Year/Change

One year.

It is amazing how much can change, happen, or cease within the span of a year. New chapters begin, even as other books close. Old fears are overcome as new fears begin haunting us. Unexpected connections, new ideas and blossoming relationships renew us. How can we even begin to absorb, let alone process, everything that touches our lives within the span of a year?

I'm one of those lucky people who gets to have multiple opportunities each year for annual reflection. (That sentence reads like one long oxymoron, but bear with me.) My favorite secular holiday is New Year's eve/day - champagne, kissing, the opportunity for a clean slate, resolutions. What's not to like? So January brings me one new year. Then over on the Jewish holiday circuit, each fall, there's Rosh Hashanah - apples, honey, kissing (okay, so kissing cheeks more than kissing-kissing, but nevertheless), the opportunity for a clean slate, reflection. Again - what's not to like?

I need reflection. Thus, it seems to make sense that I'd require multiple new years. (Clearly, someone up there knew what they were doing when they doled me out an extra helping of let's-start-again.) Of course, even with the generous helping of new year celebrations in my life, I'm always seeking more opportunities to stop and reflect, remember where I was a year ago, who I was with for this day in some other year. I seize on holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, lifecycle events (weddings and funerals, in particular, but the occasional baptism or bar mitzvah can also provide ample opportunity for reflection).

So I have lots of practice reflecting. But this year - from last autumn to this autumn - has bested me: I can't sum it up.

Anything pithy seems weak. In my own life and the lives of those around me, there has been so much joy and so much pain in the past year. The pendulum swung to one side and brought us unanticipated health struggles, deaths of loved ones, heartbreak at the end of relationships. It swung to the other and brought new opportunities for love, exciting life changes, inspiration, and of course, those ever-symbolic little babies (including a very cute redheaded one in Massachusetts). A simple listing of such events doesn't capture their impact, and for some reason, reflect and remember as I might, I cannot find a way to convey how this year, so much more than any other, propelled so many of us forward into the next phase of our life, alternately soothing and mercilessly pummeling us along the way.

The traditional Jewish greeting on Rosh Hashanah is "L'Shanah Tovah" - "to a good year." Shanah, the Hebrew word for "year," has another meaning: "change." The root letters for the two words are the same: shanah shapes the word year, and its sister word, change. It is one of those goosebump-linguistic moments, where the simple relationships of words begins to scratch the surface of something much larger: we cannot encounter a year without experiencing change. If we do not change, and we remain static, over the course of a year... we have not really embraced that year. Change can be wonderful, and change can be bitterly painful; but change is life, and each shanah brings the next shanah.

That's all I have to offer, after all my reflection for this year; I will leave you with an excerpt from the Rosh Hashanah liturgy, called in some prayerbooks "A Prayer for the United States of America" and in others, simply, "A Prayer for Our Nation," which emphasizes the kind of change I hope to see from our country and all countries:*

Grant us peace, Your most precious gift, O Eternal Source of peace, and give us the will to proclaim its message to all the peoples of the earth. Bless our country that it may always be a stronghold of peace, and its advocate among the nations. May contentment reign within its borders, health and happiness within its homes. Strengthen the bonds of friendship among the inhabitants of all lands ... Blessed is the Eternal God, the Source of peace.


*Not to go all political or anything, but it IS true that my next annual opportunity for reflection will fall in January... and in January 2009, we'll be swearing in a new president, and I hope the change reflected above (LET THE UNITED STATES BE A STRONGHOLD OF PEACE AND ITS ADVOCATE AMONG THE NATIONS!) is the sort of change that will seem optimistic, but not unrealistic. L'shanah tovah!

Remembering Richard

This is how I remember Richard:

I think of him clad all in black, with a headset decorating the side of his face. Making sure the technical aspects of the theater were firmly in place, so the children onstage could be seen and heard. Providing the foundation.

I think of him patiently waiting for my parents' only-very-selectively-friendly dog, Jackson, to warm up to him, rather than writing him off as a "bad dog," as so many guests tend to do.

I think of him with soft voice and active eyes.

I think of him remembering the details, asking specific questions about the things that directly pertained to you.

I first met Richard when his daughter, my now much cherished friend M, was in a play. Through Rachel's Eyes was the first play I ever wrote. It was also the first play I ever directed. I was fourteen. M was eleven, and I had never meet her prior to the Through Rachel's Eyes audition. M, like her father, is quiet, with a soft voice and active eyes, constantly absorbing the details. I remember not only how seriously M took the show, but also how seriously her parents took it - here I was, a fourteen year old kid, setting rehearsal schedules and wrangling a multi-generational group into a community theater production... the perfect set-up for a farce, or at least a project to smile and nod at while secretly writing off... and yet Richard and his wife K (the one with the laugh that makes the whole room warmer - unlike her daughter or husband, K is never quiet with the laughter) treated the whole endeavor, and everyone involved, with complete respect, support and appreciation, throughout the process.

