Trip to Lviv in 2013 December 29,2022

WQXR is playing Carmina Burna which I am listening to on my new Bose radio as I spend a few hours resting between fun events. This morning I shepherded seven other SAJ retirees to visit an art exhibit at the NYPL on Broadway and 113 St. We had lunch at a French-named restauant which had a Frenchified menu but only croque Madame and tuna Nicoise were at all French. The food was fine; we treated the artist. My watch recorded a round trip walk total of 9750 steps. Later Marilynn and I will have diner at Cafe Arte and attend a performance of Rigoletto at the Met.

The first time I heard Carmna Burano was in Italy with Bob or was it in Switzerland, sitting outside a church where the piece was played completey by percussion instruments. But today, I am remembering how my guide in Lviv who met me at the train station at 6:30 AM, drove me to a restauant, left me so he could do hs radio  broadcast, retrieved me and drove me all over the ocuntryside so i could trace my grandparents' escape from Poland through Ukraine. At 4:30, he said he had another show to do, so he purchased a ticket to the opera and I sat in this red velvet covered theater with gilded seats , gold tasseled curtain and heard a full orchestra playiing Carmina Burana.

The music has such an old world feel to it, it surprised me when the announcer stated it had been written in the 1930's. I love my Bose radio.AndSteve for caring for me enough to know what I wuold really appreciate for a lasting Bat Mitzvah present.

Post Pandemic Revelations December 16, 2022

Minor things, nothing profound here today, at least not yet. As I settle in to spending the winter in New York, I notice several changes in myself that remind me of the passage of time. The winter trousers in my closet are now too long. They are of denim strength cloth created before spandex was added to everything, permitting us to purchase smaller sizes, more form-fitting pants. I remember last time Madison Avenue( my shorthand for fashion pressure from manufacturers to increase our discontent with ourselves) wreaked havoc with me.

My friends were wearing Ann Fogarty dresses which were size 2. The girls were not midgets, but the sizing of the more expensive couture dresses was different! We all wanted to wear size 2 also, or maybe size 4. Certainly not 10 or 12, which my clothing  was. My shape had not changed!

So okay, my size 6 pants from long ago still fit, snugly, but the pants zip. Good for me. All are too long. I haven 't shrunk THAT much. So yesterday at the gym, I noticed a woman slipping out of a pair of clogs. Aha! We wore clogs, not sneakers. So this morning, I fetched my black clogs out of the bottom of my closet. I will wear them to shul this morning and see how that feels.

I am daily grateful to Steve for buying me a Bose radio this week. The music sounds SO good. So once again I realize things about myself.. I could have bought myself an Alexa, and "told" the electronic voice to "Play WQXR." But I resisted, like I am resisting a new air fryer. I have a feeling these new inventions are too self-indulgent. I recognize my privilege in life but I feel a bit uncomfortable adding new products. Also I fear always that I will not know how to operate them. As with my watch. A seatmate at the theater asked me to turn off the light my watch makes when I clap. Now I learned how to shut the watch off, how to do it, but last night I forgot to turn it on-- or off, as the case may be.

Why Do I Do What I Do? December 8,2022

Once again, my reason for choosing an activity varies from the established benefits. Generally, my health patterns fit the prescribed. I eat moderately, hardly ever drink alcohol, sleep well, walk a lot. I am at the gym every weekday morning. I take the classes offered at the time I want to be there. There's an exercise class on Mondays, using weights, good for upper body strength, which I am not quite interested in. I exercise to prevent upper arm flab from getting worse and for maintaining the strength I have. Generally, I am pretty strong. I can carry two heavy shopping bags full of food six or seven blocks. I also try to improve  my posture. I have rounded shoulders and my head tips forward of my torso. Although I do try, there is little I will be able to accomplish with the one hour exercise class each week. I would have to work out with the machines, which I don't do, mainly because I am afraid of hurting myself.

I dance because I love it. The instructor tells us to listen to our bodies. If something doesn't feel good, don't do it, try something else. I love the camaraderie of the dance classes. Folks smile; so do I.

Yoga class is a struggle for me. I cannot do some of the asanas and the instructor corrects our poses. "You will get better" is a sentence I don't believe any of us wants to hear. This is not pt. We are not rehabbing after surgery. Today we were advised that perfecting the asanas leads to mindfulness, the peace that yogis ascribe to reach.

My mind is present whatever I do. I just want to move and have fun.

I adore the teachers at the JCC. They are dedicated, professional, always learning something new to impart to us students. I feel as if I am four years old again, going through a stage of mild rebellion. 

I have struggled to feel good about myself. I have given up the fantasy of being able to control my children's lives. I cannot help them, except by giving them money. The stock market was good to us all for the past years, but not so much now. So my balances are dwindling and I need to reduce my withdrawals from capital so I will have enough money to care for myself as I age.

I have given up the prospect of foreign travel for several reasons, the financial being one of them. Loneliness is another. I feel lonely in a group of people who are connected to each other, but not to me. I have decided not to go to Chacala for the NIA retreat next year. It, too, is getting too expensive.

