Watching Before the Doing

On the cusp of change:

• Beginning a new school year, my 25th year teaching. Same building, two different grade levels, many different classrooms, and a lot of growth. Gone are the days of grammar units and 5-paragraph essays on The Outsiders.
• Entering into the Jewish new year, which, unlike the secular one, spans a period of time. This allows for deep contemplation, beginning with S’lichot and culminating with Sukkot. The “official” new year, Rosh Hashanah, is in the middle. I have learned that S’lichot marks the preparation, Sukkot is the celebration and Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur bring the deep contemplation, reflection, repentance and forgiveness.
• Transitioning from summer to fall, but summer holds on long after the calendar has turned its page, making many last gasps with random blasts of warmth and sun despite the frosty mornings that have begun to prepare us for the first snow.
• and, still, moving from broken to healed. It is unbalanced, this one. While the breaking was done in a single, icy moment, the healing is a long, prolonged, meandering journey with steps forward, backward, upside-down and sideways.

Sitting in the quiet morning, the dark threatens to actually convince me that my time here is longer than it actually is. The dog needs her walk, and so do I, and the first day of school requires exuberant energy and overzealous commitment to routine. This is such a change from the past six months of my life, despite my best efforts to prepare. I am noticing that my coffee, too, is transitioning…no longer requiring futile breaths to blow away scalding heat, the warmth still lingers; by the end of this paragraph, it will be cold. But still I sit, with my coffee cup and my words, lingering just a few more moments before the shift truly happens.

Musings on Time

There’s a poem below about this very thing. But first, this week’s question: What time is it?

For you, I mean. Right now. Today. Or this week. Or this month. Or 2026.

The above prompt came from the writer Pádraig Ó Tuama, from On Being’s Poetry Unbound and it has stuck in my head since it arrived in my in-box this past week. What time is it?

I have been thinking a lot about time, both practically and with sincere considerations of the bigger, capital T, Time. I’ve thought in terms of seasons (having just sat with Katherine May’s beautiful book, Wintering) and I’ve thought in terms of planning for my return to school this fall. I’ve wondered about managing time, losing time, finding time, forgetting time….and I’ve even spent a bit of my newly recognized precious time reading about the government’s discussions about Daylight Saving Time (including a far-too-long consideration of the singular versus plural “saving” that still makes me grammatically uncomfortable). But I haden’t thought about it quite in the way Ó Tuama has positioned it: what time is it?

• (first thought) my time…thank you, Goonies
• my 56th year on the planet and my 25th in the classroom, which also signals the start to the final 6 years of this career’s life
• a new stage for my mother. she is entering this place and I am with her, in a new role and with a profoundly different understanding of how Time moves in here
• our daughter’s senior year. her last year with me. a clear hourglass of sand that drains slowly and steadily, one clichéd grain at a time.
• our 24th year of marriage. partnership. a connection that defies language. persistent & foundational.
• our eldest son’s twentieth year. on the cusp of adulthood, still, with so many decisions and choices threatening him like the closet-dwelling monsters of his childhood.
• our youngest son’s fifteenth year. slow and steadily marching forward, quietly learning from the rest of us and forging his own path. making few waves and building a momentum that is hard to predict.
• a precarious year. filled on the periphery with arguments about rights and opinions and very, very little dialogue, understanding, compromise or silence. a space that is so loud and so full of uncertainty, dominated by voices of hate, drowning out reason and nuance and considerations of a future time of peace and coexistence.
• morning. a hesitation before the step out into the day. a time like no other. internal quiet and external stillness. my time.

The Weight of Time

What time is it? the leader asked.
My birthday, one guy said. The lads all clapped.

They were gathered in their usual room
— carpeted and grey — at 4 p.m. on Tuesday.

Most didn’t know each other from the
outside world, though one recognised
the new guy from an app.

Ninety minutes of guidance, silence, interruptions.
Bringing up their pasts in a circle made of strangers.

1993 was a terrible year for me, an old guy said.
I wouldn’t know, I wasn’t born, came a reply.
The speaker got annoyed,
but the young guy said,
you’ve had your time —
my generation’s being destroyed.

They left differently each week. Sometimes lighter,
sometimes angrier and more clear.

Welcoming a newbie, a longtime member said,
You’ll soon feel part of us —
truth’s spoken here.

Then start, the leader said.

