG5ixzxAhdgJ_MQjIM2uyMQMKZE-CIQukaP-IE1LBeRW_KIF3JaDF_YRh03Nj4ATy8vzj2U_o4DBiTeYhO68bUUmu-q9K3iINRxigA1Nu/s1600/tornado-lightning-lrg.png" height="256" width="320" /></a></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">I </span>have heard it said that when cataclysmic change comes, it arrives from left field.<br />
<br />
Despite the pronouncements of pundits and predictors, the events that change the course of history are often unheralded, flagged mostly by madmen and prophets.<br />
<br />
Something is shifting in our universe. I felt it at the mid-point of this past winter. The earth has slipped from her axis and a hateful spirit has taken hold.<br />
<br />
The cold of this past winter felt spiteful.<br />
<br />
Spring felt far too slim, skimpy, evasive.<br />
<br />
And this summer -- so long-awaited -- is not the summer of years past. It is filled with angst and what is increasingly referred to as "extreme weather" -- rain that is aggressive, heat that feels nuclear, a malicious void where cosmic benevolence used to be.<br />
<br />
I am up, sleepless, unable to rest, keeping vigil, reading news, headlines, posts on Facebook, statements that arrive via email, analyses, Op-Eds, blogs, Breaking News alerts, Red Alert warnings of Hamas missiles launched and a steady stream of images coming out of the place that is at the epicenter of my soul: Israel.<br />
<br />
And its heart of hearts: Jerusalem.<br />
<br />
There is a malevolence afoot now -- not only in the murderous intent of Hamas -- but in the complicity of countries filled with Jew-haters who are all-too-eager to use this so-called "conflict" to give voice to their evil passions, which have evidently been simmering beneath the surface of their civility all along.<br />
<br />
We knew/I knew, that the golden age of our security had to end. We knew/I knew that the ability for a Jew to be a heedless, careless, fancy-free citizen of the world had an expiration date stamped on it.<br />
<br />
I don't mean that I am imperiled in New York City today, right here, right now but I do know that a tide has turned.<br />
<br />
The genie of European anti-Semitism has been released and there is no stuffing it back into the bottle; no way to pretend we hadn't seen it. Of course, Europe is not the only new/old Ground Zero of hatred and hostility to Jews, but -- soaked with Jewish blood -- it does it deserves special mention.<br />
<br />
The violent rallies with bloodthirsty proclamations -- <b>Death to the Jews!</b> and similar slogans -- stun us in their profusion, in their magnitude, in their suddenness.<br />
<br />
It is as if we have been drugged for decades, sleeping through the dress rehearsal for this world-wide scene shift.<br />
<br />
It is late and I am tired. I am terrified. I am heartbroken. I cannot bear the photographs of the slain Israeli soldiers, in numbers too high to accept. They are my loss, members of my family and I cannot pretend that the grief I feel for them is equivalent to the sorrow I feel for the innocent Palestinian victims of the hellbent Hamas fighters.<br />
<br />
I bemoan -- as do all people of conscience -- the senseless loss of life, their suffering and the mess of the situation...so awful, so old, so eternal. I understand their cruel fate; how their leaders chose to make them sacrifices out of spite.<br />
<br />
But personal loss is always different. It has to be. That is the way the human animal is built. Why should we pretend otherwise?<br />
<br />
I scream into the abyss of the conscience of the world:<br />
<br />
<i>What do you not understand? How can you fail to see the evil unfolding before you?</i><br />
<br />
At this time, the force of my fears, my love and the entirety of my vigilance is focused on my family, my people, my tribe -- the historic Children of Israel who have somehow made it into the second millennium. At this time, the dangerous winds of the new/old extreme weather threaten us and we run for shelter. How, O Lord, do we stay safe in this new time and space? What have we learned through persecution and pogrom, through death camps and deportations, through hateful rhetoric and harmful legislation? What gifts has modernity given us in our existential battle? What is our special status as American Jews? Or is that an illusion that is about to be shattered?<br />
<br />
It is late. It is late in New York but a new day is dawning in Israel. I split my attention between computer screens, reading frightening new reports, alarming predictions, protestations over yesterday's disturbing ban on air travel to and from Israel.<br />
<br />
Guardian of Israel, do not sleep. Stay awake. Keep vigil. Protect us.Shira Dickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05875369712259812316noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22688580.post-26341195061228482982014-07-16T06:24:00.002-04:002014-07-16T06:34:33.495-04:00The Thinking/Writing Cure<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1MV5WIW6ht0fvW0O7bOUkhm05dXQmcpDAu1O-AgpvCrfSuqmodD7DV0hYff-XK_968aypCmEvffYIXPeHWEXCpGKhRMMF80QZXns_ilxbdqkbb-3jnvQ5A1zAii-FtjVMnJ0G/s1600/6a00e5506da99788330153915f5534970b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1MV5WIW6ht0fvW0O7bOUkhm05dXQmcpDAu1O-AgpvCrfSuqmodD7DV0hYff-XK_968aypCmEvffYIXPeHWEXCpGKhRMMF80QZXns_ilxbdqkbb-3jnvQ5A1zAii-FtjVMnJ0G/s1600/6a00e5506da99788330153915f5534970b.jpg" height="246" width="320" /></a></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">A</span>t 1:30 a.m. I was wrested from my dreams by an insistently barking Pomeranian who just turned 14, which makes him quite an elderly canine.<br />
<br />
Alfie, a master communicator, had something to tell me relating to business that was not completed during his failed late night walk with HOBB.<br />
<br />
There had been a torrential downpour and Alfie is a bit of a prima donna, so he stubbornly sat in the lobby of the Urban Bungalow, not wishing to sully his perfect blond coat.<br />
<br />
In the middle of the night he realized the error of his ways and improvised in the bathroom. A neat freak, he needed me to know.<br />
<br />
That is how I found myself wide away shortly after midnight, though I spent a futile hour trying to will myself back to sleep. I should not have even bothered. With a resolute tossing back of the blankets, I bounded out of bed and began my workday around 3 a.m.<br />
<br />
Through I did grouse and call Alfie some choice names, though I even felt sorry for myself initially, the minute I sat down in front of my computer, I was reminded of the advantages of working in the middle of the night, when the distractions of the world fall away.<br />
<br />
And of something else: the easy flow of ideas when sleep has allowed my mind to loosen its familiar bonds.<br />
<br />
So I've been up and working for hours. Seeing me online, Big Babe in Berlin sent me a Skype invitation and we had a lovely chat. A few clients were up as well and emails were exchanged. I took care of wedding details and of last-minute arrangements for Middle Babe's Bridal Shower this weekend. I got a jumpstart on the news from Israel, the latest chapter in an ongoing existential saga, as old as the Bible.<br />
<br />
And I've been thinking of this time before the marriage of my middle child, of what such a union means, of the idea of a lifelong love relationship, of her beautiful bond with her Gentleman Caller -- soon to be my son-in-law.<br />
<br />
I've been thinking of what it means to have raised a child who now believes in marriage, against statistical evidence that we are in a post-marital era, or at least a marriage-optional era.<br />
<br />
I've been thinking of what it means to be a modern mother of the bride, of my role in supporting my daughter as she plans her wedding in an admirable hands-on way, of the hard work that happened -- during the day as well as the middle of the night -- to enable this wedding.<br />
<br />
There is pride in being able to provide for one's child.<br />
<br />
And I know that Middle Babe feels proud of the hard work she has done, just as I gaze at her efforts with admiration and wonder. My daughter is no one's diva, no Disney Princess for a day. She has approached her wedding with the same determined focus with which she regards her challenging work at a non-profit organization.<br />
<br />
She has inspired me throughout this year of planning, which had its difficult moments. With six weeks to go, we have drawn closer, united in purpose.<br />
<br />
Wedding guests are correct to be touched by the fresh, hopeful love and dreams of a bride and groom.<br />
<br />
Beyond the details of the day -- flowers, food, the choice of music, the venue, the colors of the bridal party -- there is the fact of an important new venture being launched, two people pledging their love and loyalty for life, forming a fortress for one another in an often-inhospitable world.<br />
<br />
As the sun rises over Morningside Heights, it strikes me that the most enduring monument one can build in this world is a home which is a sanctuary with gates that open to the great outdoors and a private footpath for the master and mistress of the manor which leads to their inner sanctum, their holy of holies.<br />