I am not retaining learned information as well as I used to. My Hebrew classes are on hold for the holiday and I am unsure if I want to continue them, although I enjoy them very much.

As you, my reader, can see, aging isn't always fun. But I really try to control my anticipatory anxiety and only worry about what is coming up soon.

Self Awareness November 17,2022

I was feeling good about myself this morning and most mornings lately. I am physically well; I have no aches or pains although I have reduced the amount of vitamins and minerals I take every day. Before the retreat in Mexico, I took eight supplements and vitamins daily, three of them twice each day. By intent, I decided not to take the second batch while on vacation, but I actually took the pills only four of the seven days. I will now take only the morning ones.

I generally leave my NIA class full of energy and vitality, but not today. I returned home tired, even though I had a good night's sleep.

What is bothering me? The weather is chilly, 39 degrees,but my clothing is keeping me warm, except perhaps for my face and I have ordered a knitted hat with a face warmer which will arrive next week to solve that problem.

One thing I do not have is a plan for the next three or four months of winter. Every year I have spent the winter in Arizona and that plan fell through this year. I can cope with that. What is really bothering me are the videos Dana posted from our Mar de Jade retreat this morning. I can see in the videos how I appear to others. Just like how surprised I was the first time I saw myself in Bloomingdales' mirrored escalator so many years ago. That was the day, the folks who hand out make up and perfume samples to folks boarding the escalator who, for the first time, instead of being annoyed by their intrusion, I felt bereft because they did   not offer  me any. I had become invisible as an older woman. The videos show me as I am, a woman many years older than the group members, bent over, arms not straight, slower. My full face look in the dance hall mirror does not reveal the slumped form I present to  others, from the side or from the back. The honest appraisal of myself will not hinder me; I will still dance and do everything I have always done, but it is making me feel tired today.

El Mar, the Sea November 8, 2022

As I sit contemplating the ocean, in a small protected cove in Western Mexico, I am still thinking of the election taking place today.

What I see, as I look out from my open window just feet away from the rocks that border the sea, is an ocean of ripples. The forces of nature push the ripples  along the surface water. For some of the time, the flow is undisturbed as the ripples reach the edge of the sea and dissolve among the rocks. 

Sometimes a small force of a wave appears near the shore and the ripples are thrown against the rocks. 

They retreat weakly, get caught by another wave and disturb the pattern momentariily.

Sometimes the force of the waves coming up from the lower parts of the sea, force the ripples onto the shore and the water explodes in a froth of white. After settlng for a short while, the ripples appear to accost the next wave, pushing it back, but to no avail. The waves continue to push the rippes shoreward.

How big and forceful are the waves of discrimination against women, people of color and any other differences today?

How large will the pushback be? 

Can we override, like the undertow, and push the sea of arrogance and authoritarianism back?

Change November 1, 2022

No sooner than the plane leaving the tarmac, I miss having Steve here. Sure, he was anxious about the flights, especially since he has to change planes and make the connection. Which of course happened. As soon as he reached LAG, the announcement came that his plane had been delayed and who knew how long he would have to sit and wait for the plane to arrive. And will he meet the next plane so that Troy could still pick him up at the airport and could he still see Chipper tonight?

Now he's on a flight to St Louis and a connection that doesn't get him home until 8:40. Bummer.

It is so quiet here. I almost got used to having the television on the news channel all day, except when it was sports time.

I can't seem to settle. It is also weird not having to practice chanting or stress about rewrites for my speeches. All that was completed last Saturday. What a super experience that was. I felt really that I had accomplished something special, so maybe I would have this post-natal letdown whether Steve was here or leaving or not.

When I returned to the city after Bob died, I felt free and loved the solitude and not having to worry aboout him anymore, that I had felt in my short visits to the city while he was in the memory care setting.I thought then, I would never want to live with anyone again. And visitors were always welcome, but I loved my privacy. 

Now, I am no longer sure. My mind is now more open to the idea of sharing my life with, well, there I run into trouble already. Steve and I developed a caring respectful routine in which my life was modified, but I feel I was able to feel ok. Would anyone else accomodate to my wishes?

Part Three The Final Words of my High HOlidays Musings September 30, 2022

Yom Kippur is called The day of Repentance or the Day of Return. Rabbi Pilchik of Temple B'nai Jeshurun in Short Hills, NJ, called this Day of Atonement the Day of at-one-ment, where we all come together as one and say the words of all the inequities we have uttered in the name of the diety to be abolished, whether we have said them willingly or under duress, in public or in private, under whatever stress we have found ourselves during the past year.

I generally see this confession as our way of forgiving ourselves and the diety for all of our losses, failures and disappointments which prompt us to take the name of the diety in vain.

For me, when I drop the eggshell into the matzo ball mixture with the eggs, I often say " Oh shit!"

I am reminded of that epithet when I remember my first-born son saying just those words at age 18 months as he mistakenly hit his thumb with his toy hammer and wooden pegs.

"Oh sugar," said I, the contrite mother. "No, Mommy," he replied sweetly, "Oh shit."