Pádraig Ó Tuama. From the forthcoming Love Between Men

I Don’t Understand

Ever since I fell, I have found myself saying, “I don’t understand” often. More than often. A lot. Frequently. Daily. Multiple times a day, some days. And that’s just out loud. Inside my head, these three words ping back and forth across my blank mind like some kind of weird bouncing screen saver….the one that bounces off the sides while you just watched to see if it would hit any of the corners.

Whenever my brain’s monitor goes to sleep (which happens more than most people know — my eyes are open and my body is engaged, but inside? my monitor is definitely asleep) the screen saver engages and the words start floating around, bouncing off of the sides rhythmically and hypnotically.

There is an invisibility cloak to this brain injury and this painfully slow recovery…if my eyes are open and I am making eye contact, you would think that there is something going on inside, too. While that my be true sometimes, it is also quite possible that my interior monitor has snoozed.

This is not a state I am used to and it is definitely not one that I am comfortable existing within, but it is my current reality. In the Before Times, my brain was a very active place, running multiple scenarios through various options digging at the underlying motivations and overarching forces that may have large or small impacts on each move. And that was sometimes just a decision about what to have for breakfast.

I guess the screen saver is better than the monkey with the cymbals that resides inside Homer Simpson’s head…but not much.

I think that these words have become a mantra of sorts. Words that I lean into for grounding and guidance, a weird North Star that helps me to remember that, simply, I just don’t understand. When I say them out loud, it reminds others that I am struggling and when they reverberate inside my own head, it reminds me of the same. Not understanding is hard and has been frustrating. There have been days when the “not understanding” has almost undone me, bringing me close to giving up and accepting a life of basic simplicity and flat grey. But those days are not frequent and more often than not I am able to shake off the static and state the truth: I just don’t understand. And when I do say it out loud? Clarity is given with grace (and sometimes humor), I am able to take a deep breath and try again.

Embracing I don’t understand as a true mantra will help to protect my mind while my brain continues to heal. But, more than that, I think accepting the truth of those three words will lead to a way of being that will show me an understanding I hadn’t even considered.

After The Fall

What happens when you can no longer do what you have always been able to do? When you can no longer read? Or write? Or think?  How does one simply not think?

What happens when the rug is yanked out from beneath your feet, but it’s not a rug, it is the ground?  And it’s not yanked, rather, it simply disappears? Not forever, but for a fraction of a moment, just enough for your fifty-five year old body to defy gravity before reconnecting violently with the concrete sidewalk…

The sidewalk had been covered in a dusting of fresh snow, hiding the March ice, and the day was beautiful with hints of spring; enough sun for sunglasses, but still requiring winter boots, a wool hat and a down-filled coat.  It was Sunday and the morning held the promise of uninterrupted hours:  time for a long walk followed by lingering coffee, music, perhaps some poetry and writing time before the house filled up again with the necessities of life.  One ear listened carefully for potential “dog distractions” while the other was filled with music, as I navigated along the well worn route.  

Having lived in our current home for over twenty years, which was just across the street from the home that I grew up in during the ‘70s and ‘80s, this was a walk I had taken hundreds if not thousands of times.  At one end was my home and the other, almost precisely one and a half miles away, the city park with its small playground, basketball courts, large field and adjacent pond.  The street between was split by a drainage creek that ran through the middle.  Overflow happened frequently when I was a kid, turning the roadway into a delightful river, before crossing over lawns and flooding many basements.  At some point, city planners and engineers put in new pipes that seemed to eliminate the frequent floods but still left the creek flowing down the center.  Over time, local gardeners tended to the embankment, growing beautiful beds filled with blooming flowers and at some point, a local woodworker crafted birdhouses that were posted high at each crosswalk.  

This was my habitual walk, baked into my feet’s DNA, traveling along it almost daily for so many years.  Sometimes I was alone, sometimes I was with a dog, and for many years I was pushing a stroller –and then a double stroller– before watching bike wheels and roller skates navigate the terrain just ahead of me, while I resisted the parental urge to shout warnings of caution.  It was the same walk I had taken as a teenager, meeting up with my friends for a bit of freedom at the park and then again when I returned from college attempting to find some solitude.  The three mile loop was where I had learned to ride a bike and then to drive a car before teaching my own kids the same skills across the same pavement.  In more recent years, this was my refuge, my early morning walk that both kept my middle aged body tuned up and gave me time to think or not think, depending on what I needed that day. A brisk two or three miles kept me grounded and firmly tethered to myself, allowing my body to go on autopilot while my brain wandered in whatever direction it chose.  I knew these sidewalks.  I saw the cracks form as roots defiantly raised the ground up and I saw the homeowners pave and repave to keep the ground smooth.  I had lived most of my life within close proximity to this route and it was predictable and comfortable; I treasured my morning walks on Meadowbrook Drive.

