frankincense and myrrh and schmaltz...

'tis the season...but this year I find myself doing a double-take...when Thanksgiving swept in on sweet potato pies I thought...wait isn't it Halloween?...such has been the race of time this year...2020...a new decade...it is right around the bend...and next week Christmas and Chanukah begin...cookies and egg nog...and latkes and donuts...and heartburn and another inch on my tuchas...and all I want in my stocking is my old 21-year-old svelte leg...sorry, digressing...all I want at this time of year is to avoid the television...news, in particular...unless I'm binging some streaming series that will amuse but ultimately disappoint...this world is leaving me numb, and hard to entertain...floating into awards season...used to be such a guilty pleasure...and now this season is earlier...which I hate to inform the old networks and cable stations on life support...will not increase your ratings...now I shrug at the predictability of it all...the holiday miracle?...535 pink slips in DC?...I have no answers...maybe time to think and feel like a child again...the unbridled joy in the shadows of a Menorah...or in footed pjs under a tree on Christmas morning...the masses are joyless...searching for hope before sunrise wakens us to a new decade...Happy Holidays and hoping we all find that joy again in 2020!...

merrily we roll along...

the lions are circling...it is the 21st century fall of our Roman Empire and we are battling for our sanity...or at least to not be "cancelled" or thrown to the hungry lions with one "ok boomer" tweet...we mock the younger generation...they resent us with a fierceness that is unsettling...and all of it done on a worn living room couch...tweeting on the latest phone made in China while McDonald's delivers...progress...and the holiday season is upon us...earlier and earlier because bottom lines are crumbling...industries vanishing...and the world is burning...but I keep thinking about something I saw in Port Authority about a week ago...you are laughing because if you've been in any of New York's main transit hubs you are also thinking to yourself...surprise me because I have seen it all...maybe you have...you already are immune to military fatigues and loaded guns...men and women who stand guard while the crowds shove past...you've seen the homeless sprawled out on staircases and subway benches...screaming in rest rooms for no apparent reason...inching closer to you as trains roll in the station as the sweat beads your forehead wondering...is this the day I get pushed...evaluating those around you...would they pull me to safety...and the whole time trying not to inhale...this is our New York...this is our ancient Rome falling...and so it was when I was weaving through humanity on a Monday rush hour eve...navigating through Port Authority...one door and a staircase away from the subway when I felt his presence to my left...a large disheveled homeless man...in a hurry...rolling a beat-up office chair...why?...it really puzzled me...I kept thinking about him as I pushed my way onto a downtown C train...C meaning "c if you can breathe"...where the hell was he taking the chair?...where did he find it?...was it wedged in the trash between the piles of discarded Starbucks coffee cups?...the lions keep circling...you think throwing an impossible burger at them will keep them at bay?...maybe I should have asked that guy with the chair...as he rolled into November darkness...swept away with the masses...heads downs...phone screens dotting the night...

the party's over...

it has been several weeks since my daughter, Lauren's wedding...and I can honestly say I have post-wedding planning blues...many of you can relate...and to be honest...it actually doesn't have to have been a wedding...whenever we are involved planning or anticipating a big event...there are the weeks that follow where we don't know what the hell to do...well, we do go about the business of life, of work, etc...but that underlying feeling of excitement...nervousness...even the stress it wraps around...all gone...but truly this one is by nature different...our family dynamic has changed...we have expanded...I now have a son-in-law...I am now a mother-in-law...and Lauren has started her own family dynamic...the changes are subtle...but there...for me, I think what I am more cognizant of is the passage of time...and with 60 looming just about 6 months away...I am contemplating how I'd like my next chapter to read...to those around me...and most importantly to me...they say that 60 is the new 40...who is this they...cause they don't feel these bones as they swing over the side of the bed in the morning...but there in my mind...the road is open and boundless...there is time and possibility...but first coffee...

