In some ways, saying goodbye to 2024 is bittersweet. It is both a relief and a sadness. I’m still wearing my Harns/Walz bracelets and yearn for what might have been. Nothing was going to be perfect, but I have no doubt that it would have been better.
I spent yesterday looking back at this website, traveling from December all the way back to January to find which posts stood out to me. some were great; Some were not so great, but they all propelled my writing forward. A few of my favorites are linked below for you to also look back on. Tomorrow, I’ll begin with my intentions and actual resolutions for the New Year.
After 25 or so years home with my kids, I now have a job outside the house that I truly love. I never expected this to happen, and I’m so glad that the time was right, both for me and the place.
I have a good path forward for my book. I’m organizing the research and the photos, and I will also be presenting a program in the summer on St. Kateri’s Journey and her life.
My first introduction to Louise Penny was with State of Terror, the book she co-authored with Hillary Rodham Clinton, which admittedly was what drew me to the book in the first place. I highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in mysteries and state department/political thrillers. It’s taken me a few years since then to rediscover the author Louise Penny when her Gamache Series was recommended to me recently in a writing class.
I may have mentioned in a previous note, here or on Facebook, that I’ve become obsessed with Louise Penny’s Chief Inspector Armand Gamache mystery series. I’ve read the entire series and am less than patiently waiting for the next book that will be released in October. I am about halfway through a second read-through – did I mention that I was obsessed?! I had recommended them to a friend of mine and it turned out she was already reading them! It is so hard to talk to her about them and not give her any spoilers. I had planned to write a proper review and recommendation for next week or the week after, however, today is a special day in the books (and in my own life as I’ll explain).
There should not be any spoilers not found in the synopsis on the backs of the books.
The Eucharist is the highway to heaven – Carlo Acutis
I had heard about Carlo Acutis several years before his relics and Eucharistic Exhibition came to my church. I was intrigued not only by such a young man who was venerated and declared Blessed, but by how recently he had died (in 2006) of acute promyelocytic leukemia. He was near enough to my kids’ ages that it was something that pulled at me. I had seen photos of him and read brief snippets, but when I was told that this exhibition and his relics were coming to our church for nearly a week during Lent, I began to read more. I volunteered to help during the exhibition, and I attended the talks given by the woman, Eileen Wood at Catholic Quest, who was custodian of this display and his relics as well as several of the liturgies held during that week. We also had our own resident expert give a couple of talks about relics in general as well as Eucharistic miracles in particular. It was a busy time at our church, and we had over 1500 visitors in the time we held the exhibit.
When I wake up, I have a morning ritual that I do. Obviously, this changes if I have an appointment or a schedule I need to keep, but I usually try to slowly wake up and follow my routine. This consists of taking my morning meds, and then getting on my kindle: games, email, threads, banking, and then I begin my day with breakfast, shower, getting dressed, and lately sitting right down at the computer to get my writing in. I like routines.
The first of the games I go to is The Washington Post’s Quotes. They give you a quote, and you have three chances to guess who the speaker is or what they’re speaking about. It scores between one and five points depending on when you guess, but of course, in the grand scheme of things the points don’t matter. Still, I enjoy getting a five on most days. On Fridays, they give you ten questions so that takes a bit longer.
I woke up yesterday and went to the link, but paused, thinking that I did not have time to do ten questions before I needed to start my day, and so I skipped ahead to Wordle, and planned to get back to the quotes later in the afternoon. It took a few minutes, but in the middle of the puzzle, I realized that it wasn’t Friday, but Tuesday.
It’s only Tuesday?!
How long was Monday?!
How could it not be Friday? Monday was like ten days long!
Monday has been ten days long for about six weeks now. Mondays have been so productive and busy that it feels like a week has gone by when I wake up on Tuesday.
I saw a friend last night, and mentioned this to her, and she agreed and said she has the same phenomenon happen to her. I’m glad I’m not the only one living in a prolonged Monday.
We spent eclipse weekend in Montreal, Canada. Once we were shut out of Syracuse (too expensive) and Plattsburgh (no room at the – or any – inn), it wasn’t a difficult decision to go a short distance further. I love being that close to the border, and luckily our passports are current.
Because of the research I planned to do while we were up there, I thought we’d pop our chairs down at the park near the Ile de Tekakwitha on the Mohawk territory/Kahnawake. We scoped it out the night before and the parking looked extremely limited, but we were still hopeful. We would decide when the time came. As darkness settled in, we drove out to the main road for dinner – Robbie’s Smokehouse!
On Monday, we woke up bright and early; adventure awaited!
Easter falls so weirdly on the calendar. Often it is the same week as Passover, which makes sense because Jesus went to Jerusalem for the Passover Festival during what is now Holy Week. But this year, Easter is this Sunday (March 31), and Passover doesn’t begin until nearly a month later, at sundown on April 22. Adding into that is that this is my ten-year anniversary of coming into full communion with the Catholic Church. A decade. So long and so short simultaneously showing truly how the days are long, but the years short.