<br />Shira Dickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05875369712259812316noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22688580.post-47465187605787868602014-07-15T00:51:00.001-04:002014-07-15T08:58:40.831-04:00Recovery of Writings Past<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV5n9fqJ25zbpUjCA3SWikjj26FOl6PUryWhNTzwfEnl8DJKcSumMu9s_-hXvW-GYq8OOOhrEJ7TJhyphenhyphenAuaAT22yO_OijpmpzUqP5-SHkopex-Eaw568sIuf9_lHHBQv724BFY_/s1600/Proust.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV5n9fqJ25zbpUjCA3SWikjj26FOl6PUryWhNTzwfEnl8DJKcSumMu9s_-hXvW-GYq8OOOhrEJ7TJhyphenhyphenAuaAT22yO_OijpmpzUqP5-SHkopex-Eaw568sIuf9_lHHBQv724BFY_/s1600/Proust.jpg" height="228" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">W</span>hile searching online today for something I had written a couple of years ago, I inadvertently found an<a href="http://www.jbooks.com/fiction/FI_Dicker.htm"> essay/book review</a> of Simone Zelitch's work, <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Louisa-Simone-Zelitch/dp/0425181952">Louisa</a></i> that I had entirely forgotten about. I read it with shameless glee, sobered only by two terrible details: the rabbi I refer to as metaphysical has since been revealed to be a sexual predator, and the host of the sumptuous breakfast at the King David Hotel was revealed to have been a crook, his generosity funded by white collar crime. Still, finding this essay now is a gift. In the midst of an unusually stressful time in my personal life as well as that of the Jewish people, reading about my magical midnight foray in Jerusalem on a summer night in 1998 provided a much-welcome window into a simpler time. The timing also seems unusually apt as I just published my novella, <a href="http://www.thejerusalemlover.com/"><i><b>The Jerusalem Lover,</b></i></a> yesterday morning. This essay brings me back to that era before 9/11, which provides one of the frames for <i><b>The Jerusalem Lover</b></i>. We were careless. We were clueless. I linger in the memory of that moment and share it with you, here:<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="Section1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-left: 15px; margin-right: 10px; text-align: -webkit-left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #333333; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">At four in the morning, a solemn breeze wafted through the ancient Hurva synagogue, raising the tarpaulin-like roof, ruffling the hair and garments of the hundreds who were gathered inside, sitting cross-legged on the cold, stone floor. It was Shavuot night, 1998, the setting was Jerusalem, and I was on the third leg of my night-long <i>tikkun</i>, the traditional learning marathon held on the first night of the holiday that commemorates the giving of the Torah to the Jewish people.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #333333; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #333333; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The evening had begun at a friend's house in Baka and moved on to Yakar, the spirited, soulful synagogue located in the Old Katamon neighborhood. Now I had come to the Hurva, located in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, to hear the metaphysical rabbi, Mordechai Gafni.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #333333; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #333333; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">As Gafni spoke, the sun rose over the ancient city of Jerusalem As the sky lightened at five, I rose and left the Hurva, making my way through winding streets until I met the members of my davening group, <i>N'shei Ha-Kotel</i>, the Women of the Wall. Gathering together, we commenced our recitation of shacharit, the morning prayers.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #333333; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #333333; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">While we <i>davened</i>, streams of Jews poured onto the Kotel plaza, black-hat and bohemian alike. This parade of people had come from every corner of Jerusalem–and beyond–in commemoration of the pilgrimages made in the time of the ancient Temple.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #333333; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">As the hour approached seven, I made my way out of the Old City and towards the King David Hotel. It was on the hotel's capacious lawn that I concluded my<i>tikkun leil Shavuot</i>–tired yet exhilarated–at a reception thrown by family friends, feasting on traditional holiday fare: cheesecake, blintzes, rice pudding with raisins, pie, custard and all manner of dairy treats.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #333333; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #333333; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">There is an otherworldly magic to staying up all night, studying Jewish texts. There is a surprising sense of revelation to studying–once again, the Ten Commandments, and finding new insights and commentaries. And there is the profound beauty of the <i>Book of Ruth</i>, which tells the story of the righteous Moabite woman Ruth, one of history's best known Jews-by-choice, great-grandmother of King David and ancestor of the Messiah.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #333333; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Widowed as a young woman, Ruth "cleaves" to Naomi, her Jewish mother-in-law, pledging complete loyalty to her tradition and people. Though Naomi urges her to return to her Moabite kinsmen, Ruth refuses, stating her now-immortal vow:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #333333; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #333333; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Entreat me not to leave you, and do not tell me to return from following after you; for where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge; your people will be my people, and your God my God. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried.</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #333333; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #333333; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">These oft-quoted words have inspired humankind over the course of centuries. Evidently, they took up residence within the literary imagination of Simone Zelitch. The result is her remarkable novel, <i>Louisa</i> , which offers a modern retelling of the story of Ruth, set in post-World War II Palestine, with ample flashbacks to Szeged and Budapest, Hungary.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #333333; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i>Louisa</i> offers us the story of the relationship between Nora and Louisa, a latter-day Naomi and Ruth. Louisa is a young German Christian woman who falls in love with Gabor Gratz, an inscrutable and restless young Jewish composer. Finding herself pregnant by him, they marry, at the insistence of Gabor's mother, Nora. The pregnancy does not survive; neither does Gabor. As the Jews are hunted throughout Budapest, Nora seeks refuge in the cellar of Louisa's home and there waits out the end of the war before being transported to Palestine.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #333333; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #333333; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The problem is, Louisa refuses to leave her bitter and grief-stricken mother-in-law and gains passage with Nora to Palestine. Landing at a kibbutz, she endures hatred and suspicion (some refugees swear they saw her working as a Nazi guard at a concentration camp), works in the fruit orchard, studies Hebrew and begins studying for conversion with the kibbutz rabbi.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #333333; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #333333; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">She also does some covert work, tracking down Nora's beloved cousin Bela (now known as Jonah), with whom Nora grew up in Hungary. Bela immigrated to Palestine prior to the war and had tried to convince Nora to do likewise. His mother and sister were killed in the course of the war. Arabs murdered Leah, his young French-Israeli wife, outside of their kibbutz.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #333333; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #333333; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Bela/Jonah represents the Boaz character in the Ruth story, the older kinsman of Naomi whom Ruth marries to carry on the family legacy. Claiming to work in the orchards well beyond the harvesting season, Louisa finds Bela/Jonah, works for him and eventually falls in love with him. They marry, bear a child named Tamar who carries on Bela's bloodline and Louisa keeps her pledge to Nora to redeem Gabor's death by having children, bringing new life into the Jewish people.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #333333; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #333333; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Zelitch's Nora is hardly an endearing character. She is bitter, similar to the biblical Naomi who asked that her name be changed to Mara, bitter one. She is frequently unkind to Louisa. She misses out on love and its fulfillment. She makes Louisa all the more heroic.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #333333; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Yet Zelitch allows us to see Louisa's devotion to her mother-in-law in a different vein. Louisa somehow intuits that becoming a Jew and going to Palestine are her destiny. She means the words "Your people are my people" quite literally. Her motivating force is not altruism, but a realist grasp of her fate.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #333333; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #333333; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The skillful weaving of the Ruth and Naomi theme into <i>Louisa</i> is a testament to Zelitch's keen understanding of the text. The work is a literary tour de force, jumping continents, cultures and chronological boundaries. It raises the interesting question of the Messiah's ancestry and the process of<i>teshuva</i>, repentance. It asks us to accept the German-Christian Louisa's conversion and active role in perpetuating a Jewish bloodline, as an act of <i>tikkun</i>(restoration) for the sins of her kinsmen during the Shoah.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #333333; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #333333; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i>Louisa</i> and Shavuot share many themes: the power of forgiveness and good deeds, and their potential for repairing the world. The Book of Ruth, however, has an additional twist, for it hints at an instruction manual for repairing the world. The instruction manual of course, is Jewish Law, which is the axis upon which the Ruth narrative turns. One of the many fascinating aspects of the Book of Ruth is we get to see the Torah's laws in action. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #333333; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #333333; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">One example of this is when Boaz observes the laws of Tzedekah and instructs his workers to let ample grain fall through their hands so that the poor (in this case Ruth) may glean in the fields. In these instances and others it becomes apparent that what appears to be coincidence is really God's handiwork in the form of Jewish law. Which makes <i>Louisa</i> and the Book of Ruth perfect reading on Shavuot; a holiday which celebrates the giving of the Torah and looks forward to a world redeemed. </span><br />