It is actually a very good epithat. It is a universal activity which occurs internally and is only observed by the senses when it is expelled and completed. It is a necessary and important part of our digestive systems and of little importance when it occurs regularly with no effort, but which takes on immeasurable importance when it occurs at an inopportune moment or place or when encountered by someone or something else in an inappropriate place.

So much for being extremely literal. Getting rid of our negative feelings from the past year is therapeutic. We can then be grateful for our smaller successes, both individually and as a society and work to be available to try once more, to follow the rule adoped by AA . To accept what cannot be changed, to change what can be changed and to learn to know the difference.

More God Discussion September 30, 2022

A being or spirit that is worshipped, shown reverence and adoration,  and is beieved to have created the universe.

That''s the Oxford Dictionary definition of God. .

The pushback to someone like me who finds reverence and beauty in nature is called a pan-theist. Someone who clearly states they believe in no god is an atheist and a doubter is called an agnostic. 

When things go well for me, I sometimes say "Thank God"

I have heard believers curse "God damn it" asking for someone they dislike or an action to be cursed. When someone sneezes, I say "God bless you."

Who am I calling out to?

In Judaism, it is said that "God does not want to be believed in, God wants us to be inspired to choose the right path, to be kind to others, to leave this earth a bit better than we found it."

However, if I say " OK< I can do that,." the answer I get is "What kind of audacity do you have, to think you alone are responsible for the successes of your studies, good works, happy outcomes of your wishes and desires?

No one, me included of course, wants to be seen as a narcissist, the center of all actions, wishes and desires. But when we make good  choices and our goals are reached, why isn't it enough to feel proud of our accomplishments, always knowing there is more to be learned and done to make the world a better place.

I have no big powers, like washing away the causeway to one of my favorite places, Sanibel Island , yesterday. The Hurricane did that. Did God cause the hurricane? Were the combinations of wind and water and temperature enough to explain the huge natural disaster? Did some being or spirit determine whose house shall remain standing and whose business be demolished?

I do have a bit of audacity, "chutzpah" in Yiddish, to believe God resides in each of us and as we realize our potential, as we listen and learn and help others and appreciate our gifts while acceptinng our defeats, we replicate in ourselves and each other the spirit of a larger community objective, we are all Godlike and worthy of reverence and adoration.

G-d September 21,2022

Writing the title without the vowel shows my hypocrisy right away. The orthodox tradition requires that the name of the diety not be spelled out, lest the paper or parchment on which it is written, must never be discarded improperly. Why do I uphold that tradition when I have rejected so many others?

It is quite appropriate that I write about this subject now, as we approach the High Holidays and what I have decided to do a month  after they have passed. 

My understanding of Judaism has of course changed during my long lifetime. My father was my initial guide to religion; my mother to ritual, mostly food, practices. As a child, we lit candles on Friday evening, ate challah which we purchased and had chicken soup and chicken to eat. We were not poor; it was however, wartime, when I was a child and I was eight, in third grade and in my first year of Hebrew School when my mother's parents, my Oma and Opa arrived in Hoboken, New Jersey on  the first troop ship to be converted to carrying refugees from Europe to the United States.

I was there, at harborside, with my parents, my mother's brother Willie and his wife, my Aunt Lisa, plus Auunt Lillie, my grandmother's brother Benno's wife. Uncle Benno had to work and couldn't join us in the long drive, the wait and the drive home. My four year-old sister held my hand the whole time! To keep me safe or was I protecting her?

I am thinking about that now, as I finished watching the PBS documentary, Part one , the United States and the Holocaust which describes events in Germany from 1933-1938. My parents and grandparents lived through all of those humiliations.

I also just saw Tom Stoppard's new play Leoppoldstadt which so subtley portrays the tension the Jewish people felt during those years.

This was the tension between life and death, between beatings, and being made to scrub the floors, or to sign away all of one's lifelong earnings and possessions to flee with nothing, but their lives to begin again somewhere else.

G-d was nowhere in that equation.

My father told me quite plainly that I had to learn all about my religion because, as Jews we were never safe anywhere in the world, even in the United States of America which had held all of his hopes. I had to learn all about my religion because he wanted me to be accepted and able to attend services in any country in which I may someday live, among my own people. G-d was not there, either.

So I did. I was a decent student, when I applied myself, but I faced ostracism in my Hebrew School. I was treated less than, because I am female and becuse my father kept his furniture store open on Saturdays.

Meanwhile, none of my studies mentioned G-d either. .We learned to read Hebrew and to write the letters in script, we studied the prayers to read them quickly and without error. We studied the ritual of the Saturday morning service and were excused from any sermons, or from the memorial prayers on the High Holidays.

I was disrespected  as a woman all the way up to 1976 when my father died and I was not counted as part of the ten people needed to recite the memorial prayers during the first seven days of shiva.

At those services, the small books included the twenty-third psalm, the Lord is my shepherd I shall not want.

I am now learning what the words in Hebrew in the Torah mean. It is of utmost importance for me to do that now.. And I am learning how to chant two sections of one week's chapter so I can finally read from that holy scroll.