And this is exactly where I was on March 1st when I found myself inexplicably lost.  One minute I was listening to music and appreciating all that the morning was giving me and the next I was lying on the ground and our nine month old puppy was standing over me.  I simultaneously knew exactly where I was and had no idea how to get back home.  I saw my purple ear bud on the ground in front of me and stared strangely at my phone, knowing that I had to call my husband but not quite understanding why.  How was I lost when I knew exactly where I was?  

Knowing and not knowing at the same time is akin to having that word on the tip of your tongue.  You know it, but yet you can’t quite put your finger on it.  Of course, often with the “word on the tip of your tongue” moment, the word does come or someone nearby provides it and, if you are of a certain age, you nervously laugh and make some self-deprecating joke about aging.  But the terror that comes with brain trauma and the shock of confusion is hard to describe.  I remember bits and pieces of the hours that came afterward… riding in the car with my husband and trying to understand how our daughter was already in Israel (she had left six weeks earlier); knowing that my oldest brother had cancer and terrified that he had died and I had forgotten; knowing that my father was dead, but needing to confirm it with my husband.  Bits and pieces of that ride are all that I can remember, but I know that my husband retains that memory for the both of us.  I don’t know what that feels like to watch your life partner dissolve in front of you and I am grateful that he held my hand and just kept telling me to breathe.  

Almost four months have passed and I am still trying to catch up with my life.  I don’t know what I don’t remember until I find myself alone on my island of unknowing.  While I have become comfortable on my private island, it is not a space I want to stay…I just don’t know if I’m ready to make the journey back.  For now, I have to be content with the movement in between.  I have to accept that my old life is there but I am not the person I was, even while I’m not completely sure about who I am becoming.  This is where I am today and that has to be enough.

A beginning….perhaps.

Waking up, she exhales, finally acknowledging the breath she had been holding since the alarm intruded. It comes out as some kind of exasperated sigh, alerting Tom to the unstated misery he always tries to ignore, or at least reframe, to keep his head above water. She must be sore from yesterday or She probably didn’t sleep very well with the cat climbing all over or She has a long day ahead of her, poor thing. It’s not that Tom doesn’t know about the growing tumor or her dying mother or the bank account that never seems to be able to keep up with the take-out bill, it’s just that he doesn’t know what to do with any of it. Focusing on pulling the blankets up when he thinks she’s asleep or tending to the cat duties without complaint is infinitely easier than simply bearing witness to the rest of it. In fact, he would prefer to not witness any of it, but his deeply rooted belief in doing the Right Thing and the abject terror at even a hint of abandoning her (where would he go, anyway?) keeps him literally going through the motions over and over and over again.

The sounds and smells of the overpriced automatic coffee machine indicates that the coffee he set up last night while he brushed his teeth–always the multitasker–was almost done. She finds her way to her feet and moves out into the hallway and down the stairs, drawn by the promise of that first, fresh cup and the possibility of watching the sun inch up over the horizon. He’s not completely sure, but he wouldn’t doubt if she still hasn’t woken up enough to remember the argument from the night before. Her memory was selective and for the better part of their thirty plus year marriage they had a habit, for better or for worse, that allowed the difficult, complicated bits of this life to fade into the background unless they were immediately pertinent to a specific moment. Between her avoidance and his need to placate, it’s incredible that they were able to raise the twins and nurture multiple pets over the years, but they did and they had and for all intents & purposes, that would continue until she simply dropped dead. If she was lucky.

But luck was not on her side; it never had been. In fact, luck seemed to mock her regularly: the train missed by seconds which in turn removed any chance of a promotion; the lost wallet that held a small, but winning, lottery ticket (no cash, but the fleeting promise of cash); countless puddles that couldn’t be avoided and multiple umbrellas that refused to obey; grocery bags that broke open in the final moments of arriving home, spilling the contents all over the front steps. So many incidents that could have been avoided if she were standing to one side or the other, arriving just a few seconds before or after, inhabiting any other life than her own.