<br />
<div style="font-size: medium;">
<i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Reprinted with permission from the <a href="http://avichai.birthrightisrael.com/" style="color: #003366; text-decoration: none;">AVI CHAI Bookshelf</a>, where birthright israel alumni can order free books and periodicals.</i></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: medium; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
</div>
Shira Dickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05875369712259812316noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22688580.post-83582673982927652292014-06-20T09:46:00.000-04:002014-06-20T09:46:07.022-04:00Dog Therapy<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKPtBGllc6c7ZXEOe7rT9gjy3yCJoizjNx2hOSJcDKYkfYbMDwAoI_gPOuSPJJsFAn2Yees_G7r-QntHCrnY6TZ9F8IQPtlLOM7l0RgY3aLbwIc63qgo7cs6H7aT0LNK4T1OD-/s1600/Nalagrass.1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKPtBGllc6c7ZXEOe7rT9gjy3yCJoizjNx2hOSJcDKYkfYbMDwAoI_gPOuSPJJsFAn2Yees_G7r-QntHCrnY6TZ9F8IQPtlLOM7l0RgY3aLbwIc63qgo7cs6H7aT0LNK4T1OD-/s1600/Nalagrass.1.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">L</span>ast night, at the launch event for Ari's <a href="http://algonquin.com/book/the-late-starters-orchestra/">new book</a> at the <a href="http://cornerbookstorenyc.com/">Corner Bookstore</a> in NYC, the conversation turned to dogs because <a href="https://www.facebook.com/rachelle.pachtman?fref=ts">someone</a> had shown up for the event with her surprisingly well-groomed and behaved pooch.<br />
<br />
The discussants included friends of mine who were newly single in mid-life. We spoke about the spirituality of dogs and their function as social networkers.<br />
<br />
"If you want to meet new people, just get a dog," I advised, recounting the numerous instances of new (and mostly fascinating) people I have met while walking Alfie and Nala the Pomeranians in Manhattan.<br />
<br />
Single people meeting through dog-walking is a charming subplot for many a film but as a much-married woman, the surprise benefit for me has been in the number of deep and resonant conversations I have had with other women while we stroll with our pups along Morningside Drive.<br />
<br />
And by other women, I am not talking about friends.<br />
<br />
I am speaking here of people I have never met before in my life.<br />
<br />
It starts with a friendly introduction by our respective dogs -- butt sniffing, jumping, playful interaction -- and half an hour later I am on my way home, marveling at the spontaneous human bond that was just formed.<br />
<br />
I am trying to understand how it happens. My dogs stop to play with another dog, invariably that of a woman. The owner and I exchange casual pleasantries and inquire about each other's pooches. I ask a leading question or two. I get a feeling.<br />
<br />
Then I throw out a question and we are off and running.<br />
<br />
Today is a perfect case in point. The power of the sunshine lured me outdoors even before my dogs thought to beg for a walk. I nearly skipped down W116th Street to Morningside Drive, half-blinded by the radiance. Moments after arriving there, a young German Shepherd appeared, accompanied by a woman with a colorful paisley frock.<br />
<br />
While our dogs cavorted, we had an instantly intimate conversation about our work and our motherhood. We spoke about the choices and compromises we made and how we feel about them. We spoke about our husbands' careers and where our ambition fits in. We spoke about the raising of sons. We spoke about ourselves.<br />
<br />
Even after our dogs settled down with one another, we chatted.<br />
<br />
It was like being served a delicious entree without the boring appetizer.<br />
<br />
We Facebook friended each other before parting. I felt lucky to have been thus connected to a fascinating stranger who is not so strange to me after all.<br />
<br />
As I walked home I thought further about our conversation and concluded that I owed part of our connection to the power of sisterhood, that eternal bond that women have with one another; the compulsion to connect and compare life stories and grow from one another.<br />
<br />
It is a gift when it happens and I own the fact that I am a proactive pursuer of connections, seeking to share, believing in the commonality of human experience and my own intuition.<br />
<br />
But credit must be given to the secret agents of social networking so I thank my furry little friends for enabling this instance of solidarity on a sunny Friday morning on Manhattan's Morningside Heights.Shira Dickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05875369712259812316noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22688580.post-48127407663471419402014-05-13T20:01:00.003-04:002014-05-13T20:18:36.240-04:00Call me Crazy, But...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj27Glu58GbGchc2NEPCmA_3GDamfJvkWYhyybIHFcmD6Mgkjdy_y1mveTK8A-JYtSK6Dzq1St-aJYaPJoVOG2Wr_IF0AQEHVEO-7rjvjLZDlnKt1nxh1o0nySNFxqLD3gcff1v/s1600/Patsy_Cline-1962_EP.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj27Glu58GbGchc2NEPCmA_3GDamfJvkWYhyybIHFcmD6Mgkjdy_y1mveTK8A-JYtSK6Dzq1St-aJYaPJoVOG2Wr_IF0AQEHVEO-7rjvjLZDlnKt1nxh1o0nySNFxqLD3gcff1v/s1600/Patsy_Cline-1962_EP.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">F</span>or every wonderful, responsible, caring, completely sane woman who has been called "crazy" stupid" "bitch," or all the above by the guy in her life simply because she is really, really upset about something for more than, say, three minutes, some strong, sisterly advice:<br />
<br />
Crazy means <i>shut up, I don't want to hear your pain.</i><br />
<br />
Stupid means <i>shut up, you are asking me to be accountable.</i><br />
<br />
Bitch means <i>shut up, you are ruining my fun. </i><br />
<br />
And some more advice: if things are at the point where someone is calling you these -- or other -- names, it is time to access your inner bitch and really go crazy...for your own good.<br />
<br />
Turn into a maniac of self-actualization. Be a lunatic of reinvention. Be a batty advocate for your own happiness.<br />
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
Girlfriend, a name-calling partner is no partner.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<br /></div>
Recognize. And make some decisions.<br />
<br />
Here's my professional diagnosis: you haven't been crazy enough.<br />
<br />
So go mental.<br />
<br />
To do anything less is stupid.<br />
<br />Shira Dickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05875369712259812316noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22688580.post-33760781887758866632014-05-12T17:37:00.001-04:002014-05-13T10:36:09.772-04:00The Day after Mother's Day<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAZlsNjSZAFgd_4LAJnbl2Hgnb04a0lusOdiR9ZiHrWGl6QvC2NhoqYaGIf9cqs7zZJpD7rTB_274MgS8bz4u86Cb7QBuTQ7U3YHjJchxiXYJBrNIxuW3p-hWynXB_KzLDvskz/s1600/ed5332cbd8ffca7a58d006082d1993c0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAZlsNjSZAFgd_4LAJnbl2Hgnb04a0lusOdiR9ZiHrWGl6QvC2NhoqYaGIf9cqs7zZJpD7rTB_274MgS8bz4u86Cb7QBuTQ7U3YHjJchxiXYJBrNIxuW3p-hWynXB_KzLDvskz/s1600/ed5332cbd8ffca7a58d006082d1993c0.jpg" /></a></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">L</span>ast week, in the midst of a phone convo with a super-successful, beautiful and high-spirited friend of mine, I confessed to having fallen into a funk.<br />
<br />
My candor acted as a key into an inner chamber where truth resided; in an instant, my friend dropped her upbeat demeanor and shared that she, too, had been depressed as of late.<br />
<br />
The thing is, our lives are hardly mirror images, though we are both writers. In fact, we represent two distinct groups: I am a mother of three while my friend is single and childless.<br />
<br />
And yet...and yet...we both found ourselves in this age and stage of life feeling sad, out of balance, wondering if it was yet possible to grab hold of our dreams.<br />
<br />
Our conversation continued while I took the dogs out for a walk, texted two of my three kids, shopped at a local food market and cooked dinner. She chatted from her couch, where she ate salad. The distinctively different backgrounds of our conversation brought our dissimilar situations into starker relief.<br />
<br />
She was responsible to no one and could focus on our call while I was a multi-tasking maniac. I had the family and all that comes with it; she was alone but free to pursue her personal and professional goals in an uncompromised way.<br />