I love the stories and the moral lessons we can relate to even today, from stories and explanations from so long ago, but sadly, I have not found G-d.

Legacies August 22, 2022

My heart and my head are full as I wake up leisurely this morning. We have death anniiversaries this week of our father, who died in 1976 and of our grandmother, who died during this week in 1968.  I have written much about each of these towering figures in our family's life. How my father at the end of his life, at 64, opted for additional surgery which his heart could not tolerate, because he refused to live life as a dependent person. I was quite angry with him for many years, after he shared that information with me. I actually told him he was depriving all of us of him by his choice. I understand it better now. And my grandmother hung onto life so strongly as she became weaker and weaker. Our grandfather had died the previous June 12, just twelve weeks earlier and our Oma wanted and waited to see my sister's second son be born and named after his great grandfather. He was born on July 17, was named eight days later.

Yesterday I met a young family in the park. I can''t quite believe the mom , Stephanie, is already  fifty years old. She is the daughter of my dear friend, Bernice, one of us four women who  supported each other while pursuing our graduate degrees at NYU in the  early 1980's. Bernice, who never smoked, died of lung cancer in 2002, never having met her son-in-law, nor this adorable four year old grandson.

Stephanie's dad died soon after, leaving a lovely house with a huge yard in a cozy town outside the city. Everyone advised her to sell it. She was determined to keep it and to move back into it, one day. In November, they moved back from California, where she had been living all this time. She had found renters, she had paid off the mortgage and they are now modernizing this contemporary style ranch house.

So much strength of character.

Do we All Necessarily Become our Mothers? August 2, 2022

Until now, I think I have created a life very unlike my mother's. My mom, I will have to be careful, as I was never permitted to use the pronoun "she" when speaking of her, was very handy. She cooked, she sewed, she knit, she collected and saved anything that could be used for arts and crafts in her nursery school class. When I was an only child, until age 4, my mom also painted in oils on an easel set up next to her baby grand piano, which she also played.

During the war, coupons were used to ration food. After the war, S&H Green Stamps were awarded for certain purchases. The stamps were pasted in a folder and could be redeemed. So mom collected and used coupons. When she moved to the suburbs and learned to drive,, she had several super markets from which to choose. They printed circulars. Mom cut out the coupons for items we used regularly and went to each supermarket to get the items . We adult kids made fun of her for doing that as the gasoline expended cost more than the savings.

Actually, one of the initial signs of dementia I noted were 2 liter bottles of Doctor Pepper I found in her refrigerator. By then, she lived alone and none of us ever drank soda, let alone Dr. Pepper. When the family was together, before the grandparents died, we had selzer delivered and my dad and grandfather would make spritzzers, Manishewitz wine and selzer with dinner.

Fast forward to today. I had been awarded a five dollar coupon, the first I have ever received, from Gristedes. It is Tuesday when seniors get ten percent off on their orders. I buy very few things at Gristedes, as I also have choices and this market is more expensive than others, but they carry some products the others don't, like Hebrew National salami, which  they seldom have in stock. So I enter the store, look for the salami and almost immediately put plan B into action. I choose a package of frozen strawberries, at five ninety-nine, head to the cashier where she deducts my ten percent and accepts the coupon and I leave so happy I spent only 36 cents for my purchase!

Bucket List July 22, 2022

My number one bucket list goal has always been to live to 100, with brain intact and walking upright.

Will I someday have a serious problem with my knee? I tore the meniscus climbing down the rocky outcroppings at Zion National Park when I was 75. I wore a brace for six weeks, getting wanded at the airport before  x ray surveillance was in place. But the pain subsided and I've been able to walk amazingly well since then. Every once in a while, I have a flare-up. A few years ago, I had a cortizone shot into the knee, but from then until this morning, I have been fine.

Wednesday evening, after dinner and a theater performance of Chains w ith my friend Carol D., we walked home from 42nd St , me to 86 and she to 90 and Riverside.

Yesterday, I rested, not attending my NIA class and this morning I woke up to a really sharp pain, which has by now subsided.

This event has not however, put a damper on my great news of the week. After my successful yearly physical, I have been kvelling over my height measurement. After years of diminishing height plus covid restrictions and months of inaction left over from my bout  of pneumonia, I have now measured 154 centimeters on the height scale.

Having reached my tallest at 5'1 1/2", my height had been diminishing yearly . The conversion makes me 5 feet tall once more, thanks I think, to my hiring Domni in February in Arizona to work with me and returning to the JCC since the end of May.

I had been worried that I've been "slowing down." My recall for names and faces, even for the main idea of books I've read or movies I've seen when asked by others at the spur of the moment, has definitely declined. I now understand a bit better what I have known all along. As we develop from infancy, each at different rates and to differing ability levels, we continue into old age, growing and developing, but also diminishing, each at different rates. Acceptance,  resistance and resilience are key.