bubbe and zayde

September is coming to a close...the leaves are turning...and falling...but summer is in full bloom...little rain...abundant sun...and for me, after months of poetic drought...I find myself not just wanting to write, but needing to...I believe there are no greater writing prompts than joy and sorrow...and so it has been for my larger family these last weeks...cousins on the greater family tree of my beloved grandmother Bella, long gone...three funerals...and in between, the ultimate happiness in my daughter, Lauren's wedding...as I embraced family at all these events it got me thinking...about how family trees bloom, expand...and these days...disperse throughout our country...social media gives us the chance to reconnect...to see children we may never meet...to marvel at how diverse and large we have become...but there is nothing that can replace hugging someone you have not seen in years...double-digit years...looking into their eyes...at their faces...and recognizing a grin...or laugh...and knowing it is the same as their mother...or grandfather...the passage of time diminished...our children may not fully understand how their successes, both professional and personal, lift up older generations in times of sorrow...how that affirms that the tree will continue to bloom...I wondered while standing alongside my cousins on yet another cemetery last week..if the bubbe and the zayde, as they were affectionately called...my great-grandparents...did they realize when they struggled to come here what they planted...how it would grow...and be sustained through grief and loss...an everlasting tree tended to from generation to generation...and so I pause and thank them as we approach the New Year...L'Shanah Tovah Tikateivu...

waxing...poetic

giving up can be liberating...at least that's what I think the line was...at this age ask the four of us in that conversation what the line was and it would be like the movie "Rashomon"...we were talking about waxing, tweezing, hair dye and well...you get the drift...and as some of us cross the line to retirement...and others think about the prospect in a not too distant future...we, as women, were musing over the effort involved in keeping up...the minutia of appearance...who is it for?...and so the opening line...but, really, the deeper subtext is that ability to finally say...what the hell...screw it...I'll do what I want, when I want, if I want cause I've earned that...and more...lately I have found myself thinking so much about time...how it is squandered...then cherished...thinking about what I have learned, and how much there is still to learn...giving up can be liberating as a statement in and of itself sounds defeatist...but it is not...when you stop worrying about what you cannot control and focus on being present...in the moment...there is a freedom...ultimately it doesn't matter if you remembered to wax your eyebrows...or get your roots done in time...because if you are present for yourself...you are present for those you love...and those who love you and need you...and for that I say...amen...and pass the tweezers...

it's too darn hot

it's this summer's tune...after this country was put in a late spring twister blender...drowned in flood waters...now we bake...the temperature is hot hot hot...our political figures from highest office to lowest fan flames and tempers...it's only July 19th...so much more of summer...it's only July 2019...so much longer till November 2020...solutions?...none...suggestions...well, yes...turn off the news...put the cell phone face down...turn up the music...call a friend or two...then see that friend or two...which I did earlier this week...got me thinking about all the posts in my feed about friendship...about vacations with your girls...oh, yes...definitely not fake news...catching up with lifelong friends with a crisp glass of wine in hand...the sky crystal blue...water before us...well, your pulse slows...frown lines give way to laugh lines...oh, hell, we laughed...we listened...took pictures...had strangers take pictures...to remember...which I hope we all will...maybe a testimony that anger should be fleeting...joy may be elusive...but friendships like these...how they can lift you up...well, that's eternal...

shower to the people

sometimes I think that I would love to speak to orchestra conductors...because it would be fascinating to know what they hear as they wave the little baton through the air...do they hear the violins...the flutes...or is all of that drowned out by the voice in their heads urging them onward...such it seems to be with planning life events...Saturday was Lauren's shower...and much as it had been at her bat-mitzvah...the experience seems to be one where you are present and so happy...and then kind of out-of-body...the voice in your head whispering...is everyone here?...take a picture...try and mingle...omg, the cake...they need to serve the cake...take a picture with the cake...and then that subtle shift into slow motion...where you watch your child...not a child...a beautiful woman...smiling with joy...and then you smile...and realize that all the planning...the minutia...all for this moment...it is here and everyone is smiling...the sun is radiant...the only showers in this room are the good wishes and love from friends and family...all the instruments in blissful harmony...the conductor letting a smile escape while turning to the orchestra...and that my friends, is a rhapsody...and Gershwin would be proud...