“Dana called last night,” Tom’s words came from behind her, filling the space between them. “She said that she and the kids would come for a visit soon. They were waiting for any threat of late winter to pass before making a firm plan. I told them that we were pretty flexible, but to give us an idea as soon as she can.”

“Um-hmm,” was her only reply, which really seemed to be more than was necessary. Dana was always planning to plan to visit but seemed to only show up when there was some threat of an emergency. This, of course, removed any possibility to plan the visit and resulted in a shit ton of stress which made the grandkids cranky and Dana overindulgent which, in turn, caused Laura to feel like the inevitable failure she was when her offspring were unable to function. That seemed to happen more with Dana than with Christopher, but maybe that was a gender thing and she just didn’t notice it as much in her son as she did in her daughter. Besides, Christopher lived just a few miles away and had no family, so he came with a completely different story to this whole thing.

“I’m going to go to the store afterwards,” she informed him. Walking over to the cabinet, she glanced at the half-assed list and sighed, opening up the refrigerator to take inventory. “We clearly need some things.”

“Did you check the pantry?” Tom asked.

He didn’t see her jaw clench or her hand tighten around the door handle. “Why would I check the pantry for the things that live in the refrigerator?”

Tom didn’t answer, but busied himself with the unopened mail while he checked the messages on his phone. He thought about offering to go to the store but knew that she would insist on going, so he stayed quiet and made a silent note to himself to clear out the refrigerator after she left so that there would be ample room for the restock. This would likely go unnoticed, but he had to believe that it would somehow be appreciated.

Laura found her way to her spot on the couch where she could finish her coffee while Tom recycled the now-opened mail. When he joined her with his cup, Clancy, the orange cat, trailed behind and slipped onto the couch between them. Laura watched as both Clancy and Tom filled a space that seemed to have been waiting just for them to arrive and she wondered, not for the first time, how they would navigate this in her absence. She was diagnosed a few months ago and while the treatments–chemotherapy and radiation–were difficult, they were not leaving her a shell of herself (as she had heard could happen) and she sometimes asked Dr. Lou if this meant they weren’t really working.

“I mean, could it be that the machines aren’t calibrated for me but, like, for some other seventy-two year old with melanoma? How do you know there isn’t a mistake? Why are you so sure that all the nurses and technicians and, well, people are all doing their jobs correctly? How do I know that you are doing your job correctly?”

Dr. Lou smiled behind his gray mustache. “I guess you just gotta have a little faith in us.”

She wanted to crush his belief in Faith and God and Jesus or whatever it was that got him through, but she was also envious.

“Can your gods take my wheel? Can it work like that?”

He never answered her offhanded queries and had never actually professed his beliefs, but she knew he had them and that they somehow insulated him…and she was jealous of that ability.

Clancy rearranged himself and nudged her cup just enough to bring her back to the couch. Tom was reading the news on the tablet and providing a running commentary on the downfall of civilization. She half listened and wondered about the weather.

The Line(s)

We all know about 
before and after
(and we think we know about the in-between)

but what really separates the 

mirror from the object
the 
verse from the title
the 
child from the parent
the 
the sky from the earth


                     good
	                              evil
                     love
	                              hate
                    words
	                              silence
                    order
	                              chaos


          me                                       you		

we see the divide
we feel the distance
we wonder about the years

and
yet

we talk about dinner
we make the lists 
we make the plans

we are 

the
	future

we are

the
	past.

Take a Lap

Sometimes, I need to take a lap. I need to get up, push away from my desk (even my standing desk, where I spend most of my “teaching time”), and walk out the door. Because we are in central New York, there is no sane way to go outdoors in the bitter, sub zero cold with the interminable snow that just won’t stop falling, so this leaves indoor laps that have lots of hidden potential.

Our middle school has four wings, two gymnasiums, and a pool. Rumor has it that if you walk the full building, down every hallway and around all of the corners, you can walk about a half of a mile. That’s not far, but the blast of refreshing sights and sounds has the potential to turn the lap into a journey. I wasn’t feeling particularly introspective so I popped into a teacher-friend’s room.

As soon as I entered her room, the discussion was already in full swing. We have been teaching together, off and on, for the better part of twenty years, so often our conversations just continue on from wherever they ended and we just start up mid-stream, usually speaking in half sentences, with insider talk that comes from sharing our professional life for so long. Sometimes, I walk away wondering what we just decided, my head spinning a bit more than it had before I entered, but more often than not, our conversations bring us just that much closer to the visions we share for our students and our classes.

