Shavua tov, lovely souls!
I have a little backlog of notes and art and things that have given me joy, so I’ve bundled them up for another email offering. November has been a rough month, some reasons personal and some collective.
The world is too much and it’s also perfection.
I spent the first two weeks of the month ill and unable to speak for about five days, an eye-opening new experience for me. I resurfaced and noted how overwhelming and also deeply missed the pace of daily life had been.
The world is too fast, too disconnected, too demanding, too stimulating, too unforgiving, and too miraculous not to be missed for the ways that life and the world transcend all of those excesses to create connection, inspiration, entertainment, and the unfathomable perfection of nature. I was lucky to get my first snowy Friday morning walk with a dear friend, so that I could be reminded of that last one.
Life is fucking relentless.
This is my my 20th year organizing my local folks for NaNoWriMo and this mug below was given to me by one of the local folks, Sean, and it’s just really perfect. Life is relentless, true in all of the tones in which that can be said. I am relentless too, relentlessly surviving, changing, wrestling, recuperating, challenging, and witnessing all of it. This crab embodies all of the attitude necessary to communicate the exhaustion of a relentless life and the chutzpah of living relentless through it. I’m channeling that vibe to get through the winter.
It’s been a rough month to be trans.
Ohio House Bill 454 is continuing to work toward a state registry of trans children, among other shitty, transphobic things. As I dread the meeting I have to have in next week with my kid’s school to address an entire semester of misgendering, while holding space for an almost entirely LGBTQ+ client load amid continued violence, and while also exist in my own experience in a red state intent on oppressing and othering every marginalized population that exists within its borders, I remembered making this some months ago as a quiet creative processing of my worry about the world we’re handing to new generations.
Where is your G*d?
I already shared my notes, but this is the Psalm 42 art from class with Lexi at The Torah Studio a few weeks ago. This psalm will remain a favorite, and I felt and heard so much hidden within its layers. The role of water / bodies of water that include OUR body of water in the text has been sitting with me since. The way I wandered into seeing our tears as parts of us trying to return to their source has made my relationship to my tears something slightly new, slightly more divine.
Ancestral wounding can never be carried by one person.
Took me a minute to finish my parsha study notes this week (working on multiple cool things at the moment!). I found myself really sitting with each of the people in this section of the formative family trauma narrative that is much of Torah and thinking about the way ancestors can lead us forward through the actions we wish to embody, and also the lessons they learned and mistakes they navigated on our behalf.
I feel angry with everyone involved as I read Toldot this time around, and I also feel a sobering understanding of everyone as well, which led me to reflective wrestling of my own. I’ve been taught in many ways over decades now to reach for ancestors who lived and died well. Sometimes the way an ancestor lives well isn’t to have lived perfectly, but to have f*cked around, then really, REALLY found out, then left that story where it’s needed in our collective memory.
May my own living well include learning what I need to from this terrible mashup of family woundings.
Latest doses of joy have been located!
My joy currently found riding my legendary Pokemon through Pokemon Violet during delightful virtual co-op sessions with loved ones. Hit me up if you’d like to catch ’em all with me. Here’s the kiddo and I posing for selfies in-game and giggling with the delight the whole time. I hope you also find sources of light, joy, and hilarity this week in a world that sometimes feels too heavy for bearing.
Sources of delight, good pondering, helpful information, or hilarity:
- Jay Smith’s “Gevurah Gevurah” comic is some of my favorite recent art, and had me thinking about balance as an ongoing process of returning excesses to their Source.
- My new answer for “When is Chanukah?” going forward. Exactly the right amount of cheeky while also being an accurate answer.
- I want to see more folks who endeavor to be seen as trans allies start to embody this exact energy, ASAP.
- Sophia, aka Maimonides Nutz, gave good Jewish art and good Jewish jokes this week and I’m always here for both.
- Looking to create ritual and reflection around Rosh Chodesh? Jewitches has your back with this really beautiful digital guide, which I insta-purchased upon sight (and did not regret it).
- If you’re in search of whimsy, A Daily Cloud gave very good cloud this week.
- Do you buy too many journals but remain perpetually in search of more? May Designs is having a sale that includes a longstanding favorite of mine, their classic notebook.
NaNo word count update as of this wee mailing: 43,890 words out of 50,000. Three-ish days left! I’m not doing the math on days until Chanukah until I’m done counting noveling days, so don’t ask. 😉
Thank you for letting me sit with you as you’ve wandered these musings. I’m rooting for and with you, as always.
Yaakov