My Father's Birthday July 15, 2022

My father was born 109 years ago in Brzozov Poland, in German speaking Galicia. He was the fourth child, the youngest, in awe of his older sister and brother 9 and 11 years his senior and a bit contemptuous, even as a child , of his father's favorite, his next brother Julius, two years older than he. Everyone coddled my father since he was four and survived scarlet fever and a pogrom, in which he had been placed on the bed covered in quilts and bolts of cloth as the Cossacks ransacked his parents' fabric store and the rooms behind it. When they went to uncover him, the boy was blue and had to be revived.

His sister had been hidden under the bed as the maurauders raped nubile girls and were known to kidnap young boys.

A few years later, the family experienced another pogrom, Polish youth the perpetrators then and Wolf, the oldest boy had gone into the street to protect the neighborhood with a group of Jewish youth. It was 1918 and his grandfather had recently died, leaving the family an inheritance and a larger fabrics business, which gave them the capital they needed to move from Poland.

Where did they go? As they spoke German, it was reasonable to expect them to move to Germany. Why Frankfurt?

I have only surmises. In Poland, Krakow was a center for textiles. My grandfather began to specialize in suit lining materials which were made of silk. These were delivered to Frankfurt from the east. Perhaps the shipping costs were less and the arrival of the goods was more dependable.

By age seven, German children began school which was free until age fourteen. I know nothing of their public school years, but I do know, as soon as Jewish fathers were successful, even modestly, in business, they opted to choose a Jewish private school for their children's secondary school experience.

Since  the oldest son was fourteen and was graduated from primary school, he was involved with politics in Frankfurt as he had been in Poland.  He was also studying the violin.When Hitler came to power in 1933, Wolf had to flee Frankfurt. He went to Paris, ostensibly to continue his violin lessons. He had a job playing violin in a cabaret.He may still have been working to prevent the brown shirts, or the Nazi party, from gaining power.

Friedl, the only daughter went to Vienna, lived with extended family members and pursued training as an actress, achieving a level of success and acclaim, playing on stages all over Europe with a travelling performance troupe.

By then, only Julius and my father, Max, were at home. Julius began to help his father in business and in politics. Only Max applied, and was granted admission to the Philantropin, the prestigious Jewish Lyceum, or secondary school. It was by then 1927. From what I can piece together, my father had several peaceful years from then until 1933, enjoying high school and college , already deeply connected to his one and only girlfriend, our mom.

Atachment Theory and Children of Holocaust survivors July 4 2022

Two disparate events set me to thinking this morning about memory and attachment. The first is my continued reading of Philip Roth's Operation Shylock and a poem by Nancy Ludmerer about missing her deceased cat.

I happened on another Philip Roth novel after many years. I read his contemporary novels. This is one set in 1988  and published in 1993. I found this one through a series of talks by JTS, the Jewish Theological Assn webinars on Stories and Storytelling. I watched  the last one entitled Not All about Eve, about Genesis and I started the series because of my studies about the Noah chapter in Genesis for my talk in October. One thing leads to another. 

The remorse poem about the cat's death was on Facebook this morning.

By the time I set the stage for this story, I am afraid I'll forget why I am writing it. I am getting texts from Linda intermittently and she is so unhappy.

Philip Roth grew up in Newark, living on Leslie Street where my Grandma Rosa rented a room and I went to visit her in the afternoons when I had no Hebrew school or on the weekend, from like ages 10 to 15. Then we moved to Millburn and I saw her less often and never alone.

Philip Roth went to Chancellor Avenue School as I did,, which is also mentioned in this book. He had Mrs. Duchin for fourth grade. So did I, seven years later! In another of his books, he mentions the gym teacher whom he calls Mr. Kantor, but his name was Mr. Keniwoth. H e was also my gym teacher during the years when I had terrible nighmares of Nazi soldiers in jodphers , carrying whips as they marched us around the gym and made us climb the ropes and the horses and the parallel bars.

Of course I was unable to tell anyone about my Nazi nightmares because my parent s and grandparents did not know I understood all the horrid stories the grandparents told over and over again to their friends and relatives who had survived the war, safe in the US as I had. I guess I felt guilty about that, too.

I also know that my mother told me so many stories of her dog Toddie, whom she had to leave behind in Germany when my parents emigrated in 1937. She missed him so much during the war years when she walked us to the park in the afternoon. Rita was in the stroller and,  as I often quote, my mother wanted me to hold on to the stroller when I wanted to walk alongside her without holding on.

We children always wanted a pet, but I was 15 before we moved into our own house and we got Friskie, a wire-haired fox terrier. I left home for college soon after Friskie entered our lives. I remember he ate Sharyn's unwanted food from the floor where she secretly gave it to him, but I do not remember being especially attached to him. We had a parakeet, who my Oma tried to teach to say "Pretty blue boy" unsuccessfully and chicks at springtime one year  who were sent "to the farm" when they became chickens or ducks, whatever they were destined to be. 

I soon married, had children and pets of all kinds..I loved them, cared for them, but I don't remember any of the strong feelings my contemporaries have for their current and lost pets.

Why?