“Let’s take a lap,” I interject, stopping her mid-sentence & mid-thought.

“Okay…” she replies without pause. “Sneakers?”

“Nah, just a quick one today.”

Not so quick, though. Even though we were more of a mosey than a Power Walk, the one lap excursion was a lot like a trip on Gilligan’s SS Minow.

There were the wrappers to pick up off the floor (her) and the student that needed reminding about a conference during workshop(me). There was a quick stop to check the librarian’s progress on pulling all the variations of “Cinderella” (both of us hoping to hammer home the concept of theme once & for all!) and the detour out of the library by way of the new, unshelved titles waiting patiently on a cart (so many!). Without any rehearsal, we broke into brief song in the music room (from Buffy the Vampire Slayer‘s musical episode) before asking to borrow a capo and some guitar polish (her). Circling back through the main office to check (empty) mailboxes, we bantered with the clerical staff (life savers, each of them)and then stepped up our pace to avoid a longer conversation with an administrator.

Arriving back at the start, my head was clearer, my body a bit warmer and my proverbial cup refilled. The longer I teach, the more I realize that moving–taking a lap–is a simple, necessary way for me to reset. I have been known to take a small lap (just around our wing) in the middle of class and I encourage my students to take them, too. While you would think that either leaving my class unattended or encouraging eighth graders to “wander” would be a recipe for some middle school disaster, that has yet to happen. We talk a lot about taking care of ourselves so that we can take care of each other and that includes trusting everyone to be their best selves. Lofty, I know, but somehow it seems to work (for the most part!). Bigger laps, either alone or with a partner, serve different purposes…sometimes that journey is deeply personal and internal, but other times it is spontaneous and unexpectedly joyful, like today. And who doesn’t need a few bars of “Once More With Feeling”!

Imitation

(with gratitude to Wendell Berry)

What if every encounter was brand new?  
Like the Newborn Baby: blank, open, curious. 
Free from the imprints of the world.


Imagine we moved through the world
like Teenagers: oblivious & confident.  
No regard for before or after.


Assume we know things and that, 
like The Dying, we understand
all that is vital & all that is inconsequential.

Morning After

The early hours of the morning, especially the moments that don’t quite differentiate from night to day, have become my space. I have claimed this time, although without much fanfare, as my own. This is the time when I have full and complete autonomy over what I choose to do or not do. Like the Goonies in the tunnels & caves looking for treasure, this is My Time.

What draws me to these hours is that they are shadow hours, holding the mist from the day before without still being fully immersed in the sea. These are the hours that hold potential, but don’t have witnesses. Thoughts can go down any path they choose, but there is no call to commit to one or another. Sometimes, it’s the stillness that fascinates me, holding me captivated by the dormancy of such a busy world.

Winter mornings are especially prone to these musings, particular those below-freezing mornings when the light snow falls, covering any evidence of human existence. These are the mornings that caution you to not disturb nature’s plan: walk slow, move carefully, observe everything. Try to resume the life that exists outside of the shadow hours –move too fast, get distracted by technology, fall inward instead of looking out– you run the risk of slipping, falling, sliding.

Nature is always calling us to slow down and notice, while the still dark mornings beg me to hold just a bit longer to the shadows. Move too quickly into the new day and winter can find a way to force a hard, painful stop.

The Phone Call

My body feels the rage before my mind can register
the familiar words and the familial roles
I listen to the 
“We have to…” take care of
			                    listen to
			                           understand
“They need our…” compassion
			                    sympathy
			                           care & grace
“You need to…” be the one
			                    be the one
			                          be the one

(and then I’m back)
sitting at the table, in the corner, hidden
The conversations flows around me
I see it all
Hear it all
Feel it all
Know the things that no child should know

All of the secrets are pathetically hidden in plain sight

they don’t see
they don’t hear
they don’t feel
they can’t know
			 
I could disappear 
(and i do)
I could drag the knife
(and i do)
I could lie and steal and cheat and be the imposter
(and i am)

And Then I Am Back

Deep breaths:
Find my center.
Know my truth.
Remember who I am becoming.

