There will be days filled with sun, and others with rain. Remembering this while standing in the rain can take away a bit of the severity as you roll with the punches.
I took my children to see the roses today. I realized that we had not visited yet and June has nearly closed her doors.
Winding our way through the beautiful rows of flowers I lead them to my favorite bunch, Double Delight and a memory struck me. My Aunt Betty had these same blooms outside of her home in Montana on a late August afternoon in 2000. It was then that she introduced me to my favorite flower. S
he passed away last week and I stood looking at the flowers, thinking of Betty, and all that she stood for and meant to me growing up.
People will not remember what you achieved, but rather how you made them feel. I felt loved, cared for, and filled with humor whenever I spent time with my aunt. May her memory be a blessing and live on through our hearts and our days.
I have been at a loss for words over the last almost eight months.
Gulp.
There aren’t enough words in the English language to convey the amount of horror I have seen displayed across the world wide web, and in communities far and wide. The first few days after October seventh I felt like I was living in a stunned silence. I had been talking about the rise of antisemitism in small circles, and by and large through my blog for years, but since that October day, I find myself fully changed.
I had felt a resurgence of my ethnoreligious identity since late 2015. I full reconnected to practicing it in 2016 leaning into my faith to walk through life with multiple griefs for both my sister and my pregnancy losses. Here’s the thing, faith is personal, so is religion, but further more, it is also universal. To be a human on this planet, is to walk with faith whether it is in oneself, in a higher entity or with the calling within the natural world. The universality of humanity was something I had always leaned into. After October seventh, and the subsequent months since then, my humanity has been unwavering, but the churning whirlpools of my fellow humans severely concern me.
There have been days and weeks when I shut out the world—a privilege that I have, yes, and I go about my life with my family and friends. However, I want to say that in the back of my mind, I constantly feel in a state of hypervigilance.
Where would we run to?
What would we do?
What did my kindergartener talk about with friends today? How do I lean into joy right here and right now?
Maintaining presence, be present Rachel, focus right here. Right now.
When will the hostages be released? Did I read, “The Times of Israel?” today?
Refocus, Rachel, right here, right now, what can I do?
Mitzvot.
What actions can we channel today to pour more light into the world?
The clouds gather daily, but they dissipate when I focus on the light. The whirlpool of doubts are powerful none the less, but I have learned how to acknowledge the presence of them, and step aside to let them pass. Finding a way to seek a balance of information, pride in who I am, who my people are, and where I come from in the age of disinformation feeling like I am a part of a chronic act of tossing balls into the air and juggling.
Then I am reminded of something imperative.
Heineini.
I am here.
What a gift.
I am here for a reason.
I see my children before me.
I see the light reflected in their eyes.
What a gift.
What gratitude floods out from my heart.
May it be so that all of our hostages be released, now.
That all suffering worldwide be ended and hatred be put to rest.
The utopic principles of my heart are restitched whenever I see a reflection of light poured out from one hand reached out for another.
“Want to play with me?” I hear his little voice rise above the waves in my head.
Long quiet pause.
“That’s okay, I’ll be over here if you do.”
Watching his tiny and bold figure move to the other side of the sandbox.
startwithsparkles 