Writing

 I stumbled across a note I wrote myself almost 4 years ago:

WRITING

Memoir Monday

Text Tuesday

Whatever Wednesday 

Thankful Thursday 

Fiction Friday

Sabbath Saturday

...

Not sure why Sunday was not included on that original list.

I will try to think of an alliteration to add for Sunday.

This list was intended to prompt a writing habit. Clearly, it didn't stick then, as I forgot all about it. However, so much has changed in the last four years, maybe it is time to implement this list.

Memoir Monday- I've been using this blog intermittently to record my life events and reflections in these challenging days (weeks/months/years). I want to intentionally seek out glimmers as well as the grief and struggles now. I want to remind myself that there is still beauty, kindness, compassion in the world. See it, speak it, do it!

Text Tuesday was intended (I think, my memory is blurry) to work on a textbook / nonfiction work on theatre- benefits of producing Shakespeare with young people for one example.

Whatever Wednesday as a free writing day.

Thankful Thursday to focus on gratitude.

Fiction Friday to exercise those creative muscles.

Sabbath Saturday- I don't remember if I intended this as a day of rest, or a day for spiritual reflection in my writing.

What shall we do with Sunday? 

Sending Sunday- send a letter or email to a friend or friends?

Selling Sunday- send an article or story out into the world for publication hopes?

Summary Sunday- reflect on and review what I've been reading?

Make a wish. Take a deep breath. Send it out. Plant a seed.

Change is gonna come

 I am beyond stressed. With my work for Byzantine U, my prep for the High Holidays, my need to declutter and repair and clean and paint my house to sell, my need to find a new house home, my need to care for my family and friends, my worries about the looming election and the national and world events- I am beyond stressed.

Something must change. Change will come, is coming. Some of the change I can choose, direct, guide, and some I cannot. 

I am sometimes having difficulty knowing which changes I can direct, and which changes are outside of my control.

I know that I need changes in my life. I feel stalled. What used to bring me joy finds me indifferent now. Most of my life is flat and stale.

Maybe I need a complete change of direction, purpose, career, focus. 

I could become a cycologist, right? 

I have been an actor, director, producer, educator, waitress, program coordinator, journalist. I've been on so many boards as president, VP, chair, secretary, and more. 

I know I'm good at my work as an educator, and I enjoy working with my students- but I have to force myself to make the connections, do the grading, post the assignments.

I'm good at organizing programs and designing and coordinating events- but here too I find I lack interest, initiative, motivation.

I am stalled. Not drifting, exactly- I'm still getting the necessary tasks done, although at the 11th hour and the 59th minute.

Gotta love deadlines.

Tonight is Kol Nidre, the evening that we enter into the Day of Atonement. The Kol Nidre prayer itself is a petition to the Eternal to be excused from oaths that were made under duress, obligations that we took on or promises that we made against our heart's desire or our own truth.

We ask that, as the New Year begins, we can enter freely to a future that is not controlled by our past.

My past has influenced me, and much of that is good. However I cannot stay in the past; I have to move forward.

May this New Year have tender and sustaining memories of the good of the past- and also beginnings and discoveries.

I am a different person now. 

Holiday in the season of sorrow

While Christmas is not my holiday, it is for many that I love. This entire season is triggering on many levels since Ken died.

Thanksgiving was hugely challenging. The kids and I planned to gather in Chicagoland in homes and hotels. We knew it would be tough. We worked hard to make choices that would make it easier on all of us: only cooking or baking the foods we really wanted to make, and ordering pre-cooked items for the rest; a more relaxed timeline; easy games with the grandkids. 

My son J and his family in Ann Arbor tested positive for Covid the morning of the day that they were to leave to join us in Chicagoland. 

Hard missing Ken, and then hard missing our son/brother and family to grieve together, to play together with grandkids/cousins. 

We made it through with full hearts, full bellies. We literally cried in our beer. We had some breakdowns and some build ups. We came out the other side.

Since then, there has been  a trip for me to North Carolina to visit my friend SJR and Chanukah. 

The trip to North Carolina was great. Walking every day, sharing our losses- the good memories and the hard memories- laughing some, weeping some. Cherishing each other. We've been friends for more than 50 years. There is a special ease in sitting with someone who knows your history. 