On Not Writing…Today

(with deep appreciation to friends without id)

A list:

• the world is on fire, yet we are in the middle of some ice frost super system that is plunging our temperatures to sub zero for days on end
• the ice that hides in plain site, camouflaged by the darkened streets, waiting for my unsuspecting boot as I try to just go about my life, trying to walk from one boring place to another… shares many characteristics with the capitalized acronym that feels no need to hide
• I have so many thoughts but I can not find the words to adequately express them
• I can use an impressive number of words to say absolutely nothing at all

Q&A

Why does it take so long to write a list?

Great question. A list leaves words naked and exposed, so it’s really important that each one stands proudly on the line.

Who reads your writing?

Another zinger! I don’t know. Maybe some other writers? Maybe a few poets? Occasionally, a friend who knows me in the real world. Rarely, the one who I want most to read my words.

Why write?

Why breathe?

Do you filter what you write and (follow up question) what would happen if you stopped filtering?

I filter everything that leaves my mind/heart/soul. I overthink all of the words that are said and the ones that are unsaid. I consider the ramifications and consequences even before the words have formed. If I stopped? I’m not that brave. Not yet.

3 Words on Not Writing

Lonely. Avoidance. Safe.

Before & After

There is the time
 just before
And then the time 
when it is over

First the unknowing
And then the light
First the shhh
And then the bright

The sealed letter
the words inside
The closed door
what cannot hide

Marks on our world
Marks on our hearts
Marks in the sand
Impermanent spots

The quiet of the station
Before the train arrives
The metal of the brakes
Honesty that lies

What’s your before
And then your after
What caused the change
What broke the laugher

He stands at the gate
Suitcase in hand
She waits in the chair
The plane doesn’t land

There is the child before the cry
She takes the first breath then she flies
The mother knows
The father lies

Time splits
Time shifts
Time fades
Time bends
It’s all In sight
Except the end.

Just Below

I am wondering about all of the things that live just below the surface. I am writing this sitting in a coffee shop downtown, still wearing my jacket because the frigid chill has not quite left my bones and the promised hot afternoon coffee is simply lukewarm… and I am wondering about what lies beneath.

Pink Floyd plays (and Ziggy Stardust just before) musing about “Time” and what it means; a child cries inconsolably as his dad–presumably–scrolls his phone and grants the barista to “take his time” while the woman –the mom?–asks about the artwork that hangs on one wall; my car is parked just behind a blue Pontiac that idles while the driver sits and the passenger lies reclined, stocking feet resting on the dash. Downtown is busy, despite the dying city and the bitter cold that envelopes all of us. A few housing insecure folks have found warmth in here, with me, parking full shopping carts and one overflowing bag just outside. They are the same people I see in other seasons, often dressed in the same layers, pushing the same carts and carrying the same bags.

I have to wonder about the stories. What are the stories?

To a casual observer, or even a critical one, I am simply a middle-aged woman with silver hair, hunched over a computer and pausing between bursts of typing to look out the window or to gaze off into the distance, finding empty space between objects to ponder, avoiding eye contact with anyone, including the kind barista who is singing along with Billy Idol.

What about my stories? Are they worthy of recall? Worthy of retelling?

Knowing that there is life bubbling beneath my surface, words rumbling before they hit the air, begs the question about all of the others….those that surround me and those that surround them and out and beyond, concentric circles of untold stories sitting beneath winter coats.

2026 One Little Word: Foundation

When I chose my OLW, I thought a lot about my why….how I want–need–to reexamine all the things that I take for granted. How I need–want–to closely inspect cracks and weaknesses that could lead to ultimate destruction if left unattended. How the notion of revisiting the very things that I have built my life on feels necessary–a vital requirement to continued existence.

When I wrote with my students, I talked a lot about my how….the selection, the searching, the thesaurus and online dictionary and circular spiraling down rabbit holes and around construction websites. I talked about my past One Little Words and how they helped me (2020: Brave) and how they guided me (2024: Curiosity) and brought me back to specific moments (2016: Canoe) and left me wondering about the choice itself (2018: Quest).

But right now, as I am sitting in the quiet dimming of the day, I realize that I hadn’t considered the position of a foundation. How it is nestled into the earth, embedded, secure, protected. I am envious of that surety. I want to slip into the corner of this couch, cushions pressing in on me from behind, blankets tightly wrapped across my front, together enveloping me in a cocoon of safety. I want to be burrowed beneath the earth, not in a morbid way, but in a way that insulates me from the elements and from the unknowns and from the unpredictable and from the inevitable.

