Today

11:02 AM - 

We pay an expensive sum
As we strive for the world to come
While we busily try
This life can pass by

I am sick, throat, chest, cough  etc. The etc. is perhaps the hardest part.  Tomorrow all grades and paper work are due.  And yet.  I am sick.  And my dad is in the hospital.  And and and and and. The last and is perhaps the hardest part.

"The past is never dead," William Faulkner wrote. "It's not even past." - cited by Roger Ebert (RIP, I miss him deeply) in his review of The Flat (an Israeli Documentary).

That quote speaks to me.  For me the past is always present.

1:09 PM - Napped a bit since I last wrote.  Not sure how I'm going to be ready for promotion day tomorrow, but we do what we have to.  I am feeling sick.  And feeling badly that though I've been diligent and devoted, going to visit my dad almost every day and sometimes staying over in Staten Island over the last month I've hit a bump myself and am feeling too sick to visit a hospital.

2:49 PM - Coughing a lot. Really feeling rotten.  Work to do...

Between life and death we run
From what we did and could have done
Toward what we might and may not do
Forgoing purple, choosing blue

4:06 PM - I wrote this (above poem) thinking about the idea that we give G-d a din vecheshbon at the end of our lives. The G"RA says that the first is judgement for what we did wrong an d the latter is an account of what we could have done right while we were doing something wrong. Rav Pam says that the first example in the Torah of this is in last week's parsha (Chukat) (This is in Rav Pam on Avot) when G-d says Moshe will not enter Israel because he a. did not obey what Hashem said and b. did not sanctify G-d's name (Devarim 32:51).

5:08 PM - "What I should have said was nothing." - Mike Birbiglia

6:51 PM - Went out to do some work.  Got wet because it's raining hard in New York. I came back home, have to hunker down here and get grades finished.

I wrote this a month ago, don't recall if I shared it anywhere or with anyone - 

ICU

I see you
Convalescing
Unhappily 

From the same time period, from the same filled, now retired diary that was fresh then - 

Love

The chance to give 
if you take a chance

Will we live this dream?
May I have this chance?

Wrote the first line of this next one about a month ago, finished it now.

Tides shift in our souls
Writing the stories of our lives
Again and again

Till further notice these are from about a month ago from my little green diary.

Disappointment said to hope
Why make people expect things?
Hope retorted to disappointment
Why do you have to hurt people?
Their friend named love spoke up
And said, either way I am there
So either way it will be okay

Man, The Candle of G-d

Children grow up and away
Adults forget to remember they were children
Night falls for everyone
Days come and are gone
Let us always accept 
Each other

A State Of Mind

There's the scale
Here I am
I am what I am
Numbers don't define me

Fat

Your fear and anger
Decide not to address them
And then you wear them

---------------

G-d made this day
That is reason to rejoice
That's what David said

---------------

No email gets read
By any given people
The very same way

----

ICU 2

I see you in bed
Your legs trembling
With the noises
Beep, beep, buzz, beep
New age sanitation
Making things better
and worse

---------------

You said that when
I spoke before a
crowd I became 
Superman
I say now, you
were Superman
all the time

---------------

You take your
authority figures
and I'll keep my
intuition
You keep on citing
experts
Meanwhile I'll sigh
and quote my soul

---------------

"You're agitated"
"Sound a bit agitated"
Good things not to say

---------------

A hospital caretaker 
replied to my hospital critique
by saying. "It's not home."
Many replies came to mind
One was - "It's not even 
someone else's home." 

---------------

Looking for control
I fell into the soup bowl
Same as every time

----------------

The need to be filled
Is a need that we all have
It's not about food

----------------

Traffic buzzes by
The ambulance sirens rail
People check their texts
They look up for the buses
And then down at their smart phones

----------------

Finding a moment
Though all the moments are there
Finding one is key

----------------

Not for my honor
Not for my father's honor
But for Your honor
Yonatan ben Uziel 
said it, meant it, and it worked

----------------

8:19 PM - Some of those are less than a month old, some I may have already posted, some I didn't post now because I think I did.  There are still more, may save them for another time.

Work to do...

8:47 PM - Going to close this post.  Just want to say that I'm feeling flu-ish and it's in these minutes in particular that I long for a soft touch and gentle kindness and love and care.  Sigh.