I remember, later on, meeting his son, D, and watching him grow from a quiet little boy who shied from the limelight into a young man who fills the stage, a young man who has already begun to so resemble his father.

I think of Richard sitting on the MYT Board of Directors with my parents, committing time and energy to ensure that not only his own children, but many, many people's children could benefit from the theater magic that MYT creates.

I remember last Thanksgiving. After most of the guests had departed my parents' home, the rest of us packed up some leftovers, piled into two cars and drove through the snow to visit Richard and his family. We sat in the cozy living room, drinking tea and sharing theater stories, holiday stories, life stories. It was such a lovely, familial night.

These are some of the most vivid ways that I remember Richard.

There are other memories, of course; I remember visiting him this summer, at the hospital, when I was in town for our friend's wedding. Even then, with as much sterile sternness as that hospital room tried to impose, we shared stories and jokes until he grew tired. I remember his blog, his candor about his battles, and the last post that still greets me each time I click the link on my blog that carries me to his. "Just like sands through the hourglass."

The sands passed through the hourglass faster than any of us would have guessed, back when he wrote that final blog post. And while the most recent memories will always linger, they are overpowered by the dozen years' worth of memories of the kind man, clad in black, who befriended my entire family, quietly making things happen, with a headset connecting him to the young actors onstage. Providing the foundation.

Richard passed away on September 16, in the presence of his loving family, K, M, and D. His loss is felt in so many lives. May his memory always be a blessing, for all of us.

I. Love. Tina. Fey.

R A I N

I wrote in April about the unexpected tornadoes that ripped through Jackson. I reported that, inexplicably, my neighborhood was virtually undamaged, while others were completely torn apart. This was the lesson I tried to carve out from those storms:

"The storm doesn't always touch down [on you]. But there's usually someone being impacted by some sort of storm, somewhere. Hold a good thought that those without roofs and without power are soon fully restored... and maybe this week can be a reminder that even when we're doing just fine ourselves, someone is always under the thunder."

I meant it as a metaphor for more than literal storms, of course. And while I don't disagree with the metaphor, re-reading it tonight I feel hopelessly pithy. (And not in the good way.) Thinking about all the actual challenges hurtling themselves recklessly into people's lives, who needs a metaphor? I'm frustrated by the weakness of it; the presumption that some sort of comfort or meaning could be gleaned from words. And yet... I am often far from those I want to hug in their times of trial, and my words are all I have to offer. And sometimes, even those fail me. So when I find some words, small comfort as they may be, I try to share them. And when I have none- well, luckily we're not always required to pray out loud.

Wishing, hoping, thinking, praying.... that though storms must come, there will also be peace and healing in the rain that follows. Maybe even a little laughter. Literally.

Touchdown!

Well, sports fans, it's an exciting week in the Fantasy Football world. As many of you know, I'm new to this world. Total neophyte. First timer. The ultimate rookie. I'm not really sure all of the rules, the ins and outs, the choreography to the dance that is Fantasy Football. (In fact, I bet that line I used just now about choreography officially made me a total and forever sports outsider. Except... wait... don't football players sometimes take ballet? Ha! I sort of know something!)

HOWEVER, while I'm new to the game of Fantasy Football, I do know a thing or two about kicking ass.... or so I thought.

See, in reading this excellent article on Miami 305's victory of El Pollo Diablo, I noted that this win was characterized as a "triumphant victory"... with Miami coach Rubinoff even commenting "I wish I hadn't beaten up so much on those Diablos."

The score in that triumphant, beating-on-the-Diablos victory was 100 to 92.

Meanwhile, over in my match-up... my team, Team Kanderrr. Grr., scored 106 while coach Sarver's LandSharks scored....

....wait for it...

....29.

And I'm torn, sports fans. I'm truly torn. I'm, like, Tom Brady's-ACL-torn.

Because part of me feels like doing a big ol' victory dance (I know - again with the dancing) about the ASS-KICKING OF THE SEASON -- and part of me just feels like, man. There's no glory in this. It's just kind of... sad. And I think maybe I shouldn't gloat. You shouldn't feel good about just ... massacreing your opponent.

Except. A quick recap: Sarver tried to thwart my ability to really play this season. That's right - scandal in Fantasyland! When there was an error in my Fantasy Football account and I couldn't switch players or monitor my team, ol' Chip was all about the sabotage: "Come on, guys... she couldn't make the draft... she's new... and she's a girl!!! Don't fix her account!" But Commissioner Green believes in fair play, and came through.