Chanukah was tough. Emails and calls with the out-of-town kids. CMK and KG were staying with me- mostly. JE and family came up from Ann Arbor for the first night on Thursday and we were together, with grandkids and that eased me a bit. Friday, the second night, was at my temple, with dinner and Shabbat service, which was lovely.  I felt the shared community.

The next night was a gathering- a Chanukah party at the rabbi's house. Attending that, in retrospect, was a huge mistake. I felt isolated and set apart from my community. Not feeling any party vibe. Feeling alone in a room of couples- and those who are solo for a long time. I sneaked out early.

CMK and KG left Sunday morning. That night was hard, lighting Chanukah candles in the darkness all alone for the first time in my life.

I muddled through the rest of the week- met with my sister once, went to grandson J's band concert, lots of grading of my students' papers and projects as they made a mad dash to somehow pass the class. 

On Thursday, the last night, I drove to JE and family in Ann Arbor and we had dinner, and candle lighting, and some gifts. Grandson J was sick. We were pretty sure it was a reaction to vaccines and sedatives that he'd had that day, but we masked and distanced anyway. J was fine the next day, so we are confident that is what it was. In an odd way, this made it seem even more family, more like home. Daughter-in-law J cradling her son J's head, while I was masked and rubbing his feet wasn't the typical holiday, but it was family.

The next night's service, Friday Dec 15, had been intended to be led on Zoom by 88 year old Bob and me. Bob called the night before to say he wasn't up for it. We were able to hand off to the rabbi (who had been wanting that service anyway) and that freed me up to do more grading. The 16th and 17th I was grading, grading, grading.

Except on Saturday, when I took a break to drive to Hurley hospital to visit my friend KD who had broken her hip *replacement* inside her body. She was going to have a hip replacement-replacement in the next couple of days. 

On the way home from visiting her in the hospital, I stopped by my sister's house. Her son and daughter-in-law M & M were there and we visited and shared a dinner. That was a good visit. 

I came home and was talking with son J in Ann Arbor figuring out plans for getting my car in the shop and my dog to stay with J and family. We talked to Diane too and since it was agreed that we could leave later on Monday, we decided that J would drive to my house and we would take my car to the dealership and then Diane would pick me up from my house. J had to be at a computer by 9:00 am for a work meeting.

It worked out almost like that. 

J headed out but there was snow, traffic, and the highway was shut down. So I took the car in later, Diane picked me up from the dealership, and took me back to my house, where J had arrived and was on the computer with his meeting. We loaded up- later than Diane wanted- headed out. J kept working, then took my dog with him on his lunch break to Ann Arbor.

Diane and I had a long drive from Michigan to Tennessee. We had some snow and traffic in Cincinnati, but otherwise made good time. We stayed at our cousin's that night. We stopped for a drink at S & S palatial home, then on to cousin SL with her son KL. Stayed up late talking. Made ice cream drinks (Hummers). Diane was able to spend some individual time with our cousin. 

We spent most of the next day with our cousins. We left after lunch for the first of two legs of the trip to Alabama near the Gulf where my dad and his wife winter.  We arrived at lunch time Dec 20. My dad's birthday was on the 23rd, then Christmas Eve and today, Christmas Day.

Every place I go, I remember Ken. This is the trip we had been making for years- down south, stopping in Tennessee with my cousin- last year with both my Aunt B and Sherri, it was me and Ken- and now, my sister and I with my cousin and her son. My aunt died in April, Ken in September. 

I am ready to say goodbye to 2023. I'm sure there were good things that happened this year, but for me this year is stamped with loss and conflict. 

101 tiny actions

Little things. Tiny actions. They may not seem like much, but added up in the hundreds or thousands of repetitions, the hundreds of activities, these actions accumulate to mean something. I’m not even going back to our grandparents or great-grandparents’ days when everyone had to plow, plant, walk or hitch up horses. I haven't made it to 101 yet, but here are my first 21. 1. Cooking: mashing potatoes 2. Cooking: rotary beaters OR spoon mixing 3. Cooking: making dinner 4. Cooking: making bread 5. Cooking: chopping vegetables 6. Home: beating rugs 7. Home: pushing a lawn mower 8. Home: shoveling snow 9. Home: Hanging laundry 10. Home: Washing dishes 11. Daily Life: Changing the station on the TV 12. Daily Life: Answering the phone 13. Daily Life: Walking to the mailbox 14. Daily Life: opening the garage door 15. Daily Life: washing the car 16. Daily life: changing a tire 17. Daily Life: research in real books 18. Cooking: opening cans 19. Daily life: typing or writing (and rewriting) vs. word processing 20. Daily life: Walking from one office to another 21. Daily life: winding your watch or clock