<br />
As the lack of family looms large for her and she originally viewed my life as belonging to someone who had the very thing she craved -- i.e. -- as someone who "had it all" -- she was astonished to hear the depths of my sadness.<br />
<br />
She hadn't imagined that the very thing I lacked could cause me such pain.<br />
<br />
We spoke for nearly two hours, examining how it was both personal choice and factors outside our control that shaped our lives' path. We shared a bracing moment of female rage against the unfair advantage that men had, their ability to grab what they want, whether it was a young wife when they reached middle aged, or an unimpeded path to their own professional success.<br />
<br />
Women often are forced to make choices that men do not have to make.<br />
<br />
My beautiful loving friend expressed sorrow for the mate and children she did not (yet) have. I mourned work that hadn't yet been published.<br />
<br />
Sharing our separate sadness, we realized that we were hardly separated by our external differences.<br />
<br />
What we shared was a sense of incompletion. Gazing at it together, it felt less like an abyss and more like an opportunity.<br />
<br />
Organically, we began encouraging the other, offering insight and suggestions, analyzing the other's position. We helped each other contextualize the lives we had; we did not deny that the sadness was legitimate but sought a proactive response. We became each other's cheerleaders and project managers. We lifted each other up.<br />
<br />
So it is with the best of female friendships.<br />
<br />
In this realm, I am truly blessed and hope I have given as well as I have received.<br />
<br />
On the day after Mother's Day, I salute the sisterhood that is the source of sustenance for those who hold the world aloft. On this day forward, I toast the power of candor and the bravery it takes to confess our failures to one another so that we might recover the key to our successful transcendence.Shira Dickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05875369712259812316noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22688580.post-16723389582916974692014-05-11T08:29:00.002-04:002014-05-11T08:29:16.726-04:00The Power of the Yenta (Mother's Day Edition)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipW1fyMuosWXwSjnIRfA29aqoTs77me6O0sBG6QGi22hsrkuuCAEVEYpJLSWsTS8LoMbVwAl9rxbE8y38mXQ91uD-RRLOMZS8Fur_lOD0ScDfn3QUgGXI9hGXujvxPyjLRz23p/s1600/yenta-mug.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipW1fyMuosWXwSjnIRfA29aqoTs77me6O0sBG6QGi22hsrkuuCAEVEYpJLSWsTS8LoMbVwAl9rxbE8y38mXQ91uD-RRLOMZS8Fur_lOD0ScDfn3QUgGXI9hGXujvxPyjLRz23p/s1600/yenta-mug.jpg" height="306" width="320" /></a></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">I</span> have a big mouth, by which I mean that I am prone to sharing, perhaps even over-sharing personal thoughts and experiences with friends and strangers alike.<br />
<br />
And over the 50-plus years of my life, I have found that this penchant is valuable...as it opens the door for others to share and share alike.<br />
<br />
As a writer, I have been compelled to share my truth. Sometimes loudly.<br />
<br />
The reward is that it empowers others to share theirs back.<br />
<br />
You see, my hunch is that often, the upsetting thought or experience I am going through is not uniquely my own. The insight I have just gained, or even, the hunch that I have, might just be universal.<br />
<br />
So, I put it out there...and reap the results.<br />
<br />
This year has been a significant year in the Urban Bungalow. Little Babe left for college, which means that HOBB and I are now officially Empty Nesters.<br />
<br />
Aside from one maudlin weekend before we drove him to Muhlenberg College and I could not stop crying thinking that my youngest was now ready for college, I have celebrated this transition as I have loved the immersive, holistic and sometimes overwhelming fact of my motherhood and felt prepared for the next phase.<br />
<br />
I have no regrets. I cannot separate the experience of raising my three kids -- now nearly 30, 26 and 19 -- from the person I am today. Becoming a mom at 23, my entire adult life was intertwined with my mommyhood. It was bumpy and it was messy and we did not prepare for this financially, but what an adventure, watching three remarkable people unfold, become themselves, because of me and despite of me, because of us and despite us.<br />
<br />
There has been also the promise of the Empty Nest, an opportunity to reclaim that which I have put on hold. There are my deferred dreams, twinkling tantalizingly on the horizon. There has been the delicious prospect of dating HOBB, reclaiming or even discovering anew the power of our partnership. There has been the promise of creative collaboration.<br />
<br />
I have had a lot invested in this moment.<br />
<br />
So, when I was overwhelmed by feelings of sadness and rage lately, I was surprised.<br />
<br />
The year began with such promise. I was soaring. Why did I crash?<br />
<br />
So, I put on my Yenta lenses. I began sharing. I began hearing.<br />
<br />
I started realizing I was onto something.<br />
<br />
I realized I was hardly alone.<br />
<br />
Here is my Huffington Post column for Mother's Day, written for every working mother married to a wonderful man who finds herself crashing just about now, at the end of the first "semester" of the Empty Nest.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shira-dicker/a-mothers-day-gift-idea-f_b_5289277.html">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shira-dicker/a-mothers-day-gift-idea-f_b_5289277.html</a><br />
<br />
I think I nailed a nugget of truth for women such as myself.<br />
<br />
So, return the Yenta favor. Write and share your feelings.<br />
<br />
And if you disagree with what I wrote, let me know as well.<br />
<br />
Happy Mother's Day!<br />
<br />
<br />Shira Dickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05875369712259812316noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22688580.post-89278338668187231792014-04-27T03:09:00.002-04:002014-05-01T11:20:53.177-04:00In the Aftermath of the Crash<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia-BTBuRIyS7KaEXJ7mMqgjmgyfU9Vq7YhhOM1-e947o1eA2d9GkXa_I4MXtmKuKyBv1yFz3PKdSaiW5085RWtJ4KcOf2Sx3xERVf3_EYbMLfEF7k2pXUPkJ2mY8o5NGJeB6XF/s1600/qn5L45Zyfe7bikTXPFeQCj1tOoJ.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia-BTBuRIyS7KaEXJ7mMqgjmgyfU9Vq7YhhOM1-e947o1eA2d9GkXa_I4MXtmKuKyBv1yFz3PKdSaiW5085RWtJ4KcOf2Sx3xERVf3_EYbMLfEF7k2pXUPkJ2mY8o5NGJeB6XF/s1600/qn5L45Zyfe7bikTXPFeQCj1tOoJ.jpg" height="320" width="217" /></a></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">B</span>ack in the interminable land of February in this harshest of winters, I had a momentary, startling awareness that the oppressive cold and relentless grey were temporary afflictions and in the blink of an eye, summer would be upon us.<br />
<br />
This winter caused a crimp in our creature comforts here in New York. Going outside was perilous...or at least unpleasant. Adults relived that cumbersome bundled-up feeling from childhood. Mere coats did not suffice; layers were needed to withstand the weather.<br />
<br />
But this past winter was not just about inconvenience. For all but those who inexplicably deny global warming, there was the sad and scary acknowledgement that nature was striking back at humankind.<br />
<br />
This winter felt, more than anything, like a warning of worse things to come.<br />
<br />
On Wednesday mornings I teach a class in ethical communications to student clergy at a Westchester seminary. This is the second time I am teaching this class; it is one I created right after graduating from <a href="http://www.journalism.columbia.edu/">Columbia Journalism Schoo</a>l three years ago.<br />
<br />
One of my students is consumed with pre-apocalyptic thoughts; he sees imminent worldwide economic and ecological collapse. He speaks of the need to grieve for the planet. He feels Judaism has an approach for dealing with what is happening now, what is about to happen, the struggle to come.<br />
<br />
My student observes me as well. Twice, he suggested that I need to slow down. My life was too busy, he said. Moving so quickly, ideas could not take root, he said.<br />
<br />
Astonished by his insight, wondering if I ought to act huffy and offended and old school teacher-like, I have instead paused to give serious weight to his words.<br />
<br />
He is right. I am way too busy. I need to slow down, let my ideas take root.<br />
<br />
But need alone does not govern my life. There are the responsibilities of adult life, the compromises that must inevitably be made. My student is wise but young, closest in age to my youngest child.<br />
<br />
When life is overfull, with dramatic events, to boot, there is a paradoxical sense of time standing still. At 2 in the morning I am strangely awake, despite a fantastically busy day, trying to remember what took place this winter and coming up blank.<br />
<br />
I sit in the place of blankness for while. The winter months seem like one grey, undifferentiated mass. Did anything actually happen? Looking backwards gives me a bleak and lonely feeling. I don't like returning to the very recent past.<br />
<br />
I want to move forward into the warm light.<br />
<br />
