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.