Dear Mom -
Haven't written for awhile because there was nothing going on that I felt would interest you. I've kind of blown it with Carolyn - some mistakes, some misinterpretations, some things that fed into her own deeply held insecurities - and she isn't speaking to me, has told me to leave her be, she doesn't want to see me or hear from me - so I'm puzzling over how to convince her that I do love her, that I do want to do better, without disrespecting her wishes. I know you don't care about any of this, but you do care about me, so... I'll move on though. Oh, and I am evidently in trouble with Aunt Mitzi for not calling her on Yom Kippur Eve. I don't call anyone on Yom Kippur Eve! If I happen to be talking to someone that day I do wish them a comfortable and spiritually satisfying observance, but... we all know I'm one of the world's worst Jews. Why would that change?
Just read that Fyvush Finkel is doing a one man show in NYC. I thought of you immediately, because you did like him, and not just for his name! But the big entertainment news of interest to you is... Neil Diamond is on the nominations list for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame! Frankly, I don't know why he wasn't selected ages ago, and no, I'm not sucking up (How do you suck up to the dead, anyway?)
Work is going very well. A couple of highlights: In Tudor/Stuart England one student asked me if Catherine Howard was "really a sleazebucket"? I told her that while CH was uneducated, unsophisticated and about as ready to be Queen Consort as my dog, not to mention having been barely raised, rather, left to run wild, she seemed to be absent any malice or calculation and therefore was more 'ninny' than 'sleazebucket'. And in Holocaust Studies I have a wonderful mix of students from all sorts of backgrounds - Fundamentalist Christian to Reform Jew to Agnostic and Exploring - who are remarkably open and eager.
So, with a few glitches in the road, things are going okay. I do wish that some of the people who love me also had respect for me - you would think that the two would be intertwined but it isn't always so.
Oh well. As Kurt Vonnegut Jr used to say, "So it goes..."
Love,
b
PS, The guy who invented the Segway died yesterday - evidently he rode it off a cliff or something. Weird but true.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Monday, September 13, 2010
Dear Mom - No Flowers Necessary
Dear Mom,
Kevin McCarthy died yesterday, at the age of 96, and, to answer your inevitable response, no, you don't have to send flowers.
Remember that he was one of my very first crushes as a girl (somewhere in there with Robert Vaughn during 'Man From UNCLE') You joked once or twice that this was probably why I tended to like older men, though when I settled down, it was with partners who were slightly younger. Reality is sometimes weird and unpredictable, isn't it?
Anyway, my weekend was spent doing things that wouldn't interest you, and my lecture today - on Sumeria, Babylonia and other Ancient Civilizations - was less than my best, so I'll make this short.
Love,
b
Kevin McCarthy died yesterday, at the age of 96, and, to answer your inevitable response, no, you don't have to send flowers.
Remember that he was one of my very first crushes as a girl (somewhere in there with Robert Vaughn during 'Man From UNCLE') You joked once or twice that this was probably why I tended to like older men, though when I settled down, it was with partners who were slightly younger. Reality is sometimes weird and unpredictable, isn't it?
Anyway, my weekend was spent doing things that wouldn't interest you, and my lecture today - on Sumeria, Babylonia and other Ancient Civilizations - was less than my best, so I'll make this short.
Love,
b
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Dear Mom - Come on, Now!
Dear Mom,
So, I know I'm not the perfect daughter, and I talk about stuff you don't really care about, but honestly... last night I wrote you in a heartfelt way, commemorating a holiday that we both love, and what happens? That very night I have a terrible nightmare and you're in it, and angry with me.
So what gives? What am I doing or not doing?
Your confused - and tired - daughter,
Barbara
So, I know I'm not the perfect daughter, and I talk about stuff you don't really care about, but honestly... last night I wrote you in a heartfelt way, commemorating a holiday that we both love, and what happens? That very night I have a terrible nightmare and you're in it, and angry with me.
So what gives? What am I doing or not doing?
Your confused - and tired - daughter,
Barbara
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Rosh Hashanah
Dear Mom,
So it's our New Years Eve, and I made my challah yesterday - not one of my best, but a challah, so there's that - and now I'm waiting for Myke to get back from school so we can observe together.
I was talking about Jewish holidays last night during my Holocaust class - not in any great detail because the lecture is perilously close to running behind the readings, but I was giving them an overall grounding in Jewish history and culture because how can you begin to understand what happened if you don't understand the people to whom it happened, and why they were 'selected'? Anyway, that got me remembering, and then later I was telling our friend Ruthie about our family traditions, and how you made it a family thing, a series of rituals that were given meaning, in part, by the way the family fathered together to enact them.
You were never 'religious' in the conventional sense, although in your own way very spiritual - I remember referring to you as an 'atheist' and you corrected me. You believed in God - or at least in some sort of Superior Being - but weren't comfortable with most organized religions. And, like me, you had a distrust of extremes and extremists.
But Rosh Hashanah and Passover, in particular, were very meaningful to you. I'll never forget the time that, after we'd been deeply estranged for most of a year, I called to ask about the New Year. You were cool - as you'd been for awhile - and said you weren't doing anything special, no big meal or studied observance, but if I wanted to come up from New Jersey, that would be fine, but you weren't extending yourself and you weren't planning on cooking. After stewing for awhile I came to understand - with some help from Jonathan, of all people - that you needed to know that when the chips were down I might be willing to jump through a hoop or two for you, rather than always expecting it to be the other way around. Could I do that? I decided I could. So I called you up and said sure, I'd come, and I'd provide dinner. We arranged for me to meet you at the DMV and we'd go back to your place together.
