All This and Haiku Too

I really like blogging. Why do I blog? Let me count the reasons. (Couldn't resist.) (When I make a weak literary reference/pun I just fall back on the fact that not many people who will bothered by the strength of a phrase turn read this anyway. I started blogging after reading a piece in the Jewish Week by Esther Kustanowitz that ended with a bio that mentioned her blog. I was reminded of an email from my friend Moshe Radinsky, in which he wrote that I should start a blog. He said that blogs fit with my writing style; he might as well have suggested I fly to the moon. But when I was impressed by Ms. Kustanowitz' personal, serious, funny, real way of writing I paused. Then I posted. Seven years later, here I am. Still.

Photo by Carla Kimbal, who matched it with the question,

"What is just a glimmer on the horizon?"

My mother (of blessed memory) once returned from a talk at Shul about relaxation. She said that the speaker went around the circle and asked everyone to think of a relaxing place in their life. Everyone, or nearly everyone, said somewhere relating to water. Maybe it relates to the womb. Maybe it relates to G-d's spirit hovering over the first water, or the fact that that original water is never said to have been created. Somehow water hits me hard every time as a relaxing and spiritual place.

No vision and you perish, no ideal and you're lost; Your heart must ever cherish some faith at any cost. Some hope, some dream to cling to, Some rainbow in the sky, some melody to sing to, some service that is high. ~ Harriet Du Autermont

I just chanced upon the above cited quote. It is of note to me that it doesn't mention G-d, but to me it's talking about G-d. I recently had an interesting social encounter in which someone spoke very strongly about how we control nothing and everything is from G-d. I'm not sure how or why it started, but it got intense. I think that we play a role in our fate and that it doesn't detract from our faith to believe that. Just the opposite - healthy faith includes a healthy dose of self awareness, reflection, responsibility, and accountability.

The following is from a soon to be released book:

A spider lives inside my head

Who weaves a strange and wondrous web

Of silken threads and silver strings

To catch all sorts of flying things,

Like crumbs of thought and bits of smiles

And specks of dried-up tears,

And dust of dreams that catch and cling

For years and years and years .

- Shel Silverstein (published posthumously)

On Wednesday I wrote this before my last class of the day from 4:30-5:10:

all days are equal

even though some are longer

funny (not ha-ha)