And then I recall my exuberant drum lessons with <a href="https://www.facebook.com/mike.shapiro.121?fref=ts">Mike</a> at<a href="https://www.facebook.com/LikeFunkadelicStudios"> Funkadelic</a> studios, the Beatles, Genesis, Chicago, Rolling Stones, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Bad Company songs we played, the new licks and fills I learned, the hilarious Saturday night rock-out jam session that HOBB* attended, cello in tow. There was dancing at the <a href="http://www.iguananyc.com/">Iguana Club</a>,<a href="http://www.cultureclub.com/"> the Culture Club</a> and the <a href="http://www.swingremix.com/">JCC's Swing Remix Parties</a>, shows for $4 through <a href="http://play-by-play.com/show_time">Play-by-Play</a>. There was music at <a href="http://www.sidewalkny.com/">The Sidewalk Cafe</a>, <a href="http://www.citywinery.com/">City Winery</a>, <a href="http://www.cleopatrasneedleny.com/">Cleopatra's Needle</a>. I remember transcendent acupuncture sessions with the intuitive <a href="http://www.yelp.com/biz/baoku-liu-manhattan">Dr. Liu</a>,where my thoughts had a chance to broaden, deepen and bloom; exquisitely painful massages by Don the therapist. I remember the Wednesday morning classes I taught, the projects I have worked on. There was the joy of Purim and the hard work of Passover, the books I read, magazines devoured, movies I saw, shows and museum exhibitions and events I attended. There was one wacky and inspired Sunday road trip with a dear friend to Philadelphia to museum hop, another memorable train ride back from DC with a rabbi friend involving a bottle of wine and lots of gossip. There were weekly <a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303849604579278740124684748">Scrabble</a> matches with HOBB. There were dinners with friends (though fewer than usual), <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51kP4fUNOQI">open Mic performances</a>, haircuts and karaoke nights. There were weekly therapy sessions where I delved into deep examination of my life. There were writing project proposals drafted. There were <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shira-dicker/the-je-ne-sais-quoi-of-ka_b_4747499.html">columns written</a> and published.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
And wait...yes! There was more. There was planning for Middle Babe's upcoming wedding. There were joyous shopping trips with my daughter, a visit to the venue with my mother and sister, meetings with vendors, checks written, endless texts, phone conversations and emails.<br />
<br />
Tucked into the past few months were visits from Little Babe, my youngest, sweet mornings listening to him playing piano and guitar at home, even singing together. There were car trips back to school, and one night a trip with HOBB to <a href="http://www.muhlenberg.edu/">Muhlenberg College</a> to hear our son perform<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6hmFxksy8M"> <i>Miller's Angels</i>.</a> Most memorably, there was a mother-son epic road trip to DC where he played me his newest songs, my heart completely melting.<br />
<br />
<i>Yeah,</i> I think. <i>Stuff happened.</i><br />
<br />
There were antic and animated Skype conversations aplenty with Big Babe, my oldest son, living in Berlin. There were spontaneous phone calls -- just because I missed him and wanted to hear his voice. We planned a trip in April where we would meet in Paris and go on to Berlin. I threw my precious American Express points towards it. There were my prolific son's<a href="https://twitter.com/ajgoldmann/status/152069766704672768"> recent articles,</a> my motherly pride and awe in his journalistic and cultural prowess.<br />
<br />
There was my father's second Bar Mitzvah, at the age of 83, a coming-together of my extended family. There was a delightful trip to St. Petersburg, Florida with HOBB with everything, it seemed -- a concert, museum visits, sun-drenched walks, movies, two visits to a local karaoke bar, intimacy, Scrabble and the company of other journalists at an annual conference.<br />
<br />
And then there was...there was...<br />
<br />
"Ari?" I said, answering my buzzing iPhone four weeks ago, today, in the middle of a freezing, rainy Sunday afternoon.<br />
<br />
But the caller was not my husband.<br />
<br />
"This is George," said an unfamiliar voice. "I'm a paramedic. Your husband was just in a serious accident."<br />
<br />
There was the accident. <br />
<br />
There was the accident, which happened on the day I was too sick to travel with my husband to the <a href="http://www.bruderhof.com/">Bruderhof</a>, a Christian community, to lead a pre-Passover model seder.<br />
<br />
And there was the miracle -- HOBB walking, unscathed out of the car that crashed into the median of I87 at the Rockland/Orange County line, taking out 20 feet of guardrail, spinning around 360 degrees.<br />
<br />
On the other end of the phone, I was incredulous, feverish. George reached me at the <a href="http://www.apthorprx.com/">Apthorp Pharmacy</a> where I had gone to fill my prescription for Cipro, having just been diagnosed with bronchitis. My fever was over 102. I had felt sick for days, could not stop coughing.<br />
<br />
There was the accident so there was the frantic Sunday afternoon effort to rent a car in Manhattan. There was the breathless drive up I87 to retrieve HOBB from <a href="http://charity.bonsecours.com/">Good Samaritan Hospital</a> in Suffern, NY with Middle Babe, her fiance and my husband's oldest brother in our tin can of a car. When we got to Good Sam, HOBB was confused and disheveled but very much alive.<br />
<br />
The car had been totaled but he was not even visibly bruised.<br />
<br />
Two days after the crash there was my mother's back surgery in Florida. After my fever broke, I flew down to Boca Raton to help in her care, antibiotics in tow, leaving behind my still-shaken husband. There was the sweetness of time with my parents and my sister, who flew in from Israel for three weeks.<br />
<br />
The weakness from my illness lingered for weeks. My husband had a difficult tooth extraction days after his accident when I was with my parents. He sent me pictures of his swollen face. I had to cancel my trip to Europe to meet Big Babe in Paris and then go, together, to Berlin.<br />
<br />
And suddenly, there was the mandate to shop, clean and cook for Passover. There were the two Seders we hosted. This year, the holiday, usually beloved, felt like an unwelcome, demanding guest who occupied our life for over a week.<br />
<br />
On the morning after Passover, I had my first colonoscopy. Terrified about the sedation, I hadn't thought about what they might find. They found something but don't know what it is. Further tests are needed.<br />
<br />
As my student pointed out, being too busy prevents dwelling on one thought or idea for long.<br />
<br />
I've been writing for nearly an hour and a half, in the middle of the night after a most busy, most memorable Saturday spent with alumni at Columbia J School, where HOBB was honored. I deliberately write <i>Saturday</i> and not <i>Shabbat</i> because HOBB and I experienced the day outside of the cocoon of observance, outside of the rhythm of relaxation and retreat from the world.<br />
<br />
Sacred Shabbat time became secular.<br />
<br />
Perhaps that is why I feel exiled from myself.<br />
<br />
The many events of the day were heady and yet...<br />
<br />
Something was given but something also was taken.<br />
<br />
Now, ninety minutes after I began writing, I am no longer wide awake.<br />
<br />
In the middle of the night, I lifted the chilly cobwebs that have settled over the long, dark and difficult winter months and now have an overview of what took place.<br />
<br />
I documented what I am able to reasonably write but there are more things that happened.<br />
<br />
With just a few hours until sunrise, I am heading to bed, eager to move toward the light.<br />
<br />
I crave long days and the solace of sunshine.<br />
<br />
I know that a mere ellipsis stands between now and Memorial Day Weekend.<br />
<br />
My student is right. I am so busy I cannot properly dwell on my thoughts.<br />
<br />
They cannot take root.<br />
<br />
At this moment, I am rootless.<br />
<br />
Unmoored.<br />
<br />
Afloat.<br />
<br />
But that, too, is a place.<br />
<br />
Sometimes I feel scared and sad, as we all should after such a pre-apocalyptic winter.<br />
<br />
But right now, I only feel tired.<br />
<br />
When I look back at this moment in time, I know that I will see it as its own discrete period: The Aftermath of the Crash.<br />
<br />
______________________________________________________________________________<br />
*Husband of Bungalow Babe<br />
<br />Shira Dickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05875369712259812316noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22688580.post-36937274621882870882014-02-07T17:14:00.000-05:002014-02-08T09:46:24.238-05:00 The Je Ne Sais Quoi of Karaoke! <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp6ZtqYPWFzkBnaQm8mvVMb55qBw0k9OEXbKxGeAo8hYSqk8mPqhthCyCf3fETyrdkE-NQlthyDW9ndIupr50BKcr9URPpsjvE5A7uGyi3kSt6Aq_R_oYBUJSj2iAMljRv8mnZ/s1600/mekaraoketokyo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp6ZtqYPWFzkBnaQm8mvVMb55qBw0k9OEXbKxGeAo8hYSqk8mPqhthCyCf3fETyrdkE-NQlthyDW9ndIupr50BKcr9URPpsjvE5A7uGyi3kSt6Aq_R_oYBUJSj2iAMljRv8mnZ/s1600/mekaraoketokyo.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Hi Bungaleers!<br />
<br />
My<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shira-dicker/the-je-ne-sais-quoi-of-ka_b_4747499.html"> column</a> on why I love karaoke... Enjoy!<br />
<br />
And that is me singing in a Tokyo karaoke bar in May.<br />
<br />
Hope you will come sing with me!<br />
<br />Shira Dickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05875369712259812316noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22688580.post-76124970865476632312014-01-27T01:16:00.001-05:002014-01-27T17:17:26.306-05:00The Return to the Kingdom by the Sea<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1AbKAdAZzkKuEA9x2LKxSLHe7NMTwzdXpN2Oxhg5kcEkvAp8kzjScjpB4zYuRs6Hs2LEue58Y0KhoCEvNk520_gPDpqKT5daneCxec9pRNCGRa-S8T-kw2NJumpgoXKCxNUUH/s1600/lrgscaleedgar-allan-poe-little-thinkers-doll+(4).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1AbKAdAZzkKuEA9x2LKxSLHe7NMTwzdXpN2Oxhg5kcEkvAp8kzjScjpB4zYuRs6Hs2LEue58Y0KhoCEvNk520_gPDpqKT5daneCxec9pRNCGRa-S8T-kw2NJumpgoXKCxNUUH/s1600/lrgscaleedgar-allan-poe-little-thinkers-doll+(4).JPG" height="320" width="310" /></a></div>
