"Come What Come May"

Cooking up a new offering with someone whose work and being I've long respected and admired. It's lovely to be so easily in sync, and mutually committed to creating something spacious.

No one needs more on their plate, but we do need ways to connect.

My spouse knew I was having a bit of a hard time lifting myself up today. They just texted me, "Shakespeare for days like these: Come what come may, time and the hour runs through the roughest day.

Letting myself feel feelings instead of just leaping to the "onward" part of the question.

And also, onward.

Both/and.

Room for all of it.

A client had to reschedule, so Chupie and I had time for a little walk. Birds are singing. I emailed someone at the Red Cross about volunteering in one of the Eastern or Central European countries receiving Ukrainian refugees, wondering if I could revive my Russian enough to be helpful.

I went to services in person on Saturday morning. It was my first time in the main sanctuary of our synagogue since before the pandemic. As I pulled into the driveway, a police car was parking and the cop stepped out to guard the entrance. "Oh right," I thought. Our new normal.

I arrived a few minutes early, and our rabbi was playing piano when I walked in. I saw two other familiar faces--there were only four of us at that point -- and I sat down in the front row, letting my eyes close, realizing how much I have missed being in that actual, physical space.

What I didn't expect was to feel any discomfort, but I did. Not because of anything or anyone in particular, but because other than one trip to visit our AZ family last summer, post-vaccine and pre-Delta (and pre-pre Omicron), I haven't been inside with that many people in two years. Even masked (and likely everyone boosted), I felt an edge of anxiety that I couldn't shake all the way.

I ended up leaving a little early, glad to have been there, determined not to feel shame around it (always feels weird to slip out), and simply acknowledging that this may take me a little time. The rest of my immediate family is in school full-time, so they're fully used to being inside classrooms and buildings for hours at a stretch. But the months and months (and at this point, years) of working from home, having the majority of my human interaction via Zoom, may have caught up with me--and it turns out I am a teeny bit... hermetic? reclusive? agoraphobic?

Maybe "ambivalent" is the best word. It's tied to the fact that I've grown accustomed to a life with relatively little in-person time. Lately, I've been not only missing but craving it; that's partly why I got myself there on Saturday. So I will keep venturing, if incrementally. I read today that the global death toll of Covid has surpassed six million -- a number with particular resonance for me as a Jew.

Together with watching footage of a Russian lieutenant colonel beside himself that he'd been brain-washed into believing that he was helping free Ukraine from fascists -- at one point, addressing his comrades, he says "ребята," which the captions translated as "guys" but literally means "kids" or "children" -- I've been unbearably sad today.

And I am here. I am alive. I get to feel the rain on my skin, taste the coffee on my tongue, snuggle with my birthday pup, and receive the love of my spouse and friends. I get to write. I get to say what I believe. I get to use my voice and read poetry and make plans with a fellow writer and teacher under the auspices of us having a future.

Room for all of this.

Room for all of me, all of you. Come what, come may.