My Easter Vigil was on April 19, 2014. I’ll celebrate that day as well, attending church, having mass said for special people in my life, and I’ll also be celebrating this week as we welcome new people into the church and our parish. There are two baptisms which I find fraught with emotion. Being able to watch what I went through is both nostalgic and spiritual. I still remember the water being poured over my head, slowly, three times, as the words penetrated my being. I still talk about how my priest used a water pitcher, a small one, but still a pitcher and how in subsequent years it was more like a clam shell. It’s amusing to me until I think about the amount of icy water dripping down my robe, although I guess flowing might be a more apt word. I kneeled in a tub, a literal baby-sized plastic pool while subsequent catechumens were stood over a basin. It is a beautiful, ceramic basin, and I am in part jealous and also awed by watching my own experience play out for others, regardless of the intricacies and the details. My robes were made by my friend. The incense rising on Holy Thursday made the shape of a Jewish star. I pointed it out to my godmother, so I know I didn’t imagine it. The chrism oil from the confirmation smelled of rosemary. I leaned over to my husband and friend and told them to smell my face. It was a pleasant, old-world, feeling of ancestors, and something I’ve only felt a few times, three times during my children’s brises and namings, and on my pilgrimage to Wales and Auriesville. It was doing something as part of something bigger, huge, that often can’t be put into words or even thoughts. It’s not that it’s old, but it’s, as Tevye says in Fiddler on the Roof, “tradition,” where tradition means so much more than the dictionary definition. It’s deeper than the ocean and vaster than the stars. It’s time stood still and it’s time speeding past. A single line or a wibbly-wobbly mush of threads or yarn tightening in some places, loose in others, knotted, and dangling and frayed and worn and strong and sturdy. It is faith, and it is questioning. It is changing and encouragement. It is friendship and relationship and knowing everything and still nothing.
Ten years of prayer, of mass, of rosaries, of devotions, novenas, saints and blessed, seeing beyond and within. When we renew our baptismal vows on Saturday night, I will close my eyes and let the water land where it wills, the cleansing water of G-d, that reminds of the past and prepares for the future.
I’ve been thinking a lot about my observances and views especially since coming across the thoughts of Robin Wall Kimmerer in reconciling her own feelings on her family’s rituals, but also since the terror attacks in Israel on October 7th and the rampant antisemitism since then. I wonder if I should be doing more as a Jewish person. I wonder (for the first time) if I should have converted – it’s not that I don’t believe; I do believe wholeheartedly, but am I betraying the Jewish people? Am I still Jewish to others? *I* know I am still Jewish. I just feel on the outside. I have always felt somewhat on the outside. I’m more religious than some; I’m less than most. Does what I do count? Who decides that?
I have many thoughts, but they are not forming cohesively and rationally. They come in screams and anger and heartbreak. And reflection.
A family piece that’s come down from my mother. A Rabbi, praying. (c)2024
This is the first part of a three-part series. The impetus was something I read in Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, which I will reflect on in the last part. Part One delves into my childhood, growing up Jewish in what I consider a fairly religious household, although it was less religious than my grandparents’ households that my parents grew up in. Looking back, it is certainly more religious than I raised my own kids in, and that will be discussed in Part Two. Part Three, funny enough is the part I wrote first, but then kept expanding and writing and re-writing, and realized there was more backstory than I could fit into that section. I hope you enjoy reading about my past lives, and my reflections and reconciliations with who I am today and how I became that person, at least in this one aspect of my life.
I’ve been searching for the write inspiration for December, and this first night of Chanukah brought things into perspective. A little bit of perspective. While the internet and the news are filled with antisemitism and protests from people intent on gaslighting the Jewish experience and deny Jewish people the indigeneity of their homeland, I have been on a quest to celebrate Chanukah publicly. I’m a little wary about it. I live in a nice neighborhood, but I don’t put my head in the sand and think that it couldn’t happen here. I know it can.
Still….
I went out and bought blue and white lights for outside, something I’ve never done. I have an interactive menorah hanging on my front door, again, something I’ve never done. In fact, since I’ve been on my own (and with my own family) I have not put Chanukah lights in the window. That unfortunately will continue because I know that if I put candles on my windowsill, my mother would come back from the grave and blow them out with a raucous, and loud message of fire safety.
Most people don’t know the story of Chanukah; perhaps some teachers wanting to bring multiculturalism to their classrooms, and now the story of the Maccabees is being co-opted to match the narrative, anything to turn the words of Jews and their history against them. The Festival of Lights isn’t about war. It isn’t about victory. It is about faith. The miracle isn’t that the Maccabees won against their most recent oppressor. The miracle is the lights themselves. When we retook the temple, amid the destruction, they went to light the candelabra to rededicate the temple, the menorah – not the nine-branch one that most are familiar with, but the regular, ordinary menorah that is always lit in the temple. There was only enough oil to keep it lit for one night. There was no other oil. So, what did they do? They lit it anyway.
And it remained lit, not one night, not two, not three or four, not even five or six or seven, but it remained lit for eight days. One day’s oil lasted for eight days. That is the miracle. And that is why we light eight candles on a new type of menorah used just for this holiday: a hanukkiah.
Tonight, I will say the prayers (that I don’t normally say). I will fry the latkes in oil. I will fry the chicken in oil. I will light the first candle on the same menorah that I lit as a child; the one that I grew up watching the candles burn down on the dining room table that was my grandmother’s. It will be placed on that same dining room table in my own house. My kids will see the lights on the same menorah, the same table, and they will be able to see through my eyes, even amidst the clutter that seems to grow multi-generationally on this dining room table.
This year, however, this old menorah has a special, additional meaning. I saw this menorah in Toronto at the Royal Ontario Museum in their Judaica exhibit, in the Chanukah window. A copy/replica of MY Chanukah menorah sits in the largest museum in Canada. The exhibit label states that it is from Gdansk, Poland, brass, from the early 1900s.
Happy Chanukah.
My family menorah. (c)2023
Royal Ontario Museum Judaica Exhibit. Hanukkah menorah, “Danzig” type, Gdansk, Poland, early 1900s. (c)2023
Ready for sundown. You can view it lit later tonight on Instagram (link in sidebar). (c)2023
Griffins and Ginger Snaps 