On Friday evenings, I typically read the Weekend section of the <i><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/">New York Times</a></i> in a state of supreme FOMO.*<br />
<br />
So many wonderful things going on...and all at the same time!!!!! How can I even begin to make a dent in the richness of Manhattan's cultural offerings??? How can I even hope to be a cultivated person when I am so constrained by the limitations of time and the fact of being only one person with an extremely busy professional (and social!!) life???<br />
<br />
I am an anxious wreck as I scour the articles, the ads and the listings, creating a week's worth of destinations in my head because it is, after all, Shabbat, and I cannot write anything down and besides, I'm in the middle of my <a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303849604579278740124684748">weekly Scrabble game</a> with HOBB.**<br />
<br />
I sigh loudly. I rustle the paper. I announce the opening of films and shows, limited engagements, cabaret acts of note, exhibitions, lectures, walking tours and other offerings guaranteed to improve my life and my husband's life as well as the lives of everyone on the planet.<br />
<br />
Trapped within the labyrinth of the Weekend section this past Friday night, I let out a shout that startled HOBB in the midst of his Scrabble move. <a href="http://www.themorgan.org/exhibitions/exhibition.asp?id=90">The Little Prince exhibition</a> was opening at the <a href="http://www.themorgan.org/">Morgan Library and Museum </a>while the <a href="http://www.themorgan.org/exhibitions/exhibition.asp?id=82">Edgar Allan Poe exhibi</a>t was closing.<br />
<br />
I had one golden day to see both.<br />
<br />
And damn it, nothing was going to stop me.<br />
<br />
Not the blood-freezing cold, not the gunmetal skies, not the appointments that dotted my day like push-pins on a bulletin board, starting with my personal training session at 9 am and ending with a client call at 7 at night.<br />
<br />
Not the gala @ the<a href="http://www.jccmanhattan.org/"> JCC</a> the previous night that had me downing tequila and dancing like one possessed.<br />
<br />
Not the morning-after hangover.<br />
<br />
Not the unexpected shut-down of the East Side trains (the 4, 5 and 6 subway lines all ground to a halt).<br />
<br />
Not the syllabus I was supposed to deliver last week for a graduate school course I am teaching this spring.<br />
<br />
Not the fact that I was on my own as HOBB was spending this Sunday afternoon playing with an amateur orchestra and I hadn't invited anyone to come with me.<br />
<br />
And certainly not the severe sickness that turned my nose into a raw, red faucet, clogged my ears and made my limbs feel as if someone had given me <a href="http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/noogie">noogies</a> for the past week.<br />
<br />
I arrived at the Morgan, shivering and clutching a soggy handkerchief. Having walked from Grand Central Station along a strangely unpopulated Madison Avenue, I was awash in a familiar, yet long-ago feeling.<br />
<br />
It was akin to a premonition, creepy but in a fantastic way.<br />
<br />
I call it the Poe effect.<br />
<br />
Even before I reached the regal entrance of the Morgan, I was returned to that realm of imprisoning introspection, feverish speculation, unchecked murderous impulses, suspicion, dreadful secrets, dying love, entombed loved ones.<br />
<br />
As I stepped over sodden snowbanks and clutched my collar against the cold, I felt the deliciously icy hand of terror grip my heart.<br />
<br />
My dearest childhood literary companion awaited me, proud to point out how many people came to see his show on its very last day.<br />
<br />
He wanted me to know that the show was a hot ticket in the Manhattan where he had lived many and many a year ago.<br />
<br />
Bathed in welcome warmth, I tip-toed through the exhibit gallery, peering into showcases and reading captions of manuscripts and letters and newspaper clippings and book pages. From every wall, the tragic eyes of Edgar Allan Poe gazed, accusatory and anxious. The room was filled with palpable Poe-love. Parents pointed out famous poems to young children, hipsters clustered over drawings with showy interest, solitary visitors such as myself moved dreamily. Discovering the extent to which Poe had influenced some of my other favorite authors -- Nabokov, Wilde, Whitman, among them -- I trembled with excitement, reading their words of praise, feeling proud to be in their number.<br />
<br />
Sneezing frequently, a handkerchief pressed to my nose, I stalked the exhibition, my sickness strengthening my sense of solidarity with Poe. My emotions careened wildly. I felt like the crazy person at the museum, the wacko other visitors swerve to avoid.<br />
<br />
With a joy that inspired giddy laughter, I found out how <i>Lolita</i> had embedded Poe-prints throughout, beginning with Humbert's confessional storytelling style and the basic frame of the book: his obsessive love for a child. I saw the original script for the film version, containing Poe allusions that ended up on the cutting floor, Kubrick's surgery, infuriating Nabokov.<br />
<br />
I realized something glaringly obvious that I had never noticed, even after more than six readings: Humbert's first love is named...Annabel.<br />
<br />
I congratulated myself on my good literary taste. Closing my eyes, I was able to recapture that rush that comes from discovering a greatness you never knew existed -- an aspect of the world you had not imagined, a treat that makes life delicious and is available whenever you want it.<br />
<br />
Poe was my passion as a nine-year-old newly returned to the United States after a year in Israel. He was my closest companion, dwelling in the dark realm that was underneath the wallpaper in my bedroom, beneath the floorboard of my closet. He confirmed the mystery that I intuited; he knew that a house at night was swirling with spirits, he detailed obsession, longing, guilt, loneliness, spite.<br />
<br />
The previous year had introduced me to Dickens and White, Twain and Carroll...in their entirety. Bookish by nature, living in a country without functional television, the daily adventure of exploring Israel was matched in intensity by my literary sojourns in the apartment of a great philosopher with a respectable English library.<br />
<br />
Poe had been on the shelf of my Jerusalem apartment but I was afraid. The volume of his work felt sinister. The words on the page were ominous, portals to a place I was not yet ready to enter.<br />
<br />
But that which frightened me also beckoned. Poe was the dank cellar I could not resist exploring.<br />
<br />
When I returned back to America, I opened the creaky door and began my descent.<br />
<br />
In an instant, I knew Poe. His work demanded that of the reader. He was an intimate -- my brother or alter-ego. His work was inseparable from himself and I felt inseparable from him. To read his sentences was to be in a conversation with him, or to eavesdrop on his inner monologue, to whisper sentence fragments back in a hot, sticky breath.<br />
<br />
Or to become blood brothers of sorts, co-conspirators, con-artists of artistry.<br />
<br />
To read Poe is to be Poe; marvelously morbid mind so familiar, so beloved.<br />
<br />
The swirling madness, his sadness, I drank it in, organic, rich and life-giving, so much more real than the careful order of my childhood, the roster of rules, the belief in the ordinary, the schedules that had to be kept, the punishments for transgression.<br />
<br />
The world of my peers was a flimsy reality I needed to visit during the school week, utterly insignificant, save for my new best friend, a moody girl named Eileen who also loved books and Poe. I see pictures of myself from that year, long bangs and dark hair, deep, serious eyes. I look like Poe's younger sister. Or child love.<br />
<br />
I went to school, excelled in Judaic studies and English and dutifully took piano lessons from an old lady who smelled like erasers and had a love of the metronome. Outside of Shabbat, when I was shaken by my rabbi-father's sermons during the Saturday morning synagogue service, I despaired of the rational world and the mandate of preserving the status quo: safety and predictability.<br />
<br />
What was life about if not pushing beyond the boundaries of the expected? What was life without adventure and danger?<br />
<br />
Poe's chaos was feverish freedom. It was alluring and transgressive, like dancing naked at night.<br />
<br />
For the outsider child that I was -- introspective, sensual, sensitive, adopted -- Poe was mother and father, the rebellious older brother I always dreamed of.<br />
<br />
Thus it must be for all who love Poe; that sense of an intimate encounter, the flattering feeling of being friended by one who is defiant, fearless, brilliant and crazy, chosen to be part of an inner circle of hyper-vigilant consciousness.<br />
<br />
In the middle of a harsh 21st Century New York winter, an adult is recalled to her childhood, to the moment of grand discovery of a transcendent reality, to beauty -- tragic and true -- to the kingdom she shared with a tormented, long dead writer by the shores of the deepest, darkest sea.<br />
<br />
___________________________________________________________________________<br />
<br />
* Fear of Missing Out<br />
