Getting your sea legs

I was on a short cruise last week...encountered rougher weather than one would expect in February...and while waiting for an elevator on my last night...which is a scheduled activity on many a cruise..."waiting for an elevator at 6pm"...I saw a dad with his little daughter...she must have been about 4...cute as a button twirling her sundress...he joked with her asking "I hope you have your sea legs"...to which she replied incredulously..."Dad...I don't have sea legs"...it got me thinking about rocking ships...and wobbly legs...and life...our journeys are never all smooth sailing...we all, on many occasions, want to run to a muster station and abandon ship...it's our ability to get those sea legs...a sense of balance and serenity...and tenacity to move forward...that steers us through life...and adversity...and so, as I thought about my imminent departure...and eventual Monday morning and a huge "to do" list...I was hoping for a strong gait...buoyed by memories of soft winds...sunny baby blue skies...giving me a renewed sense of purpose...but just in case...I'll hang on to that Dramamine...

Attack of the fitting room mirrors...

shopping for clothes...alone...is the biggest pain in the ass...you try to haul as much as you can in with you...multiple styles...sizes...and then pray...there I was yesterday...looking for a sweater  but thinking maybe jeans too...Lord have mercy...this is where that expression comes from...two sizes...three styles...you get it...but after crying exhaustion with the third pair...I realized I had only one size in the style I really liked...and it fit...well...until I sat...then breathing was optional...I meandered out into the store in their jeans...my socks...no one flinched...and couldn't find the next size...headed back to the fitting room disappointed...until I saw a saleswoman rolling a cart by me...I asked her if the next size was in the storage room...she looked me over...she said they didn't have it in the store...and besides..."they would be way too big for you"...she was my new best friend...I told her how these...pointing to their jeans that I could have walked out in...were tight when I sat...she claimed they would give and stretch...I was doubtful...and getting hungry...I went back to the fitting room...put my clothes back on...then I looked in those hideous mirrors with the poor lighting...oh you wonderful saleswoman...you know nothing about the plight of my people...my family...the genes...not the jeans...the plight of "groys pulkes"...I will translate...but the essence will be lost...it means big thighs in Yiddish...I sighed...bought the sweater...thinking salad for lunch...as I headed home...

Silence is golden...

Golden...Golden Bachelor...Golden Globes...it seems as days get shorter all is golden in entertainment...or is it?...first, the Golden Bachelor...or when we yawned towards the grand finale...was he really the golden grifter?...I will admit I did watch it...from weird, promising start...to pathetic, typical finale...all that seemed more real in the beginning...sincere, older bachelorettes...supportive sisterhood...was just business as usual...although watching rejection happen to these "older" women seemed a tad too real and painful...clutch my pearls...until the fan favorites starting showing up all over Instagram and everywhere in between...social media darlings...alongside the plastic young winners and runners up from past seasons...it is only days before these senior bachelorettes hawk products...become senior influencers...ugh...then the Golden Globes...a little history refresher...what once was a Saturday night blip on TBS became a primetime Oscar warm up...people took notice...kind of...it still was the Hollywood Foreign Press...a group I could have easily pictured on a small plane bound for...Epstein Island...and so the red carpet was what drew me in...wearing my January winter sweats, pale complexion and holiday weight...then Covid...then everyone pointing fingers at lack of inclusion...which was hysterical...what was the difference?...this was never supposed to be a serious critics darling...it was just a winter party where celebrities starved themselves...fit into -0 size gowns...got drunk...and rambled through acceptance speeches...but ok...no one wanted to host anymore...so this year they gave us Jo Koy...who?...oh, he's the stand-up guy whose career will be part of the Oscar dead montage...with the most cringe-worthy opening imaginable...I was hoping this was written by AI...because if it was a team of writers...well, this writer says - go back on strike...then odd pairings...inane banter...oy...today would have been David Bowie's 77th birthday...and Wednesday will mark 8 years since he passed...and I keep thinking of a line from his iconic song, Golden Years...just remember...before you click on anything else claiming to be golden..."run for the shadows in these golden years"...don't believe me...just ask the groundhog... 

2023...shake it off...

blog #246...in my poetic stream of consciousness since May 2012...and I find myself struggling...to write...to exhale...the world is on fire...and closing in...battle lines drawn for everything in life these days...pick a side...get eviscerated...because everyone is an expert...Tic Tok told them...hide in the greys...no opinion...no voice...another day...tangerine sunrise or Canadian fire skies?...get out of bed...get moving...just breathe...avoid the mirror at all costs...pick out a necklace...maybe the Hebrew nameplate...maybe not...watch what you post...what you say...what you write...politics...2020 redux with a vomit bag...Handmaid's Tale in Texas...minus the red cloaks...migrants and homeless...everywhere...all in the shadow of 700 million dollar sports contracts...and Taylor's billion dollar Eras tour...I am typing this wondering what AI would say...a middle finger to that for sure...the days evaporate as New Year's looms...as for the heavy weight of 2023...I guess a Swiftie would shake it off...but me...I am a "Joni"...looking for a river to skate away on...happy 2024!

