High Holy Days are hard - important, and hard. The rabbi said the day is a beginning, a real beginning of a new world. I took that to heart this year. I believe every day is a beginning of a new world. There are so many choice points. So many ways to consciously or uncounsiously create healing or hurt. I try for healing, but often create hurt. I strive for consciousness but often miss. Even when I act out of love, in best consciousness, in highest intention, it is not always - not even often - enough to heal the hurts of those I love most. And still, right now, with fall light softening and the colors of tonights sunset still unkownable, I have another new beginning - another chance. May I use it for good.

Outside

I'm not Jewish enough
not raised with enough
Hebrew or the words
to all the chants inscribed
inside my eyelids. the
blessings do not dance to
my lips like wind on water.
I never quite know if I chant
too loud or sway too far or
reach with too much hunger
toward the Torah, toward
community with people who
claim me, know me, own me.

Inside

Under my prayer shawl,
chanting in the minor
key of yearning, wordless,
I sway and bend
like a cypress in wind,
I am and do not pretend.
I am, if not Jewish enough,
human enough, inside.
under my prayer shawl.

It is too late to write as much as I want and still get up for work in the morning, but in keeping with my desire to keep posting regularly, I will at least report in. The last three days have been good ones. Danny really liked the kick off mile run for Marathon Kids on the University of Texas track. He has until February to run all but the last mile, which will also be run on the track in a group. Marathon Kids is a neat program promting fitness and nutrition. In addition to t he running both of my school age grands have signed a pledge to eat five fruit or vegetable servings a day (and received fun plastic bracelets to remind them of their promises). This grandma (without even getting a bracelet) has also been reminded and is more vigalent about getting enough fruits and veggies every day. I'm wondering if any of the rest of you have grands associated with Marathon Kids.



The gymnastics meet was a good one for KK, with improved scores, especially a high score in vault. We were all proudest of her lowest score because it showed the kind of resilience we so admire. She had one of those going blank moments early in her floor exercise and just didn't remember the moves - right there in front of everybody - but she held her composure and the body memory came back and she came back so strong on the last tumbling run that she still stayed above eight even on that event. Its not the score that impresses me so much as the holding on in face of adversity, not choking.

The thread about balancing focus with kids has ben encouraging. KK is working so hard right now, and she deserves attention for that (and focusing on it and her is fun). We just need to keep remembering the boys. Danny has a camp out next weekend with his Mom, so that is special for him. And Zach is young enough that it is not hard to do things that he finds novel and special.



I had a delightful Sunday and Monday with Bob. Yesterday we swam in the still warm gulf and visited favorite birding spots. The songbird migration is around midpoint here and we were at a favorite pond near dusk where we enjoyed seeing ten kinds of warblers. I got a great view of an eastern water thrush, a bird I have recently learned to identify. And we has fun listening to a very experienced birder discource on everything we saw - and much I wouldn't have seen without her presence. The black terns (not black in this season) were flying high overhead on their way to Peru and her appreciation of their habits, destination, and delicate wing beats touched me. It is so much fun to be around people who are passionate about and know thoroughly just about anything.



Today at Bob's school I wat in the back of the room making folders and listened as he taught thorough review lessons on big numbers and rounding. He is really in the teaching flow and watching that is such a treat. I especially enjoyed talking with some of the fourth graders I've known since second grade. They are more reserved now, less transparent (and of course bigger) but still warm with me and that was a treat. I will be spending a couple of days in the classroom in November and I'm looking forward to that.

I am very aware tonight how important it is for me to moderate work flow - to take breaks between clients. I worked too many sessions back to back today and ended th day strung out and irritabl - unable to handl changes in plans well. Balance is so hard.