My cousin Carol once described me dismissively, as a "specist." She said I put people above plants and other animals. Indeed I do, although I never understood that as a flaw before she kind of accused me with it.

And I think that, too, is a result of my being the daughter of the Holocaust. Although surely Toddie died in Germany, my  mother was so much more distraught over the imminent loss of her parents during the years when she knew not where they were or if they lived, she could not give equal weight to the dog she left behind. Her gratitude when HIAS informed her that her parents had contacted the agency and were once again in Frankfurt, Germany was overwhelming.

The idea, when a pet died, that it was "only a pet" was born then. A pet could be replaced. Family members could not.

Mood Lifters July 1,2022

After watching the House Internal Committtee on  the January 6 attempted coup on our government plus the outrageous rulings by a 6-3 Supreme Court, it was difficult to rejoice in our first female Black Justice taking the oath yesterday. It is difficult each day , even with the sunshine and warm weather to rejoice in nature, to feel the gratitude for good health and increasing stamina, to enjoy the studying I am doing in researchhing Noah and getting lost in the commentaries of the the first part of Genesis, Barashit.

My daughter's stepmother who had been sick for many years, causing Linda so much divided loyalty feelings added to her grief at losing another parent, died this week. My feelings were complicated. I want to be supportive of my daughter, but there is so little she can accept from me. I settled for sending a long email about how she needed to act as Power of Attorney and spoke only words of love .

I could only focus on getting to the gym, adding a yoga class each week to my two dance classes, and almost getting my 7500 steps in every day.

I, who have so much, drowned for a while in self pity, upset that my old friends are less available to go and do and my new friends have other, younger companions to spend time with. My peers with whom I volunteered last Friday packing food for the poor, bickered with each other which was not pleasant. One woman who was not there, told me by email afterward that she broke her back and was staying out of the city for a while to recover. I ws upset that I had not inviited Steve to come to the city to share my birthday and to share my reminiscences of Bob on today, his Yahrzeit, the death aniversary I commemorate each year. Seven years ago today and Steve was by his side, not me.

I thought I was past the stages of grief and mourning, but my mood  reflected my memories of the wonderful times we had, overwhelmed by his suffering and mine through his many years of Alzheimer's.

Where did the mood lifters come from? One friend invited me to dinner tonight. Another accepted my invite to spend time tomorrow. I purchased tickets to a play for next week and Naomi will have dinner and see another play with me on my birthday. I will not be alone.

Remembering Those We Have Lost June 12,2019

I sat in shul yesterday, listening to the cantor chant the Ali Rachamim, the prayer remembering the dead and I am reliving Bob's funeral, almost seven years ago. Then the Rabbi reads the names we are remembering today and I sit quietly. The mourners rise; I sit. As I mouth the prayer from memory as I always do, I remember. Today is the yahrzeit, the day we remember my grandfather, my Opa. He died on June 12 which is today. I don't observe these dates on the Hebrew calendar. Those changing lunar calendar dates have no personal meaning for me.

But June 12 1968 certainly does.Opa hadn't really been well for a few months. He was content to sit without reading his paper; that was new for him. When I sat next to him, he wanted more physical contact than he ever permitted and never sought before. For his 80ieth birthday, March 8, Steven and Linda and I drove to their apartment building. The kids loved to ride the elevator and inhale the cooking smells in the hallway. They had never lived in an apartment building; neither had I.

We had decided in advance to bring 8 large candles instead of 80 small ones, making it easier for him to blow them out. Steve was just turning nine, Linda was six and a half. I carried baby Ted, just a year old.

For Seder the next month, Uncle Willy picked "the parents" as they were referred to, up in his car and drove them to my parents' home in Millburn. My mother, Aunt  Lisa, Uncle Willy, Sharyn and Bert, Oma on one side, Opa at the head and my father at the other end of the table with Steve next to him, Linda, Gilbert and me, baby Ted in a high chair.

I insisted on sitting on my Opa's right hand, as I had since I was eight.

Over the course of the 22 years we had sat in this manner at the Passover table, Aunt Lis and then joined by my husband, groused at how long the readings took before dinner was served. 

But not this night. 

My father was prepared to lead the service; Opa could hardly see anymore.  But Opa stood with  his wine glass shaking in his hand and began to recite the Kiddush, the book open before him, but he did not read. He did the whole service from memory, only letting my mother give out the symbolic foods. Steven read the Four Questions.

After he sat down, and Opa began to read the answers to the questions, in Hebrew from memory, the tears began to fall. There was not a dry eye I could see. We were all aware, this was the last time Opa would be here with us on this day.

Food Issues Complicate a Difficult Emotional Experience July 2019

 Traveling while lactose intolerant to the point of having to carry exra supplies if I or the chef includes any butter or cheese to any unsuspecting dish, like milk added in with the oatmeal at breakfast time has always made travel irksome for me.

I travel to only the best of places, to only the high rated hotels.  Of course they fry their eggs at the buffet table only in butter and they add milk to the eggs they serve scrambled. Don't you? But I am not in any hotels where the chef would prepare a separate meal for me.