The irony of it, though, is that this enviable enclosure is precisely what creates the conditions that causes the cracks eventually. A house’s foundation is impacted by temperature fluctuations and the unavoidable shifting, over time, of an object implanted into the earth. Nothing remains still. Nothing is impervious to change.

This year is a year for me to not only examine my foundation but to accept its vulnerability. Contrary to what one might believe about poured concrete, it still needs to be tended to, sometimes repaired, occasionally rebuilt. The foundation is a conglomeration of materials and my foundation is no different. I am who I am today because my foundation was set long ago by a myriad of factors, some identifiable and some still unnamed. This path is not completely clear, but I have my OLW to anchor and guide me on this year’s journey.

PF: Building on Solid Ground

It took a while to find my 2026 OLW and even now that I have it, I’m not sure I have all the words to fully explain my choice this year.

Catherine Flynn is hosting the Poetry Friday Roundup this week at her blog, Reading to the Core. I am just getting my feet wet with Poetry Friday, so I decided to push my OLW out via poetry.

Foundation

The basement:  carefully poured concrete.
          Snug. 
          Solid. 
          Soundly embedded in the earth.
The bones of the house built beam by beam
          nailed to one another, 
          leaning into the grooves to strengthen walls, 
          impenetrable, 
          promising to surround generations of inhabitants.
Paint upon plaster upon plywood upon dreams...
          visions of lives lengthened, lived large.

Now that the structure has taken form...
          windows placed
          doors hung
          paint drying
          grass beginning to grow
Now that the structure has taken form...
filling with what waits:
          empty suitcases
          summer sandals 
          winter boots
          quiet trains and still games

no one thinks about the foundation.

I am that house. That home.
                                                                                                                               but 

i don't know where my edges meet the earth.
i don't know what is beneath the facades.
          i haven't wondered about structural integrity
                    traveled deep to the roots
                              i haven't looked for the cracks.

Chol Hamoed: The Days Between

There is something about this last week of the year; the space of quiet is almost palpable. I recently saw a social media post about Chol Hamoed, the days in between the first and last days of longer holidays like Pesach or Sukkot. These are the intermediate days, bridging the sacred holy days with the regular, mundane days of day-to-day life. The Facebook post called this time on the secular calendar the Gentile Chol Hamoed, a bridging for those who celebrated Christmas with the upcoming revelry of New Year’s eve and this landed perfectly in my kishkes, my Yiddishkeit gut.

In our family, we not only celebrate Hanukkah in our home and with our Jewish community, but we celebrate Christmas with my husband’s family and, to make it a perfect, beautiful storm, two of our children have a shared birthday on December 27th. The kids are three years apart and just celebrated 17 & 20 years, so the traditions surrounding that piece of the festivities are now firmly entrenched in the whole mishegaas. As a public school teacher, I have fully appreciated the “time off” from work so that I can completely sink into all of this. The family and friends visiting, traveling, calling, texting, sending love….it is an incredible immersion in this pool of joy.

Now is the bridging between my Holy Days and the Mundane. This is when there is space for quiet, when the world settles and silence arrives for just a bit…before the busy-ness of welcoming a new year and the resolutions and the OneLittleWord and the Sunday preparations and the return to school and work and chores and tasks of life. It is the Intermediate Days. Time for writing, time for reading, time for listening and sitting and contemplating and considering.

This year has been a little different: I came down with the flu and the world kept spinning without me; I recovered and the world shut down with a monstrous snow storm. The blurring of time and lines and purposes conspired to leave me adrift in my own thoughts, with more time than anticipated to consider all of the angles of whatever I was holding up to the light at any given moment. I have thoughts but little cohesion; I see glimpses of truths but haven’t quite grasped the words. I am definitely on the cusp of the return to the world, but for today am fully embracing my own personal Chol Hamoed.

Arriving At A Mantra

Lately, I’ve been having a hard time catching my breath. Not in a I-just-ran-up-the-stairs-two-at-a-time kind of way, but something else, something different, more insidious. It does not come from a blast of frigid December air, but from a blast that originates elsewhere. It forces me to put my hand on my heart, lean a bit against whatever is nearest, a door frame or table or, if I’m lucky, a human, and try to simply breathe. Even now, I can feel my breaths get shallow and my pulse is quickening. I pause–am pausing–and take a deep, purposeful breath, remembering years of yoga practice, and follow the path of air in through my nose, deep into my lungs and then back out again. Over and over.

