Seven Years, Now

5:58 PM

Saturday Night: Eleven Forty-Five PM

Self absorbed Vin Scelsa keeps talking

I tread the net and stop at Mimaamakim

"Idiot’s Delight" almost done I’ll need

distraction other than WFUV, because

"Group Harmony Review" isn’t my thing

So I visit this old friend of a poetry site

While Elton sings he hopes I don’t mind

And I write like a Billy Collins wannabe

Filled from contentment of Shabbos rest

I am disappointed my latest isn’t posted

And Alejandro Escovedo sings of hands

As I notice eight mortgage ads posted in

spaces that should have held my poetry

and Vin riffs of TV and a random FCC

as I prepare to post these unsaved words

my way of calling G-d out of my depths

Don't be confused by the title of the poem. I am starting this post in the early evening; who knows when it will end? (Good chance we'll call it 11:59 PM, my code for "later than I care to admit"). That poem was written and posted 7 years ago on Saturday night, November 20, 2004, in the first post ever of this blog. Yes, it's seven years. A wow and a sigh.

I woke up Monday with a burning in my throat and phlegm that it would be wise not to describe or even mention here (oops). Tuesday I went to the doctor. I told him that my throat was feeling better and that that scared me because it was too quick and past experience had told me that that meant that the infection had moved to my ear. He disagreed and gave me a weaker end antibiotic...

9:04 PM

I just had a great visit from a dear friend. We sat and ate and talked on a deep level, nothing like it.

Over Shabbos I kept thinking of things to write about; the book I'm reading - Holy Beggars: A Journey From Haight Street to Jerusalem, how - even though it set records for heat - the summer felt cold to me - due mainly to my broken ankle that's still - hopefully - healing, the nice dvar Torah I heard from Rabbi Dovid Miller at Shalosh Seudos (about the deep connection between marriage and the acquisition of Israel and the reason why such a big deal is made about the acquisition of the land being because the connection to the land is so holy and deep), the dvar Torah that the rabbi sitting next to me at Shalosh Seudos told me (he's speaking right around now at an event about teen issues and will be telling a story from the Gemorah in Chulin about a man who visits a town and is accused of all kinds of things - eating treif, stealing, and more - and proves himself innocent of all charges, then right after his case a kid is found guilty of doing wrong things and he proves that they are incorrectly putting the kid up on charges even though the kid did wrong things - the way my friend explained this Gemorah, the man was telling the people that their children were suffering because rather than raising their kids properly the town people were too busy judging and accusing everyone), My Dyslexia, my Chumash term paper, an addition to the thread I started on Friday about the power of remembering good things about people and telling them so (I recently told a visiting graduate how highly I thought of her midot and how in particular I recall her poise and maturity when she, as a sophomore, made a shiva visit to me), so many things I could write about...

10:13 PM

I want to wind down here. My friend who visited, for some reason was struck by and remembers this post, particularly the lines, "In some ways the page remains blank, the writer isolated. And yet, the poem is written, is now outside, here for you to see." Those lines later became this haiku, which my friend was sure I'd put in my book, but I didn't. Maybe for the next one, which I hope to put out soon.

The page remains blank

The writer isolated

and yet you read

On Thursday I met with a very bright student for Torah Guidance (I wouldn't be surprised if she was valedictorian or salutatorian). She is a believer and yet she was wondering about free will. We made a deal that before we meet next we will each read an article new to us on the topic and then discuss it further.

Some big questions don't so much bother me

like are we or are we not completely free?

More than free will, I wonder about Free Willy

Much as that might come across as silly

Although it's a picture I never got to see

I know Ebert called it one of the best of '93

Don't ask me what I'm talking about

All I know is there's no reason to shout

Being loud doesn't make you more right

In my mind it puts me in the mode of fear and flight

I guess I should wonder if I have free will

I was angst filled once - now my soul sits more still

At least when it comes to broad philosophy

The things I'm more curious about have to do with me

In my gut I take responsibility for my life

Despite what I was recently told on a date by a potential wife

She said that being single was a total act of G-d

I found her conviction on the topic a bit odd

Especially considering it was a first date

An unusual context for discussing fate

The discussion turned high pitched and intense

She kept insisting my position made no sense

I still think we have to own our life

We can't blame G-d for all of our strife

I see it as a combination platter

G-d and me, in my life we both matter

Take now for example, time for bed

and yet I'm at the computer instead

Is G-d forcing me to write these lines?

Or is it a choice which I need to own as mine

This is getting a bit too deep

You're right if you guessed I'm heading toward sleep