Austin and I use food and restaurants to help us tolerate the emotional toll of tracing our ancestor's path toward the spot where he was murdered.. This morning we are in Zagreb.. The ample table has an assortment of cheeses and pastries that look wonderful, made better with butter of course.I love the local breads and rolls as I settle for a hard boiled egg, as I do most mornings at home. Most mornings, Austin doesn't eat at all,or very little.

My personal restrictions don't end there however, since I don't eat food made from pigs or cows or sheep or goats and baked beans with mushrooms might be delightful for lunch as will any one of the fresh fruits offered, but not breakfast.
For lunch I usually can find a salad in any country we visited. Balsalmic vinegar makes a wonderful dressing when I remember to ask the waiter not to dress my salad. In Frankfurt I was served a Salade Nicoise which came as a do-it-yourself salad. The lettuce leaves were whole, the sliced olives from a can, the tuna also from a can dumped on top with large quarters of tomato and hard-boiled egg halves.
In Frankfurt also I had a real treat called a vegetarian burger which is the  same as the new Impossibe burger I enjoy  at home. I tried a tofuburger for a late supper in a quaint Renaissance style hotel near Rymanov in southern Galicia and lo and behold, it  was the same thing. I was a happy camper! Austin is loving the food; the bratwurst in Frankfurt, the Italian dinner with Hendrik and his parents, the Wiener schnitzel in Vienna, the huge steins of beer, too.
When I ask that a chicken or fish dish have no dairy ingredients, they comply, serving me a dry protein with no flavor. I had chicken schnitzel with vinegar potato salad and once chicken in a tomato sauce with  mashed potato pancakes as a side in Vienna. We have not had green vegetables served often with a meal, but lots of  potatoes.
Last night in Crakow, we ordered pasta outdoors among many other diners at many  charming outdoor tables seemingly set up in the middle of the street or on the square, accompanied by a three piece band playing old American standards from atop a low roof. By eight, when we left the hotel for dinner, the temperature had decreased to 88 degrees which was comfortable. During the day it had soared to 32 C. which is in the 90's somewhere, but who's counting. It was SO hot.
Austin's bolognese was juicy and he reported "delicious." Mine was with seafood with hardly any sauce as if the chef knew it  had butter in it and was treating it sparingly. I did not get sick, so it worked to my benefit and I twirled it down with two glasses of sparkling white  wine.
Today it is raining and will only get to 84 degrees as Austin will drive to the Jasenovac concentration camp on the last part of our journey retracing Grandpa Salaman's journey as he tried to escape.

Gratitude March 30, 2022

I awoke this morning before dawn and watched the sunrise from my bed as it crept in through the large east-facing window, through the closed blinds. The open, screened window let in the crisp night air of springtime.

My previous winter rental faced north and, since Covid forced me to remain in Arizona through two hot summers, I was grateful for the shade provided for me by the building.

I never considered my morning thoughts on awakening as any sort of ritual, but I was reminded yesterday that many people, whether for religious reasons or as part of a sobriety practice, list  thier gratitudes upon awakening every morning. Some even text or otherwise communicate with another person, to share the day's gratitude list.

I have not yet felt the need for that level of support, but I do feel gratitude for my ability to begin each day recognizing the good in my life.

I feel especially good this morning; my family will attend Father Desbois' lecture next Monday on Holocaust by Bullets and my daughter, son, son-in-law and one grandson will listen to me guide them through the  exhibit before the lecture. Since the beginning of this exhibit, I have been acting as a docent on Sunday afternoons,, sharing the material of this horrific time which occurred in my childhood, when my  parents had no  idea  what was happening to their parents in Europe as we sat, worried and safe in the U.S.

My family has shown no particular interest in WWII, although my parents escaped from Hitler's grasp, three of my grandparents survived very traumatizing times during the war and one grandfather was murdered.There was a smattering of interest as I travelled to Europe  before writing my book, and then  they each read the book, but daily life takes precidence, as it needs to do.

This exhibit of Father Desbois' research into the genocide of the Jewish  people has come to my family in Arizona, to the university my younger grandson attends and from which the older one has been graduated.Perhaps their interest will spur  me on to write the next book, the one about my grandfather who was killed by the Ustasi in Zagreb, Coratia where my older grandson and I travelled in 2019 to bear witness. We stood at Pit number one, into  which his shot body was thrown; we gathered thirty-one stones to place nearby, one from each of his living relatives we could think of, as we stood, tears running down our faces and recited the Kaddish.

Follow-Up to Scary Saturday March 19, 2022

Transient Global Amnesia is a real thing. There is a definition and studies with incidences, comorbidities and recurrences.

What

is really interestiing, is how well I look up all ailments my friends and family tell me about, but when it came to researching what happened to me last Saturday , I needed a friend who volunteered that she had had a similar experience before I was ready to explore the internet.

I became so frighteneed, in additon to losing an entire morning, I was frightened of what the future may have held. There is nothing unusual about my response. It is perfectly normal at age 83, to worry about death and disease and disability, with its concommitant dependence on others, loss of control and diminished sense of the furture's possibilities.