** Husband of Bungalow Babe<br />
<br />Shira Dickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05875369712259812316noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22688580.post-36138922231538333262014-01-07T11:13:00.002-05:002014-01-07T11:41:29.435-05:00Ripped from Television...Life Imitating Art Imitating Life<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_TLmkg5KUl4ZQMmJGUQj1MrHbkMP3LtxL3YNOyoqW_3AsU6D35wS_QsLL3yNnnkZPmRjL3ojBcEHB8f_PeBhkzdDxvBNAMcrQkDuaidDaiQWJ2iqMONx5H4jd5gVby1MwprA6/s1600/Law_order_criminal_intent_wallpaper.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_TLmkg5KUl4ZQMmJGUQj1MrHbkMP3LtxL3YNOyoqW_3AsU6D35wS_QsLL3yNnnkZPmRjL3ojBcEHB8f_PeBhkzdDxvBNAMcrQkDuaidDaiQWJ2iqMONx5H4jd5gVby1MwprA6/s1600/Law_order_criminal_intent_wallpaper.jpg" height="256" width="320" /></a></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">"I</span>s the murder of Menachem Stark a tragedy?" HOBB* inquired of me earlier this morning.<br />
<br />
My husband's query was not a trick question but his way of testing my compassion and sanity, I suppose.<br />
<br />
You see, ever since the body of Menachem Stark was discovered, charred, in a Great Neck gas station dumpster, I have been consumed with the story for it strikes me as an example of a single, dramatic and yes, tragic event that also functions as a portal into another entire world, hidden from view, characterized by murky goings-on.<br />
<br />
If ever there was a recent, local true-life crime that resembled an episode of "<a href="http://www.nbc.com/Law_and_Order/">Law & Order"</a> it is the kidnapping and murder of Menachem Stark.<br />
<br />
As on "Law & Order," details about the victim emerged during the very first phase of the murder investigation that appear to indicate that the deceased was less-than-unanimously beloved.<br />
<br />
The most recent revelation, courtesy of <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/murdered-brooklyn-man-family-pleads-public-article-1.1567726"><i>The NY Daily News</i></a> is that Stark's business partner, Israel Perlmutter, might be a suspect in the murder. Had this been an episode of the crime series you can bet that Perlmutter would have been introduced to viewers within the first few minutes after Stark's body was retrieved from the dumpster, grieving vocally, the last person one would suspect of committing such a heinous act.<br />
<br />
Please understand, I am not making light of this case.<br />
<br />
This is real life, a horrible and yes, tragic crime, that imitates art imitating life.<br />
<br />
Over the past 48 hours, the blogosphere has exploded with musings, commentary and opinions on the murder of Menachem Stark, providing a beautiful case study for students of journalism, New York City and the Jewish community. <i>The </i><a href="http://nypost.com/2014/01/05/slain-slumlord-found-in-trash-had-enemies-list-a-mile-long/"><i>NY Post</i> headline</a> I wrote about yesterday has largely been criticized as insensitive and possibly anti-Semitic, sparking (in addition to other responses) a rally at Borough Hall yesterday.<br />
<br />
Family and friends of Menachem Stark have rushed to his defense in print, claiming that he was a good and charitable man. They have vehemently countered claims that he was -- as portrayed elsewhere -- a slumlord and dishonest businessman with a paper trail of lawsuits behind him. They have, in fact, denied that he was anything less than the pillar of the community, a charitable, generous man.<br />
<br />
Other writers, notably <a href="http://forward.com/articles/190402/judging-menachem-starks-jewish-life-not-just-his/">Jay Michaelson</a> in the<i> Forward</i> and <a href="http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2014/01/murdered-hasidic-slumlord-was-also-allegedly-a-loanshark-234.html">Shmarya Rosenberg</a> in<i> Failed Messiah</i>, have countered that portrayal, noting the moral blindness of the Satmar community, outing the numerous allegations of Stark's unethical business practices, expressing bitter disappointment that there has been no acknowledgement that this murdered man might have been involved in activities that likely led to his death.<br />
<br />
There have been allegations that this point of view is tantamount to a justification of Stark's murder.<br />
<br />
There has been a call for respect for a man who cannot defend himself.<br />
<br />
There has been outrage and disgust at the invocation of the Shoah and the suggestion that the crime was anti-Semitic in nature.<br />
<br />
There have been impassioned conversations on<a href="https://www.facebook.com/shiradicker"> Facebook</a> and in the tangible, three-dimensional world about the meta-story... through a Jewish lens.<br />
<br />
"A tragedy?" I repeated, incredulous that my husband even needed to ask. "Yes. A huge, gigantic, horrifying tragedy. A father is gone. A husband is gone. A brother and son and friend is gone. There is enough tragedy to go around for miles."<br />
<br />
HOBB and I had an intense staring contest for about a minute. He, too, is consumed with the story, writing about it through a different lens. His reportage has been different from my own. And perhaps his point of entry is different as well.<br />
<br />
As for me, I believe that compassion can coexist with the quest for justice.<br />
<br />
Menachem Stark's murderers need to be found and brought to justice.<br />
<br />
He did not deserve to be killed, burned and left in a dumpster. His family did not deserve this pain.<br />
<br />
An investigation is underway. Yes, t<i>he NY Post</i> headline was in extreme poor taste...but I am betting that there is more than a grain of truth to allegations that Menachem Stark had a long list of people with ample motive to want him dead.<br />
<br />
This is real life, not a television show.<br />
<br />
And though the Satmar community is far removed from my own, I still feel a collective, Klal Yisrael fellowship, a deep connection to this unfolding drama. It may appear that I stand on the sidelines but as a Jew -- even a liberal Upper West Side Jew -- I am at the epicenter of the story, as we all are. <br />
<br />
And that is why the stakes are so high.<br />
<br />
The first order of business is to find Menachem Stark's killers and the motive for this crime. And if this investigation also reveals a complex web of corruption or criminality within the Satmar community, let us hope that there is the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tikkun_olam">tikkun</a> of truth-telling and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repentance_in_Judaism">teshuva</a>.<br />
<br />
______________________________________________________________________________<br />
*Husband of Bungalow Babe<br />
<br />Shira Dickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05875369712259812316noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22688580.post-19298618609072048472014-01-06T03:32:00.002-05:002014-01-06T03:49:18.081-05:00Murder of a Member of the Tribe<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghIyQjC3BpGuk_2sjLaYRV6LBlY8YwXJ2__jBckJFRLzgwPdtNntj7hXlmnKPKxfPlHIdET3HX2uFiiOAASZ1dxnKBrcurYpWGb5hX4bIPK3nVWUu-MYdffUz5Y7uUR0UzXilB/s1600/index.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghIyQjC3BpGuk_2sjLaYRV6LBlY8YwXJ2__jBckJFRLzgwPdtNntj7hXlmnKPKxfPlHIdET3HX2uFiiOAASZ1dxnKBrcurYpWGb5hX4bIPK3nVWUu-MYdffUz5Y7uUR0UzXilB/s1600/index.jpg" /></a></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">S</span>ince I learned of the lurid <a href="http://forward.com/articles/190356/questions-and-outrage-surround-menachem-starks-bru/">murder of Menachem (Max) Stark</a>, a 39-year-old Satmar real estate developer (or slumlord and loan-shark, according to the tabloids and <a href="http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2014/01/murdered-hasidic-slumlord-was-also-allegedly-a-loanshark-234.html#more">blogs</a>) and father of eight, I have been keenly uncomfortable.<br />
<br />
Infamously pictured on the cover of the <i><a href="http://nypost.com/2014/01/04/burned-body-in-dumpster-might-be-kidnapped-hasid-cops/">NY Post</a> </i>in a <i><a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=shtreimel&client=firefox-a&hs=0xQ&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=EVzKUp3lF7OtsATT74GgDw&ved=0CE8QsAQ&biw=1429&bih=686&dpr=0.9">shtreimel</a></i> to the accompaniment of the words "Who <i>didn't </i>want him dead?" Stark's journey from kidnapping victim in Brooklyn to partially-burned dead guy in a dumpster in Great Neck, NY is the exact type of crime story people expect from New York City.<br />
<br />
I'm certain that brand new NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio had a moment of "why me???!" when briefed on the discovery of Stark's body and his business bio. This incident managed to overshadow the <a href="http://www.newsday.com/news/new-york/officials-small-plane-makes-emergency-landing-on-major-deegan-1.6733192">airplane-safely-landing-on-the-Major Deegan</a> story, becoming the most shocking feature of the new year and the new administration.<br />
<br />
As the revelations came out about Stark's allegedly long list of enemies, his rotten business deals, foreclosures, lawsuits, reports of large sums of money swindled, roster of furious tenants and more -- amid outpouring of grief in the Satmar community -- I felt more and more sad, sick, angry, dismayed, embarrassed and just plain disgusted.<br />
<br />
A murder was committed in my city over the past few days. The victim was not just Jewish but visibly, extremely, photogenically Jewish.<br />
<br />
Yes, he was married and a father and the member of a community but this Jewish victim's victimhood was suddenly highly ambiguous.<br />
<br />
A man's half-burned body is found in a gas station in Great Neck. It is human nature to crave the catharsis of compassion for this terrible fate, but complicating the horror of Menachem Stark's death is the fact that he seems to have been a terrible, unethical person.<br />