When the moment passes, I feel exhausted, like maybe I did just sprint up the stairs or trek through the winter night. I want to curl up on my bed, pull the covers over my head and sleep. Sleep until the breathing becomes easy and no longer needs my attention, sleep until the fear retreats and the clarity returns. Sleep until it all stabilizes. And sometimes I do fall into sleep and sometimes I don’t, but inevitably the world keeps spinning until I experience the same sudden slam to my system without warning, just when I least expect it.

I haven’t always had this; in fact, it’s been decades since I found myself curled up in a ball simply trying to catch my breath. But here I am again, wondering if the external factors of my life and the miseries of this world are conspiring to take me down. I know enough to know that this is temporary, although it feels permanent. I know enough to know that the simple act of confessing to the fears diminishes their power. I know enough to know that there are some damn good reasons I find myself having a hard time catching my breath.

And so, I breathe with purpose. I breathe with determination. I breathe in search of my center. In and out. Again and again. Breathing. Simply breathing.

Let There Be Quiet

(with apologies & gratitude to Kei Miller, “Book of Genesis“)

Let...
let there be quiet

let the image of your face, looking back in
anticipation or hope or wonder or fear
be erased
banished 
forgotten before the forgetting begins

let there be quiet

let the shallow breaths and crooked hands and unseeing eyes
be eclipsed 
with deep sleeping snores 
and footed pajamas 
and stuffed monkeys

let there be quiet

let the quest for answers  
be sidelined by the simple
the certain
the sure
the understanding that all will be okay

let there be quiet

let the noise rise to a crescendo
building exponentially
overpowering obliterating 
threatening to envelope all of this creation
and 
then
bring 
deafening silence
total stillness
complete and absolute
simplicity
that blankets the world like
tonight's snow:
shimmering   innocent   calm             temporary.



Please be sure to visit Linda Mitchell at A Word Edgewise for the Poetry Friday Roundup.

Hanukkah: Festival of Lights

We don’t do a lot of decorating for Hanukkah. We have a table that becomes a beautiful, cluttered mess of hanukkiahs, melted wax, and dreidels waiting for their spin. Sometimes a bag of chocolate gelt will find its way there, temporarily, of course.

But we don’t do a lot of decorating. A lot of that has to do with our deliberate effort to not “compete” with Christmas, but mostly it’s just not necessary. We gather each night and every member of the family lights their own hanukkiah, we sing the prayers and songs, maybe we play a little dreidel…gifts are kept small and, in our family, have always been shared amongst the three kids (no small feat now that they are teenagers and on the cusp of young adulthood!). We have created our own traditions and we have found a way to bring light and make the eight days meaningful, especially amidst the din of December merriment.

A few years ago, my husband bought a small garland of Jewish stars and we hung it in our front window. It was a nice addition, so we brought it out each year to hang and at the end of the holiday, we packed it away with the hanukkiahs & the dreidels… until two years ago. That year, we quietly decided that we would leave it up, displayed in our front window, until the hostages all came home. It wasn’t a grand gesture. It wasn’t political. It was simply an act of witness—a thread of hope made visible in our own small corner of the world.

Over time, it moved around, eventually migrating from the front window to a wooden beam in the living room. It became part of the backdrop of our days: the morning coffee ritual, the comings and goings, the ordinary mess of family life…but it never came down. With each release, with each return, we hoped that we were closer to returning the garland to its rightful place as a decoration, but it has remained a part of our own private vigil.

Maybe this year, by the end of Hanukkah, Ran Gvili will be home. Maybe, by the last night when the flames burn brightest, we will finally be able to put our decorations away—not out of resignation, but because every last hostage has been returned.

Hope

Is it as simple as choosing?

I have known the hopelessly hopeful
     the ones who find possibility in an impossible world
     the ones who somehow see light in blinding darkness
     the ones who can feel softness sitting
                    on the periphery 
                    of (my) sharp angles.

What superpower is this?  
What is this capacity for innocence?

What I know about Humans…

     we move away from pain and
     move toward pleasure

     we remove hands from the burning flame
     and find salvation in the cool river

     we resist discomfort and
     seek out soft spaces of gentle

Is it as simple as turning?
     turning your face toward the sun
     turning away from the wind
     turning your back on the world
     turning into yourself

Is hope really a thing with feathers or
is it an orientation? a way of moving? a direction on a map?

Is hope fixed at birth? 
Nurtured through time? 
Held fast by something I cannot conceive?

or

Is it as simple as choosing?