My Personal God Language

So we had another meeting of the machzor class, and we were asked to write a bit on our concept of God, and how it agrees or disagrees with the liturgical language. Here's what I wrote:

You are Great and unknowable, Builder of galaxies and Small Voice of conscience, and I don't know whether to kneel before You, sing a song of praise, or curl up in Your lap. Part of me is awed and unable to say anything to You, and part of me wants to cling to Your fur like a baby koala. The God I thank for each new day is both big and loving, majestic and maternal.

New Experiences

In part, retirement is for trying new things; and I've been doing so.

Two months ago, a call went out for entertainers for a monthly gathering of LGBT patients at Laguna Honda Hospital. I volunteered to sing for the group, since I have a fairly decent voice and can be very funny. After warning the entertainment wrangler that I wouldn't have any accompaniment and I would be using notes to remember the words, I eventually put together a song list that started and ended with the funniest songs and wandered through campfire songs, protest songs, and a few Broadway show tunes in the middle. The event was also a Halloween party, so I brought a rat mask that I had just bought at the Castro street fair, and I opened with the most macabre songs I could think of, Leaping Lesbians, and Rikkety Tikkety Tin. I closed with the M.T.A. song (Did he ever return? No, he never returned) and Aunt Clara (whose picture is turned to the wall). I was a little concerned about boring folks and/or losing my voice, but neither happened. Lots of applause, and a fervent appreciation from a former music teacher. And I also got a cupcake, a Coke, and a skeleton necklace for my efforts. Now I'm starting to think about weaving some stand-up comedy into the songs. . . .

Another new adventure came when Jan and I were driving back up 101 from having tracked down a part for her new (very old) car in Santa Clara. I spotted the Malibu Grand Prix raceway and miniature golf place and got us to stop. I'd always wanted to drive a go kart. So we did. We bought four laps each, and waited interminably in scorching sun for our turn to put on sweaty helmets, scoot into our vehicles, and locate the pedals _ I needed a pillow behind me to reach them. It was a major hoot. My only disappointments were not being able to reach full speed - the track had too many turns for that. And I wasn't able to get lap records for how fast I went. The attendant missed me, and they weren't available when I went back for them. But, it was a lot of fun, and I could be persuaded to do it again.

My third new experience was last Saturday. I'd been receiving e-mails about a human banner on Ocean Beach, saying "Tax the Rich". Not enough people signed up, so they changed it to "Tax the 1%." I made the final decision to go when I received an e-mail from the music director of my show. The personal touch is best, it seems. Couldn't get a friend of my own to join me, but ran into Terry Baum, Nancy Schimmel, and Suzy Hara, a former Bendroid. Supervisors Eric Mar and John Avalos were also there. The music director had written advising us to bring blankets, since we were to lie down for part of the festivities, and I brought a beach towel. Sure wish I'd worn a sun hat. Anyway, the group was festive and engaged, around 1,000 of us, and the helicopter came as scheduled and took many lovely pictures of us. We're to receive our own postcards of the best shot. The event was planned a year ago, but resonated nicely with the Occupy Wall Street actions currently underway.

High Holy Days Writings

Andrew Ramer hosted another gathering at CSZ to listen to words and look at images of the journey towards forgiveness, and then write our own words or draw our own images. We had three writing periods, and much of what I wrote was whining about my own mishegoss about being lazy.

Here are a few bits that seemed to be worth sharing.

I am often struck by the line in our machsor that says we have sinned against God "as long as we cannot be hopeful." It takes hope to imagine that I can change for the better. It takes hope to even recognize the glints of good that I currently have. It takes an act of hope to remember the unity of God and humanity and to remember that I am a part of humanity.
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So how do I kindly and gently, and with curiosity and humor, recognize all the recalcitrant parts of myself, and persuade us that we're all on the same team? That we'll accomplish more and be happier if we achieve consensus and act mindfully much of the time? Perfection is neither possible nor desirable, but some improvement and awareness are both possible and good.

I'd like to have compassion for myself when I get stuck in an unskillful place, and recognize that it is only where I happen to be right now, and that I can be in a totally different place a breath and a smile from now.

Hope can return when I use the tools that I know work - journaling, mneditating, taking a walk, stretching. Just even remembering to breathe with awareness. I can notice that each breath is a new one, but/and that I'm inhaling many molecules that originated in the stars and have been breathed before by many, many people over the millenia since they were created.

As I breathe, I can remember that I am a living organism, a sentient being who lives and grows and changes every moment. And that I am also part of the webs of life that are my shul, neighborhood, city, state, country, hemisphere, and planet.
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I want to write a poem with such beautiful images of heaven on earth that reading it would lift anyone's heart, would give hope to the most depressed and despairing person, would bring a smile or a tear to any face. I want to write a picture so beautiful that it creates in all who read it a yearning to be better, a yearning to live in hope, and the recognition that this beauty is here and now, right here, right now.

Free Hugs?

August was a particularly full month for me: my aunt Virginia passed away and I flew to Washington State to attend her funeral mass; I completed my first 6-day silent meditation retreat in San Rafael; and I compiled and sang in the interment service for the mother of my sweetie Jan. Now that I'm between editing issues of the synagogue newsletter, have nearly completed my preparations for the High Holy Days, and have mostly put together my workshop on state government issues for tomorrow night, I have a touch of bandwidth for a blog entry or two.

