And we start tonight with the music of the moment:
- Do Ya– ELO
- Be Here Now– Ray LaMontagne
- You Don’t Know Me– Ray Charles
- Taxi– Harry Chapin
- Crossroads– Don McLean
Been screwing around with Instagram, posting pictures and making videos and made a mistake with one of the videos I posted today.
Got me thinking again about a bunch of things that have happened and how some people come and go from our lives. I have said goodbye to a bunch during the past few years and get the sense that more will be leaving.
Some of them have said they have had enough and walked away, even referred to me as a crumb which is always something that makes me roll my eyes.
A bunch of those times I thought it was the end and that was it. I dipped into the sadness, wore it, embraced it and whispered my goodbyes.
But I was fooled more than once and just as I was preparing again something came up and I thought maybe there would be the big conversation.
It didn’t happen and I got irritated by that and hurt by other things. So I jumped in the fire and decided to just burn figuring the fire would cleanse me and learned that doesn’t work either.
I may not be who I once was but I am still mostly invulnerable to that kind of thing so I just ache and scream at the flames to burn brighter.
The Chair Didn’t Hear Me Either
My daughter’s university Hillel had a dinner tonight followed by a speaker. I drove out to hear the speaker with her and her roommate.
Her roommate wasn’t familiar with Jewish geography and was surprised when I pointed out several people I knew and said I knew them from multiple shuls around DFW.
It kind of surprised me too because I don’t know nearly as many people as I do elsewhere but I suppose I have been here long enough to have met a few.
The roommate asked me to elaborate upon Jewish geography and I explained that even though the speaker and I don’t know each other we know people in common through his employer, camps and youth groups.
She said that was interesting and I told her that when you are part of a small community you can run into situations where the multiple people have dated the same people. She asked if that was true and I said I had friends who married ex girlfriends of mine
“It wasn’t intentional, but when you go to the same camps and youth groups you meet the same people.”
*****
It was a hellacious Monday which wasn’t completely unexpected but that didn’t make it any easier.
I got fired up about a few things which I suppose isn’t that surprising but it happens more than I like lately.
I won’t bore you with all of the details but part of what has me scowling is the joy some people feel in bad mouthing kindness.
People who said they want to make life as hard as possible for immigrants so they won’t want to stay and who say homeless people choose to be like that.
Some of them haven’t recognized how easily it is for people to fall into some bad situations. I don’t care how much you have in the bank a couple of big medical issues and some other hard luck items and you can be hurting in a hurry.
But maybe I shouldn’t be surprised because some of them cry about two assassination attempts on a felon but don’t care that five year-old children learn about lock downs in school.
Or worse, they make excuses for why it is ok for children to be shot in school. Some of these people are sick and immoral, there is no excuse.
I say this knowing I am someone who sees shades of gray and understand that some lines are blurred for me but not those lines.
It is why I went after a couple of family members and excoriated them for drinking the Kool Aid of a wannabe Jim Jones/John Gotti.
Can’t tell you how they got so twisted, but they did.
Did I mention that because this was a Jewish event that I joined my daughter at I scoped out the exits and had figured out a path out if we needed it.
I didn’t mention this to her but I don’t think she would be surprised to hear it.
Hope Springs Eternal
Not sure that song really fits but it was the next on the Youtube playlist and I didn’t feel like looking for a quote or picture to mark the stop between the last paragraph and this one.
I showed off for my daughter and pulled up the relevant Hebrew text for the section the speaker was reviewing in English and got a big smile in return.
I looked at her and some of the other young people in the room who I know are going to be voting for the first time and thought about the future.
If we get lucky and things go the right way we’ll keep the felon out and we’ll enter a time in which maybe we can begin to restore and rebuild some of what we have lost.
And if we don’t, well I have been working on my Hebrew again and maybe we’ll see that some dreams never die.
Maybe we’ll see me walking through the homeland as a resident and not a tourist. Some kingdoms remain open to opportunity if have the will and the courage to walk through the doors and I do.
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