Well, you came back from lunch soon after I got there, and introduced me around - you'd been there for years but it was my first time visiting you at work - and were able to take off early. We stopped for me to pick up the things I needed for dinner and you added a couple of staples to my basket, and as I went to pay for them you pressed a couple of bills in my hand - more than the cost of what you were getting. When I tried to give you change you waved me away irritably. As we continued to walk, you said you needed to stop in the bakery, where you bought a challah, and the liquor store for wine. "I thought you weren't making a fuss," I said, and you said, "It's Rosh Hashanah. We have to have wine. And bread."
We talked while I cooked, about things I don't remember, and things I remember precisely and well. Jonathan joined us when he got out of work. When we left, I felt the thaw had started. Which it had. Happy New Year indeed. We were all written in the Book of Life for another year, and some years after that.
I miss you. I love you. Those things never change.
b
So it's our New Years Eve, and I made my challah yesterday - not one of my best, but a challah, so there's that - and now I'm waiting for Myke to get back from school so we can observe together.
I was talking about Jewish holidays last night during my Holocaust class - not in any great detail because the lecture is perilously close to running behind the readings, but I was giving them an overall grounding in Jewish history and culture because how can you begin to understand what happened if you don't understand the people to whom it happened, and why they were 'selected'? Anyway, that got me remembering, and then later I was telling our friend Ruthie about our family traditions, and how you made it a family thing, a series of rituals that were given meaning, in part, by the way the family fathered together to enact them.
You were never 'religious' in the conventional sense, although in your own way very spiritual - I remember referring to you as an 'atheist' and you corrected me. You believed in God - or at least in some sort of Superior Being - but weren't comfortable with most organized religions. And, like me, you had a distrust of extremes and extremists.
But Rosh Hashanah and Passover, in particular, were very meaningful to you. I'll never forget the time that, after we'd been deeply estranged for most of a year, I called to ask about the New Year. You were cool - as you'd been for awhile - and said you weren't doing anything special, no big meal or studied observance, but if I wanted to come up from New Jersey, that would be fine, but you weren't extending yourself and you weren't planning on cooking. After stewing for awhile I came to understand - with some help from Jonathan, of all people - that you needed to know that when the chips were down I might be willing to jump through a hoop or two for you, rather than always expecting it to be the other way around. Could I do that? I decided I could. So I called you up and said sure, I'd come, and I'd provide dinner. We arranged for me to meet you at the DMV and we'd go back to your place together.
Well, you came back from lunch soon after I got there, and introduced me around - you'd been there for years but it was my first time visiting you at work - and were able to take off early. We stopped for me to pick up the things I needed for dinner and you added a couple of staples to my basket, and as I went to pay for them you pressed a couple of bills in my hand - more than the cost of what you were getting. When I tried to give you change you waved me away irritably. As we continued to walk, you said you needed to stop in the bakery, where you bought a challah, and the liquor store for wine. "I thought you weren't making a fuss," I said, and you said, "It's Rosh Hashanah. We have to have wine. And bread."
We talked while I cooked, about things I don't remember, and things I remember precisely and well. Jonathan joined us when he got out of work. When we left, I felt the thaw had started. Which it had. Happy New Year indeed. We were all written in the Book of Life for another year, and some years after that.
I miss you. I love you. Those things never change.
b
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Dear Mom - Technology and its Deeper Meanings
Dear Mom -
I got my Kindle, finally. Ive downloaded about thirty free titles so far, most of them classic lit, but some offbeat books that looked interesting, too. And why not, when they're free? The Kindle is lightweight, easy to use, and while not everything I want is available, they do have a stated goal of 'everything'.
This got me musing - always dangerous - about the new technologies and what they do for us, not to mention what they say about us. The Kindle is about convenience - being able to cart hundreds, maybe thousands of books around on a slender device you can pop into your purse, saving space in your home, your luggage... remember how when I travelled more, my carry on bag was always full of books? Now I can travel light - and if I run out of things to read, a click will get me the next book in a minute or less!
Very nice. But, as one of my pet philosophies of life has it, everything is a trade off. You and I could never have gotten Middle Street off the ground today. It was hard enough, competing with the big chains, then the online vendors, now we'd be competing with eReaders as well. And I'd be a traitor! So society as a whole is starting to lose something precious in the name of convenience. It's called progress, and I'm not one for caves and outdoor plumbing, but I do know it comes at a price.
Ok, I've been sufficiently gloomy. Off to put together another Power Point, and then clean the study.
Love,
b
I got my Kindle, finally. Ive downloaded about thirty free titles so far, most of them classic lit, but some offbeat books that looked interesting, too. And why not, when they're free? The Kindle is lightweight, easy to use, and while not everything I want is available, they do have a stated goal of 'everything'.
This got me musing - always dangerous - about the new technologies and what they do for us, not to mention what they say about us. The Kindle is about convenience - being able to cart hundreds, maybe thousands of books around on a slender device you can pop into your purse, saving space in your home, your luggage... remember how when I travelled more, my carry on bag was always full of books? Now I can travel light - and if I run out of things to read, a click will get me the next book in a minute or less!
Very nice. But, as one of my pet philosophies of life has it, everything is a trade off. You and I could never have gotten Middle Street off the ground today. It was hard enough, competing with the big chains, then the online vendors, now we'd be competing with eReaders as well. And I'd be a traitor! So society as a whole is starting to lose something precious in the name of convenience. It's called progress, and I'm not one for caves and outdoor plumbing, but I do know it comes at a price.
Ok, I've been sufficiently gloomy. Off to put together another Power Point, and then clean the study.
Love,
b
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