Here's what I learned. An event of forgetting, even losing a whole day occurs in adults beetween the ages of 60 and 80. In only 2 to 25 per cent does the same person ever experience another of these episodes.  There is no connection to this transient amnesia to any other neurological illness or disease. It is not a precursor of Alzheimer's or other dementia, ALS, TIA or anything else.

I had a good scare. I aplogize for alarming those who love me. I understand my reaction as of course I have cared for both my mother and my husband degenerating from dementia and Alzheimer's disease. I dread putting my family through the trauma we have already experienced too many times.

We don't know the future. We can only live our lives the best way we can, while we are able, make sure our final wishes are well known and documented and relish the knowledge that in the way we live our lives, others are there for us and wish us well.

Brain Fart. March 13,2022

"A temporary mental lapse or failure to reason correctly"

What an inelegant phrase. I never ever thought it could or would pertain to me. Even "panic attack" is not any way I have ever thought of myself. At the risk of sounding arrogant, at 83 I do not feel I have ever felt so out of control as I did yesterday. Except of course, for my infamous trip to club Med in Martinique when I was recently divorced and 32. At that time, a fellow shared his hashish with me. I watched him open a cigarette after removing the filter, mixing the tobacco with the other brown material and rolling the same paper again and lighting it with his lighter, before offering it to me.

Actually that was the second time I was given an hallucenogenic substance after which I became so fearful and paranoid that I slept, in a communal room on a pallet at Su Casa in the Catskills, holding my shoe to protect myself from imagined perpetrators.

But neither of those experiences approached what I felt yesterday.

All of a sudden, I couldn't remember  simple responses to the question "What time are you being the docent at the ASU library tomorrow?"

My gym instructor was planning to listen to me discuss Father Patrick DuBois' investigations into the deaths of whole towns of Jewish residents by Nazi firing squads in Eastern Europe during WWII.

I checked my phone, finding the correct information, but the calendar felt alien to me. I didn't understand that it was March, not that it was Saturday. 

I said nothing and I walked, kind of dazed, to the elevator with a woman who had taken the class with me. She asked what floor I lived on and I had to struggle to find the appropriate answer. She pushed the elevator button for her floor and mine and I  exited first.

I had to orient myself in space to get tenuously, to my space, but I did.

I went to my tablet and reviewed the day. It was shortly after 2 PM. I was trying to program my phone's calendar to match what my synagogue's programming said I had participated in that morning, but I had difficlty translating EST into MT. Did I wake at 6 to get to the discussion by 7, or was it 8AM?

I couldn't figure it out. I asked my phone to clarify it for me. Next, I decided I must be hungry, so I made myself an English muffin with melted mozzarella cheese, spead both halves with tuna salad, set the table, poured myself some V-8, but sat instead on my sofa, feeling shaky.  I had no further plans for this sunny, brisk Arizona day, but I could not relax.

I was no longer hungry; I felt I did not want to be alone. I called my son Steve, I explained how I was feeling and asked him to keep me company for the afternoon. He said he understood I was feeling scared. I began to cry.

I knew it would take him at least a half hour to get himself together to come  with Chipper, "our" dog, who Steve was at that time walking in the park.

Meanwhile, I planned out all the horrible scenarios of Alzheimer's disease I had experienced with my husband. I reviewed in my head the trust agreement I had signed and the apartment transfer in New York which I had not yet signed, worrying that I would no longer be able to accomplish these end of life goals.

As I was waiting, I remembered that I have the availability of an on call nurse from my Blue Cross/Blue Shield Federal health insurance plan, whom I could call for advice. I had done so once before, when my husband had fallen out of bed in the middle of the night and I knew calling 911 would be so disorienting for him, I could not expose him to tha trauma.

The nurse advised me not to eat the lunch I  had prepared, in case I needed some emergency treatment; she asked for my address. I could not remember it. I went to this trusty tablet and looked it up, quite aware that a good part of me was functioning normally, but that my 

memory was failing me. After listening to me, she called  911 and put me on the phone with them.

I intended to sit until they arrived, but I got my belongings together if I had to go to  the hospital with them. I unlocked the door for them; I saw the white fire truck pull up in front of the entrance to the building. I also transferred the load of clothing from the washer to the dryer, having a great deal of difficulty figuring out which cycle, which duration, which button was the "on."

Meanwhile I am beginning to shake as I write this; I feel I am reexperiencing the panic.

Five handsome black-clad young men arrive, masked for Covid .They are well coordiniated. As one guy asked questions, another took my blood pressure, one pricked my finger for a blood sample . All this happened while one of them was listening to my story.

They then asked if I wanted them to call an ambulance or if I wanted to wait for my son to take me. I hesitated; Steve would be very upset to see me get taken anywhere by ambulance. I decided to wait for Steve and to go by car.

One guy said, "You know, we wouldn't give you the choice if we felt you were having a stroke or a heart attack, right?"

I kind of woke up at that moment. I was not going to be incapacitated yet. We could figure this out at leisure. I was actually ok.