Latest Writing Workshop

I went to a full-day workshop on exploring my writer's voice yesterday, and did a lot of writing there. Here are some of the pieces that I wrote there:

"I pray each morning thanking God for the people who are or have been in my life, even if they intimidate or aggravate me. I ask God to teach me that I, too, belong to the human family. Recently it occurred to me that at times I may be the one who is intimidating or aggravating someone else. And that ability is part of what makes me human."

We were asked to pick a postcard from a large selection on a table and write about what drew us to it:

"The intense, beautiful blue color called to me from across the table -- I don't much care what it is, but I want to have that sapphire snapshot to look at. Pacing myself, I waited until most of the cards were laid out on the table before reaching for it -- sure that others would be attracted by its beauty and want it for their own, but they didn't grab it; it was mine. Finally I could see the image and read the legend -- it's a night picture of the California Coast, with a large rock in the background and smaller rocks in the foreground, tule fog hovering over the ocean, and a crescent moon in the sky. Something about the words or image, or both, brought a lump to my throat.

I have lived on the California Coast, north and then south and then north again, for 43 years; first with my father, then with my mother, then with a roommate or two, and then alone. There's something a bit lonely about the picture. It's empty of people, buildings, books, beach towels. It has no sunshine, smiles, surfers, or snow cones. No sandy tacos on the beach, smelly sunscreen, mother smoking on her beach towel and backrest, turning increasingly tan while I burn and freckle.

I once became separated from my blackwatch plaid air mattress in Santa Monica, in water over my head, complete with rip tide and undertow. Waves kept pulling me down. I looked around for help and saw a man standing nearby in water that to him was only waist deep. I waved my arm and cried "Help!" He looked at me in disbelief. "I said, Help," I yelled again. He walked over to me, took my hand, and drew me into the shallows. I hope I thanked him, and hiked back to my mother -- the rip tide had carried me maybe a block down the beach. I don't remember quite how I described my experience. She seemed to be taking it very calmly, but she was determined to reclaim the air mattress. She walked with me down the beach, surprised at how far we had to go. Then she saw a kid playing with it. She, with the authority of not only a mom, but also a senior lifesaver, told one kid to go get the mattress from the other kid. He did, and we returned to our beach towels in triumph."

Then we were asked to write about something we hate as if we loved it:

"I just love being in crowded streetcars, especially when I have to stand. Where else can you so intimately experience your neighbors' tastes in clothes, music, perfume, or cell phone conversations? You get to be part of a single organism swaying with the motions of the car. Being short, I can't reach the overhead bars, so I am limited to standing in spaces near vertical poles, and often get to negotiate access to them with my companions, or, better still, have someone leaning against my hand while I grasp the pole.

Another aspect of being short, my face comes to the middle of most people's backs or chests, which can be cosy, or even pleasurable, depending on whose body part I'm up against. And I don't really need to be able to look out the windows anyway; a nice recorded voice announces the stations.

The exercise and balance-building qualities of riding while standing are also beneficial. In fact, my feet often become so painful that I am eager to get out of the car and walk the rest of the way to my office."

Pesach and Easter

Easter Sunday falls in the middle of Passover this year. They usually are close, because the Last Supper was a Passover seder. In a Christian church on Easter Sunday is not the best place for a Jewish person to be, but there I was this morning, playing Telemann duets on the recorder with Andrew Levy. We didn't sing the hymns, nor join in most of the prayers (I could get behind most of the prayers, but not with the Christ language); we just played music for the prelude, offertory, and postlude. The San Francisco chapter of the American Recorder Society meets there once a month, and provides service music once a month as rent.

In this day and age, we Jews thankfully have no fear of pogroms, although anti-Semitism is not dead, and synagogues still experience vandalism, even in San Francisco. But St. John's United Church of Christ, where we played this morning is a very progressive denomination, so it was fairly comfortable.

I spent most of yesterday at my synagogue, to get training in how to visit the sick (and supply other services to congregants in need thereof), and wound up on a new committee whose goals are to provide those services ourselves, in the near term, and to mobilize the entire congregation in support of each other. Later that day, we had a havdallah service (marking the end of Shabbat) preceeded by a presentation by the synagogue's participants in the San Francisco Organizing Project-led effort to bring about universal health care in San Francisco. I've gotten involved in this effort as homework for my Bat Mitzvah class.

Traditionally, Passover involves cleaning the heck out of one's home and not eating grains and starchy vegetables. The Biblical injunction is to avoid 'leaven,' in commemoration of the fact that the Israelites had no time for bread to rise as they fled Egypt. The only bread that the rabbis permitted was matzah - flour and water that were baked soon after they were mixed. Nowadays, though, Jews may eat cookies and cakes baked with flour substitutes or special kinds of flour. Which seems to me to be missing the point. We're to eat no leavening - flat foods made in haste. So I'm avoiding grain products that actually have leavening agents in them - regular bread, cookies, and pastries. I would be lost without my breakfast cereal, so I'm eating Grape Nuts, shredded wheat, and granola, but skipping Cheerios, which have baking soda. Another synagogian and I had crepes for dinner last night. That's flat food; and I'd feel OK about tortillas and rice. Not sure about pita; it rises some. So I had a lamb shwarma pita sandwich last week without the pita. It sure was tasty. And I look forward to Passover because that's when egg matzahs are available; and I just love to have matzahs scrambled with egg, with berry syrup on it. Hardly the bread of affliction.

Plant Virtue

For most of my life, I've thought of myself as having a black thumb - not green, not even brown, but black. Most plants put under my care took one look at me and died. This situation saddened me a bit, but I didn't obsess over it. I just gave up on plants.

Ten years ago, my company moved into new offices in San Francisco. My boss came by with three little potted plants and offered me one to welcome me into the new space. I asked her which one would be the hardest to kill, and she gave me a pothos. I looked it up online, learned that it belonged to the ivy family and liked to be moist, and developed a routine of watering it on Mondays and Fridays that seemed to suit it. Ten years later, it's still alive, and I'm constantly amazed.

In retrospect, I thought that I must have had some moral shortcoming to be unable to nurture a plant. So many people rave about caring for plants that I felt sub-human, a plant-killer.

Now that I have successfully tended a hardy little plant for an entire decade, I must conclude that my thumb is actually brown.