<br />
This fact does not justify his murder but it does negate his local, self-serving do-gooderism. It changes the narrative. It provides, as any cop show can teach you, a <i>motive</i> for the murder.<br />
<br />
If the reports emerging are true, Menachem Stark swindled, cheated and took advantage of many, many people. And that reality demands to be acknowledged. Media accounts of the Satmar community mourning Stark as if he were a saint -- or opining that the "hit" was an act of anti-Semitism -- are mind-blowing. Shmarya Rosenberg, the author of the muckracking blog <i><a href="http://ailedmessiah.typepad.com/">Failed Messiah</a></i> notes:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<strong style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">"…I’ve spent hours these past two days listening to Satmar hasidim complain about the Post, the Daily News, Pix 11, other media outlets and FailedMessiah.com. Not once have I heard a Satmar hasid say that what Stark allegedly did to tenants, contractors and lenders is wrong. Not once have I heard any introspection, any attempt to come to grips with the idea that it is wrong to steal, cheat and abuse.…"</strong></blockquote>
As I write in the middle of the night, it occurs to me that I am viewing the collective denial of the Satmar community through the lens of a liberal, socially-integrated Jew whose reflexive mode is the complete opposite impulse -- to assume collective guilt. Where I come from, the most painful aspect of Bernie Madoff's criminality was his Jewishness. In my Jewish world, there is complete acknowledgement of his guilt and the suffering of his victims. There is no soft spot for what a great and charitable guy he was.<br />
<br />
At the end of the day, the measure of Bernie Madoff's life is the harm he caused to others.<br />
<br />
Two weeks ago, I received an unusual phone call. A young man from a local ultra-Orthodox enclave wanted me to help him publicize criminal activity in his community.<br />
<br />
"You don't understand what it's like," he told me. "People know what is going on. But the concept of truth means nothing to them. It's all about keeping the walls around our community high enough to keep out the outside world."<br />
<br />
The NYPD and the local press are on the story of Menachem Stark's murder and it seems fairly certain that the truth will shortly emerge.<br />
<br />
But it frightens me no end that the facts that link this man's life and violent death may be utterly dismissed or ignored by thousands of individuals who will see him only as a righteous victim of a hateful crime that festered in the dangerous, anti-Semitic outside world, thereby missing the chance to learn that sometimes, the real threat lies within.Shira Dickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05875369712259812316noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22688580.post-46506421748434845612014-01-02T00:04:00.002-05:002014-01-02T09:32:10.888-05:00A Tale of Two Cities. New Year's Day Edition<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2Fky8C93FVaNaxz3BQ68iJL-TJWjtylt8w603i21Q29H5JAuqN0qeCOFT9dIBSQU6kQfCryHZvp0oERYpoFt9KElgqPBDSgBxkngTK-e7taIy3z4Sso-3Gl_05UOuQ4mxKRgX/s1600/CC_No_06_A_Tale_of_Two_Cities.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2Fky8C93FVaNaxz3BQ68iJL-TJWjtylt8w603i21Q29H5JAuqN0qeCOFT9dIBSQU6kQfCryHZvp0oERYpoFt9KElgqPBDSgBxkngTK-e7taIy3z4Sso-3Gl_05UOuQ4mxKRgX/s320/CC_No_06_A_Tale_of_Two_Cities.jpg" width="241" /></a></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">T</span>here is a special thrill that comes from having one's private take on reality validated by a famous person voicing a belief that one supposed was utterly unique to oneself.<br />
<br />
I, for one, often find my opinions at odds with the prevailing wisdom or mainstream ideology. Since I was a child, I often disagreed with widely-held beliefs or found myself confused -- or disturbed -- by much that passed for accepted wisdom.<br />
<br />
Though it cemented my sense of isolation (and enforced my understanding of myself as an outsider), I also prided myself on being a free-thinker and believer in social justice, egalitarianism and progressive values.<br />
<br />
As I came of age as a kid in Queens, the isle of Manhattan beckoned beyond my bedroom window in Douglaston. From my weekend and holiday forays there as a grade school kid and then as a high school student on the Upper East Side, I knew that "the city" was the place for me -- buzzing not only with exciting things to do but with people who thought as I did or believed in challenging the status quo.<br />
<br />
Manhattan became truly mine at the age of 15, in 1976 when I began commuting there during the school week. I would love walking for miles, taking in the street theatre, the costumes and postures, the streetscapes, the rich, meaty stew of languages and accents, many of them regional. I would love eavesdropping in diners and cafes, hearing opinions fly around me, often colliding in mid-air. I read <i>New York</i> magazine, <i>The New Yorker</i> and <i>The Village Voice</i> cover to cover, giving the ads as much weight as the articles. I envied the denizens of Manhattan...so cool, so diverse, so socially-evolved, so free, so close to the essence of everything that was important. I rode the subway down to the Lower East Side which was still filled with Judaica shops and kosher restaurants and old socialist hangouts and the famous discount clothing stores to soak in the tangible culture of my people. I visited newly-happening SoHo and wandered through the art galleries. I especially loved the quirky theaters and music clubs, the thin, scruffy creative types lurking around, making marvelous music and art. I haunted bookstores and the New York Public Library, reading with my eyes, with my ears, with my pores, with my heart, soul and entire being, learning how to remake myself -- unmake myself! -- into the person I was really meant to be.<br />
<br />
The Manhattan of my first love was <i>Taxi Driver-</i>Manhattan, dangerous and romantic, gritty, egalitarian, real. The Manhattan that seduced me was cynical about conspicuous consumerism; turned its collective nose up at possessions and privilege (except for intellectual privilege). That magical kingdom valued experience and access to interesting ideas and above all, creativity. Alas, the city that I loved had a shelf-life of about ten years...and then the disco-era values and the rising cost of real estate began changing the character of my Paradise Island, driving out artists and people with interesting but terrible-paying jobs or lifelong students or marginal characters who might also be great poets or novelists or musicians or anyone not rich or not on public assistance.<br />
<br />
Though I secured a place for myself on this island, so many others like me were voted off.<br />
<br />
They made way for the people we were suddenly supposed to admire and aspire to be -- the super-affluent. Nearly overnight, having an interesting but terrible-paying job seemed stupid, immature or pathetic. Losers had trouble paying their (rising) rent but the new Manhattanites -- Masters and Mistresses of the Universe -- seemingly had no trouble subsidizing their swell existence.<br />
<br />
You see, no matter our defiant insistence on the rectitude of our values, we also feared that they were onto some essential truth that kept eluding the rest of us. Though we disdained their materialism and shallow aspirations, we secretly wondered if there was something wrong with us. After all, we could not afford a fraction of the things they could.<br />
<br />
The flight of the artists and the middle class from Manhattan has been a developing story for the past thirty years. The absence of affordable housing has been such a striking fact of city life that mentioning it now seems beside the point...even if it is precisely the point.<br />
<br />
This slo-mo transformation has unfolded in real-time with ample opportunity for corrective action.<br />
<br />
Maybe my adolescent Manhattan was more schizophrenic than I knew. Maybe the inequality between rich and poor is a timeless reality. Still, until Mayor Bill de Blasio's "Tale of Two Cities" inaugural speech today, I had never heard anyone in an official capacity proclaim the reality of what has come to pass in such stark, dramatic -- and literary! -- terms.<br />
<br />
A Tale of Two Cities.<br />
<br />
There is no unsaying it and it has been happening for several decades now.<br />
<br />
Maybe the seeds for this fissure were planted long ago; there has always been the East Side vs. the West Side rivalry. Uptown has always competed with Downtown.<br />
<br />
And I know that the pundits are not giving BDB a whole lotta love for sharing his insights. The new mayor has caught a lot of heat for failing to praise Michael Bloomberg; he has been called arrogant and myopic and needlessly pessimistic about the rallying economy of New York City.<br />
<br />
But I think otherwise and I wish to thank Mayor Bill de Blasio for nailing a core reality. New York City has lost its balance; spinning out of control it split into two.<br />
<br />
So Mayor de Blasio called it. He co-opted the concept of the 1% vs the 99%, integrating the defiant hippie message of Occupy Wall Street within City Hall.<br />
<br />
This pleases me no end for I celebrated the spirit of Occupy Wall Street. I think that naming the social inequity in our midst was bold...and long overdue.<br />
<br />
And I think that the reason de Blasio is getting such blowback today is because with his Tale of Two Cities theme, he scared the dickens out of the privileged citizens of New York City.<br />
<br />Shira Dickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05875369712259812316noreply@blogger.com0