Transitions SUCK

I have been teaching as grad assistant, then as adjunct, at "MY University" for almost 10 years. One of the frustrating aspects of this- beyond the fact that adjunct faculty is not really paid a professional wage- is that I have stayed busy, done lots of teaching- but with one thing and another, scholarly writing hasn't been a priority.  AND the department really didn't give much mentoring/advice/support for getting published.

Well, there have been a number of changes over the past few years. The chair of the department, let’s call him Previous Chair (PC), has stepped down as chair. He was my major mentor. I think he has personal issues going on, but whatever.

Anyway: So, theater department chair is gone, with an interim chair working while search committee does its thing. At the same time, the Dean of the College of Fine, Performing and Communications Arts left for a different position. So did the assistant dean. Interims and searches there, too.

Plus, the economy in Michigan was one of the first to suffer and one of the slowest to recover. While it is true that in a down economy many go back to school, they aren't exactly beating down the doors of the theater department.

Also, I've been told/hinted to/read between the lines that *if* there is hiring, it won't be me. Because I haven't published those scholarly articles. I haven't written big time grants. I haven't brought prestige to the university. I've just done an outstanding job of teaching students.

What is particularly painful is that this semester, I was asked at the last minute (really, about 2 and a half weeks before the start of classes) to teach two great classes (because the tenured faculty that taught them quit- I mean, abruptly retired- in a fit of pique because he couldn't get along with the interim chair). I LOVED teaching these two classes, for upperclassmen, theater majors. And the students RAVED about my classes, how great they were, how much they were learning. Other faculty stopped me in the hall and dropped by my office to tell me how much my students loved my classes.

But none of that matters: word on the street is that when faculty is hired, it will be published people with grants to their credit to enhance the prestige of the university.

Add to that, that the PhD program from which I received my degree has been "suspended" because the PhD *faculty* has not been publishing! (No wonder we received no mentoring!)

What this means for me, is that there are fewer opportunities for adjunct faculty such as myself, because now the tenured senior faculty have to teach the lowly undergrads to retain their jobs.

It is bittersweet. I am trying to stay positive- look at this as a blessing in disguise. My University has been my comfort zone, because it was something that I know. Perhaps this is the impetus I need to write more.

Also, with gas in Michigan hovering at $4 / gal, the 110 mile round trip commute is not missed!

For now, I am still technically employed at My U as I am teaching an online class in Intro to Theater. After June 30, we shall see what the universe has to offer.

death of a dream

Due to a number of circumstances, a dear dream of mine seems to be near its doom.

We can none of us do it all ourselves; I have realized this more and more.

Part of me recognizes that yes, indeed, we each need to make our own paths; yet a part of me has to question the timing of at least some of these events.

Part of me is bitter: how could you weep, and tell me that I changed your life and saved your life... and now walk away when my utility to you is ended, even though now is the time I have need of you.

A beginning

Having been inspired by the keen observations and ready wit of my dear friends and dearer relations, I begin anew to write. This journal will seek to take a look at this new millennium as it begins to take shape.

In my lifetime thus far, I have seen remarkable changes in communication. Once, most homes had a single telephone (INSTRUMENT-- let alone phone line), with the line often a party line, and the instrument itself with a rotary dial.

Today, a party line might refer to a political agenda or a Conga line dance, but rarely to telecommunications.I remember when the Princess phone









and then Touch Tone phone



were innovations.

Now, there are cells, razors, Blackberries, iPhones.

Amazing.

When I was a kid:

cell










or










When I was young: blackberry



When I was young: razor








As for an "Apple iPhone", in my younger days I could only have imagined that such a phrase would be some kind of rebus; yet just now the introduction of this newest communications tool is hailed as nothing less than revolutionary.

"It's a product of mythical proportions, " says Entner, senior vice president of IAG Research. "They're not saying the iPhone will cure cancer and bring world peace, but that it will do everything else."

It's been said change is the only constant. Let's see how much we can notice while we are in the midst of it.