Succulents suck

My jade is jaded, and succulents suck.

I think my thumb is the opposite of green. What would that be? Orange?

I searched and searched and finally found a jade plant. Nice, healthy. I even bought special soil-for-succulents. But I left it in its original pot over the winter months, because reasearch said it was dormant then.

I transfered it to a new, bigger pot with its new super succulent soil in March.

And ever since, it has been dropping leaves and now stubby stems. Slowly. Every so often.

I had a calathea plant for a while. It did well for most of the winter and then it died. The story of my life with plants.

I'm a killer.

looking back

I've always felt young, and now I fear I may be growing old.

I've always been looking forward and now I find I am worrying and picking through old memories, searching for the good old days.

New year/old year

Today is the start of the New Year- 5773- for me as we begin Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, at sunset.

I will be spending the New Year with my new grandson (and, oh, yeah, my son and daughter-in-law, his parents). How sweet is that?

As a Jewish person in the U. S., I have lots of New Years to observe, to stop, to think, to take an opportunity to reconsider and choose to start anew.

To turn away from a path headed nowhere, or trod too many times. To turn to a new and healthier direction.

To start something new, or to start over in a new way.

Rosh Hashanah, the start of the new Jewish year, happens in the autumn, when many are starting a new school year. Meanwhile, here in the Northern Hemisphere, the leaves are falling and the summer is ending, autumn is coming on, and the days are becoming shorter. Winter is around the corner, the dying of the light.

A combination- a balance?- of new and old.

On January 1st, the secular New Year will be celebrated- during some of the darkest days of winter. While we turn the page on the new calendar, the days are indeed getting longer- but here in Michigan the light is only a whispered promise of spring as we experience some of the bitterest cold.

Sometime in winter- often in January, as it happens this year- it is Tu b'Shevat, the New Year for trees. Originally, this was a sort of fiscal holiday, establishing the age of trees for harvest and tithing purposes. Now, it is an opportunity to review our relationship with the natural world.

Even though Rosh HaShanah is the first of the year, it is not the first month of the year. (Doesn't make sense to you? Good! I wouldn't want to be the only one!). The first month of the Hebrew calendar is the month of Nissan. The holiday of Passover, of spring and new beginnings and new starts, happens during Nissan.

Of course, I often reflect on my birthday about where I have been and where I am heading- another new year!

Lots of moments in time to stop, think, adjust, change, commit, celebrate!

May the year ahead be filled with sweetness for you.

Cruel geography

My Dear Daughter has written about Anti-Social Media. It came at a time when I have been missing her, and my other children. It comes at a time when I am too aware of the distance between us.

Dear Daughter wrote that the easy "connections" of the various and sundry social media of the digital age do not bring us together, but can be keeping us apart, keeping us separate, keeping our relationships surface only.

This is one version of the response I wrote to her:
 *******
When I first saw this posting a week ago I put it aside before responding because the truth you write is too raw and painful for me at times. The intimacy promised by facile social media is a false intimacy. It would be nice to think that geography is irrelevant in a high tech age, but geography is still cruelly relevant. We delude ourselves that we are "close" but we are not close. We are miles and miles apart.

No matter the timely tweet, the cryptic post on Facebook or the blatant blog rant, meaning is lost, connection fails. More can be read from the nuances of a sigh, the hesitation before the word, the glance held, the glance dropped.

And a virtual hug is virtually nothing at all.

There is so much more to be said, but I will wait to say it with wine or coffee shared, in the same place, at the same moment.


*****
That was the comment I left.

I mourn the distance between each of my children and myself; and I recognize with pain that the distance is not only the miles of cruel geography, but also the span between sorrow and comfort, between experience and sharing. Between surface and depth. Between knowing you and losing you.

attitude of gratitude

I have been ranting quite a bit lately because of the perceived slights from My U. While I still believe in my perceptions I am reminding myself that I fully believe in taking a positive outlook. So, some focus on the many reasons I have for gratitude seems to be in order

I am grateful to My U for accepting me into the PhD program. I am grateful for the wonderful folks I met that were a part of my cohort.

I am grateful for the opportunity to learn and to teach. I have grown from the classes I took and the classes I taught.

I am grateful for the support of family and friends - the love, the encouragement, and yes, even the nagging that helped me get through the entire process and to come out with a "terminal degree" without it being the death of me.

More gratitude yet to come.