What I wanted to write about was something I experienced last weekend. Jan and I went shopping Sunday morning. We were saturated with the weeklong coverage of the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks and were deliberately avoiding watching any more about it.

On our way into Fry's electronics superstore, we encountered a woman with a handmade sign that offered "FREE HUGS." Jan and I looked at each other and decided to accept her offer. As we entered the store, however, my inner cynic started wondering why she was doing that. Our best guess then was that she was participating in a psych experiment to determine if there were any commonalities among people who accepted or rejected her offer. I sure hoped that she wasn't trying to spread some contagious disease or plant listening or homing devices.

It wasn't until the next day that I got it. I was walking by a florist shop in downtown San Francisco that had spread flowers on the sidewalk and had a sign that offered free roses in observance of 9/11. Of course! Sunday was September 11th itself. The woman was distributing hugs as her way of sharing comfort on the anniversary of that major national trauma.

The Queen and Her Throne

I learned the other day that Queen Elizabeth II has a personal, white leather toilet seat that travels with her wherever she goes. A week before that, I wrote the following:

When I moved downstairs after living a quarter of a century in the same flat, my whole life was disrupted. There were walls of boxes everywhere, and there were no coverings on the windows. My bedroom was functional, and I could sit on my couch and watch TV, but the rest of the place was chaos.

After a week or so, I had a handyman in to mount my stuff on the walls - the paper towel rack in the kitchen, the reading lamp in the bedroom, and pictures everywhere. But what really made me feel at home was when he mounted my wooden toilet seat on the new toilet, and my wooden TP holder where I could reach it. When the queen is comfy on her throne, all is well in her realm.

Small Town, Isn't It?

Someone called my name as I was waiting on my yoga mat to begin my second "Gentle Yoga" class in the Castro. It was Sherrie Sawyer, whom I had just seen last week at an SFOP (San Francisco Organizing Project) meeting to work on encouraging the state legislature to extend existing taxes, and not solve the current deficit entirely by cutting much-needed government services to the poor and middle class.

I approached her after the class and asked her to join me for lunch, which she did. We went to a crepery in the same block, one that I had been meaning to try for some time, and were joined there by the teacher of the class. We had a great chat over lunch and learned that we were both inactive members of the California Bar. We also talked about how each of us had become involved in community organizing, and what we were each working on at the moment. Inasmuch as it was raining, and she mentioned that she had brought a car, I asked where she was headed and she dropped me off in Noe Valley on her way home.

I did the two chores I had planned, at the drugstore and Radio Shack, and then ran into Lisa Larges, a dear friend of mine, who was on her way to Radio Shack with her friend Beth, to do some chores of her own. I was in no particular hurry, and wanted to chat with Lisa a bit, so I went back into the store with them and helped Lisa (who is blind) by reading info from the packaging to her. Then we visited two other stores that were on my way home, and I heroically managed to avoid buying anything else. Then I peeled off towards my home while they headed in the other direction.

I love bumping into friends while out and about. It's like a gift from the universe. I seem to hear it saying: "I know you need to see others but aren't good at calling or writing them to arrange a get-together, so I'll help you get started and drop some folks in your lap. But don't get used to it."

Peanut Butter and Me

In our last writing group, we were asked to write something on how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I wrote two rather different things - first, what naturally came into my mind, and the second more consciously addressing the assigned topic.

PBJ To Go

I was in the midst of a nervous breakdown when I finally dragged myself off to recorder camp in 2003. My appetite had been AWOL for several months already, but a flare of panic attacks completely paralyzed me when it was time to leave for camp. I was reduced to watching the home and garden station on TV long into the night - I couldn't sleep, either. The next day I reached my psychiatrist on the phone, and she encouraged me out the door.

But I still wasn't up to socializing. One experience in the cafeteria proved to me that the lingering idea that I ought to be interested in food wasn't enough to justify my going to the loud dining room with too many people and too many decisions.

So I stayed in my room at mealtimes and got a friend to bring me whatever she could carry away with her: single-serving packets of butter, peanut butter, and jelly, plus pieces of bread, and fruit salad in a plastic cup. I used my swiss army knife to spread the toppings on the bread, and read the Swiss Family Robinson to calm my nerves and help ease the food down.

By the end of the week, I'm pleased to report, the new medication had taken effect and my appetite returned.
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My History of Peanut Butter Sandwiches

Peanut butter is a funny substance. I don't know why it became common to take that particular nut and grind it into a paste. Perhaps there were so many of them? Perhaps so it could be used as an ingredient in various recipes? Don't know. But there it is, and combined with the grain in bread, peanut butter makes a complete and nourishing protein.

So generations of mothers have made peanut butter sandwiches for their children's lunches. Now, I do know something about sandwiches. The Earl of Sandwich apprently got the idea of putting food betwen slices of bread so he could eat meat without leaving the gambling table.

Anway, peanut butter is commonly paired with banana, or grape jelly, or strawberry jam. I like to add a little butter or margarine to help the peanut butter slide down my throat. Apricot or peach jam goes as well with peanut butter as strawberry jam. And honey goes very well with banana and peanut butter. But be sure you put it directly on the bread, not on top of the peanut butter or bananas, or it will flow right out of the sandwich, and probably onto you.