My last activity of the day was a delight. I was Danny's Boy Scout Buddy aat his first pack meeting as a Wolf Cub. Danny seemed to fit in easily with the boys, engaging in a skit which was really very funny (so simple and yet genuinely funny). I liked the men who lead the pack, their obvious pleasure in scouting and each other as well as in the kids. They talk about working to design meetings that are fun for the boys and also encourage listening, paying attention, and group discussion. One thing the boys did was communally generate a "code of bhavior" for hte meetings. They also had crab and bar walk racs. Next weknd Danny and Joanna will go on a camp out near Bastrop. Sounds like fun.

I am very aware tonight how important it is for me to moderate work flow - to take breaks between clients. I worked too many sessions back to back today and ended th day strung out and irritabl - unable to handl changes in plans well. Balance is so hard.

My last activity of the day was a delight. I was Danny's Boy Scout Buddy aat his first pack meeting as a Wolf Cub. Danny seemed to fit in easily with the boys, engaging in a skit which was really very funny (so simple and yet genuinely funny). I liked the men who lead the pack, their obvious pleasure in scouting and each other as well as in the kids. They talk about working to design meetings that are fun for the boys and also encourage listening, paying attention, and group discussion. One thing the boys did was communally generate a "code of bhavior" for hte meetings. They also had crab and bar walk racs. Next weknd Danny and Joanna will go on a camp out near Bastrop. Sounds like fun.

At the end of another long work day I don't feel full of words, but I want to feed my renewed habit of bloggingg. The issues that come up for people in my therapy office seem to follow trends. This week much discussion has been around hope and hopelessness - the same thread Peggy opened on the HCC board. I wonder how much of that has to do with the September 11 anniversary and/or the coming change of season. I found myself speaking up today in favor of hope and action, against cynicism. If I take notice of pain, make an effort to help, try to do the next right thing, I may make mistakes but I will at least have a shot at making a positive difference. If I turn away and do nothing I know I change nothing. I don't have to know the outcome will be good or understand the whole problem. I can't. I can attempt to understand enough, to care enough, and to do the next right thing.

Today was a long work day and tiring, but I had the treat at the end of going out for Mexican food with Joanna and KK, who had just finished ballet class. It was raining out as we soaked in the rich smells and tastes of a warm restaurant - a good way to end a busy day.

A friend on a my half century club message board asked what we saw in the world today that gives us hope for the future. I appreciated the question. Sometimes it is easier for me to feel overwhelmed than hopeful. I do feel hope pased on the progress that has ocured in civil rights and rights for women in the decades of my adulthood. I believe that a higher percentage of persons is more open to diversity in many aspects of life style (though a minority is intensely closed to diversity) than in past decades. I am a person who generally sees hope on a small scale, individual by individual. The clients I see at work, people dedicated to growing past losses, contributing what they can to the world, hoping and thriving, give me hope. The students Bob teaches and their parents, many of them first generation Americans, still working on their English, but full of gratitude to Bob for his efforts and interest, eager to learn, striving, give me hope. Today I felt a moment of hope on the bus when a young man sitting next to me was sufficiently mindful to anticipate a need and help the driver ready straps to accomodate a man in a wheel chair who was boarding the bus. The fact that a small convention of dentists has hired my partner Bill to do a seminar for them on wisdom stories with the stated goal that they want to slow their pace and attend to life balance issues, gives me hope. Wonderful writers who continue to tell important stories (Acts of Faith) about our complex and confounding world, give me hope. Watching my grand daughter's gymnastics team work out - the discipline of the girls and their kindness toaward one another, gives me hope. And always, the cycles of the moon and the seasons, the flow of rivers, the butterflies on the milkweed call out to the part of me that wants to hope even against all hope.

Its been almost six months since I touched this blog. Computer problems last spring shut me down, but since June I've just been stuck in inertia. The fall change is upon us here - rain falling, temperatures also falling out of the miserabl ot range - energy rising. By act of will, I am reviving this blog starting tonight.

I think tonight of lives lost five years ago when the twin towers fell and the Pentagon was attacked. I think of all the lives lost and changed in the wars and terrorist attacks that have occured during the last five years. I mourn. And I grab hold of this moment, this breath, this night and commit myself to a life focused on healing not hurting, life not death.