Hatikvah

Simchat Torah 2023 will be one for the history books...I hope...why, you think, does she hope that such a dark day for Israel...and by extension all Jews...will be one for the books?...because of the unease I have had for years that my people will not be a warm and complicated chapter in this book of mankind...a chapter filled with angst and joy...unfathomable death...and then life renewed in the grasped hands of a hora...feet pounding hard...to stamp out the hate...no, my fear is we will be but a footnote pushed to the margin of a page...I have never been to Israel...it does not matter...there is a sadness about all of this that is quite intangible...the hope of an accord between Israelis and Palestinians is gone...it certainly will never come to pass with Abbas or Netanyahu...Abbas, a raging anti-Semite...and Netanyahu will never be able to erase the memory of rockets and blood from this generation's minds...and in my mind I keep hearing Hatikvah...the Israeli national anthem...it means the hope...when I hear it...it is the little music box that was in our menorah that I hear...we would light it each Chanukah in my childhood...the lights sparkling and the music playing...the light against the darkness of early winter evenings...the hope we would always be together around that menorah...as my heart breaks I try to remember that...that Israelis will sing again...light candles again in peace...until then, we, their brothers and sisters will do it for them...and with that I say amen...

the good fight...

last week I had the good fortune to attend a conversation about book banning...it was hosted by former Congressman Steve Israel...now a writer and owner of Theodore's Books in Oyster Bay...I remember him from another lifetime on the Hebrew School car pick-up line...but anyway...with him was Congressman Jamie Raskin...hopefully beating cancer for a second time...still mourning the tragic 2020 suicide of his son...member of the January 6th committee...a constitutional law professor for twenty-five years before political life...quite engaging in his bandana...was this the one given by Steven Van Zandt?...a man who truly loves our constitution and our democracy...and fights the good fight the best he can...and so I listened to spirited banter...and thoughtful and funny questions from the audience...the topic of book burning searing the hearts of this group of readers and thinkers...and I wondered...(oy, I sound like Carrie Bradshaw...the Mensa version)...what can I do?...the whole notion of book banning sends a lightning ripple of fear through my second generation Jewish American soul...it wounds the fabric of who I am as a writer...it leads me back to a phenomenal reading list in high school...in a Staten Island high school with no money...during turbulent times...would a high school student in southern states in 2023 be exposed to Solzhenitsyn, Camus, and Kafka?...or would it offend one parent who would have it ripped from the library bookshelf, or worse, curriculum?...how do I fight the good fight?...I think that's what everyone at this event was thinking...what are the answers?...voting...yes, but not enough...getting these banned books available where they are banned...yes, but...I think much of this boils down to reading...technology and social media...and teaching to test...have pulled this nation away from true literacy...we need to overhaul the educational system...the public educational system first...many who have had books removed from their schools...wait for it...never read them...so, my retirees who are looking for meaning in this new chapter of your lives...see if your local school or library is looking for reading tutors...and while you're at it...work on their writing too...so that they can compose more than a three-word text...that small child with an open mind will absorb all you can give...I'd like a future filled with Camus, not Boebert...the good fight starts page by page...k?

walk the line...

this past weekend I visited Music City...Nashville...for the first time...being 63...without a white dollar store pseudo-veil pasted to my head...and bride tribe in tow...well, I was something of an anomaly...but I like visiting cities in the south...the hello and friendly demeanor from strangers is refreshing to a jaded New Yorker...although, there is always a sense of sins of the fathers hiding in the corners...plantations still on the outskirts and ready for a tour...Mike and I concentrated on the music...not a better place to be for it...Grand Ole Opry...live music all over town...but there was the pesky Jason Aldean "small town" brouhaha popping up in news and social media that weekend...and there was his place front and center on Broadway...right next to Luke Bryan's...by Dierks Bentley's...you get the idea...but for me, and many others, Nashville is Cashville...Johnny Cash...his museum is a must...he was far from a perfect man...but a brilliant artist...and what he tried to do with his fame and voice for prison reform...his performances at Folsom and San Quentin...his writing about the need for change...was so ahead of his time...he found redemption in sobriety...and in the love of the remarkable June Carter...most of the country stars with their names plastered on bars and restaurants along the raucous streets of Broadway...aren't fit to lick his boots...when the endgame is the almighty dollar...and not the love of music...and some Almighty higher power...then don't buy into the dumb cowboy mea culpa act...google is in the palm of that phone in their hands...and so is history...the joke is on the fan who buys into it...then works overtime in his small town to buy the concert ticket...better to download "I Walk the Line"...listen to the gravely gold of Cash's voice...humility will set you free...