So, I think the lesson today is that while for some, sports is a religion... that religion clearly gives a nod to KARMA.

KANDERRR! GRR!

*PS, yes, I am well aware, if karma is a part of this game, I totally and completely flat-out shot myself in the foot for the rest of the season. Worth it.

Such Heavy Pieces of Paper

Tonight I decided to do one of those tasks I dread - sifting through The Papers.

"The Papers" are the contents, should-be-contents, and should-be-discarded contents of my file cabinet. They range from utility bills to tax forms, letters from old friends to graduate school transcripts, unsorted photographs to automobile titles. Some of these papers are Very Important, some Very Nostalgic, and as evidenced by the two stuffed bags beside me at the moment, some are Very Obsolete.

There are many reasons I dread dealing with The Papers. There are the obvious reasons: it's tedious, it's time consuming, and though it's necessary, it's not a noticeably productive chore like doing the dishes or designating clothes for consignment. Then there are the paranoid reasons I avoid the task: what if I find a bill still unpaid, what if I accidentally discard something and put it through the office shredder only to desperately need it in a month, what if I get the world's worst paper cut?

But the most serious issue that arises in dealing with The Papers is dealing with the memories that they turn up, and the current life situations that the tedious, repetitive task allows me to ponder. Tonight was no exception: recollection and reality surfacing as I sifted through the files.

I found a romantic card from a high school crush whose signature I couldn't decipher (and whose name I couldn't remember). I recycled that card and felt a little lighter.

I found cards from my friend Evelyn, who died not long ago, and from both of my grandmothers, one of whom is currently hospitalized after a fall. I tucked those carefully back into the file.

I found a bank statement from the checking account I had my freshman year of college - an account that's been closed since 2002, with a bank that no longer exists (having since been purchased by a larger bank - gotta love the corporate oligarchy). That went into the shred-bag.

I found photograph after photograph, dating from about 1995 to 2006 (likely the last time I took the time to really deal with The Papers). It was an odd mixture of emotions to see picture after picture of me with various people who used to fill my days, but who now I may have gone a decade without seeing. It was also heartening to see the pictures of the people who still grab a camera and snap a self-portrait with me at their brother's wedding, or at one of our plays, or in my parents' living room.

But as I sorted through paper after paper, picture after picture, finding most too important to discard... I just felt overwhelmed by the fragility of it all. The relative unimportance of keeping these documents organized: I would much rather have the people than the papers, and if my apartment burned down tomorrow, so long as Sofia and I got out okay, well, I'd mourn the loss of the writing notebooks and the photographs and cards, but in the end - I'd get over it. And if God forbid something happened to me, would it make it easier for anyone that I'd kept the programs from most of my theatrical productions and that I've filed all my utility bills?

I did have time to think as I sorted, and think I did. In the past week, the fragility of life has been shoved in my face multiple times. A friend - more an acquaintance, but one to whom I have many connections (she's a very good friend of D's, her boyfriend is a friend of mine, I know her parents, and we have many other mutual friends) - a young woman a few years younger than I, fell from her apartment building in New York and is fighting hard in a New York hospital, with a broken neck, broken back, broken pelvis, broken ribs - though also with a strong support system and an unbroken spirit. Another friend - one whom I have not spoken to in over a year, just after she gave birth to her second child - wrote me out of the blue, and told me in her letter that while her first child was thriving, her second child had only lived four and a half months before dying of heart failure, quietly, at an army base hospital. Another friend - a family friend whose entire family is friends with my entire family, whose faces turned up time and time again in my old photos - has only just been released from the hospital in Michigan after being there since March... and his health struggles continue. And now my grandmother, my Bubbe, is in a hospital in Toledo.

Knowing the delicacy of it all, how can I ever justify spending an evening organizing papers? Shouldn't I be writing, dancing, snuggling, cooking, having a glass of wine, telling a joke, visiting family, visiting old friends, planning a vacation?

I have to trust that I'll have another day to do those things, even though there are no guarantees. Can't use the "carpe diem" theory to avoid housework and bill-sorting. And that's life, I suppose. Tedium and trauma and triumph keeping pace with one another, joined along the way by love and frustration and setbacks and breakthroughs.

I know that nostalgia makes me a cheeseball, but the emotions and reflections are genuine. I'm sitting on my couch now, feeling more introspective than I'd like. The file drawers are shut for now. I've given some time to The Papers. I might just go pour myself a glass of wine now, and then say a little prayer for the healing of body and soul that so many of our loved ones need... and then go to bed, and look forward to tomorrow, with gratitude for life itself, and its endless variety.