Back From the Berkshires Again

It feels like yesterday that I wrote this piece, but it was eight years ago. I wrote it upon returning from serving as rabbi at a Pesach retreat at Isabella Freedman.  I've been doing it all these years.  I have so much to say, just got home a short while ago and yet the words are hard to find.  People came to talk to me all the time - I  listened and counseled about grief and relationships and more.  Heavy stuff lightened by sharing; amazing to what extent mentioning = managing.

I spoke about the hagaddah in two pre Seder shiurim. I ran 2 seders and all the minyanim.  I spoke about humor and poetry and freedom and love and stories - each of those a full length talk in its own right. I ran a workshop on improv and one on poetry. And I spoke at Yizkor. I emceed the talent show. It was all fulfilling, and exhausting, and I wish I could write about all of what happened and tell you the under the surface stories too.

On the bus ride home (which was late in leaving because a man who was asked to move his seat to accommodate a couple refused to do so) (after a whole to do of of negotiations and fights and stalemates and the bus not leaving I walked up to man - with whom I developed a connection and a relationship of mutual respect over the holiday -  and quietly asked him to do me a favor and move his seat, and he did and off we went).

I tried to write and what flowed was writing about not writing:

Unpoem

Much to say

Words fly away

Home they don't go

Like much I don't know

Words fade unclear

Almost near disappear