The past month of Jewish holidays has taken a toll on both me and Joe. I chanted haftarah (prophets) the first day of Rosh Hashana, and Torah the second day, and Torah the morning and afternoon of Yom Kippur. In the Reform movement, today is Atzeret-Simchat Torah, the last day of the holiday period. In between everything else, Joe and I are teaching classes at Osher Life-Long Learning through West Virginia University. He is teaching "Old Testament Rituals-Don't Try These At Home," and I'm teaching "The Great Hits and Albums of 1967," fun for me, but a lot of work. We attended a wedding on the Saturday between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur in Alpine Lake, 40 miles east of here, near the Maryland line, and a bat mitzvah in Pittsburgh two days ago. Yesterday, we combined Simchat Torah with the Sunday school, then Joe had an unveiling near Uniontown, Pennsylvania, and spoke on a panel later in the afternoon, followed by a dinner, through Greater Morgantown Interfaith Association. I spoke on a panel at WVU for counseling students Thursday morning, with a priest, a Dakota elder and our local Imam, then grabbed lunch before my own class. We attended a mourning prayer service Thursday night, for the mother and grandmother of congregants. This is in addition to Joe's regular services and my City Council responsibilities. I didn't expect to be so busy in retirement, and I'm sure it's not what Paul Simon envisioned oldness would be.
The kids at WVU asked about my history, and how I came to be religious and believe in God. I told them my story of coincidences in my favor piling up over time, and how I thought Someone had a plan for me of which I was not aware. I got kind of emotional about it all. At the evening service for Rosh Hashana, my attention wandered, and I saw myself as a child with my parents and at Passover seders with my grandparents, aunts and uncles, in Hebrew School and at high school dances, with my first boyfriend in New Orleans, and that time there was snow on the palm trees. I thought about how my grandmother loved me and worried about me when I lived in Miami, and the times I was sick there, about how I came to Los Angeles, my job issues and many career changes. I remembered again all the friends I helped bury during the worst years of the AIDS crisis: Fred and Art, Hal and the others whose names I can't bring up now, all these years later. I remembered how I wanted to meet someone and leave Los Angeles after I suffered a heart attack and my mother died a few weeks later. And then I saw Joe on the bimah leading services and said a quiet "Thank you, God." No one could have predicted fifty years ago that my life would be what it is now.
I still worry plenty about the climate, refugees, Israel, the United States, Morgantown, how long I'm going to live. I don't have any big, immediate worries. Physically, I'm as healthy as can be expected. I've started running, slowly and not far, after thirty-five years of not running. It's a testament to the heart and asthma medication I'm on every day. Still, there are times when I am just exhausted, and no matter the time of day, I need to stop and go to bed. That happened Saturday, when we came back from the bat mitzvah in Pittsburgh, with a stop at Apple Butter Day at friends' farm in Mt. Morris, near here in Pennsylvania.
When the kids asked me Thursday about my spiritual practice I told them the main thing is to say "Thank you, God." I do that when I wake up and when I start a meal, and at random times during the day. I extend that practice to being kind and compassionate to people around me (still working on that), charitable and generous in spirit.
Joe bought me two t-shirts with funny things about cats for my birthday, and we'll have dinner out tonight. I'm speaking to another panel Thursday morning and my class continues in the afternoon. At seventy, having lived longer than my father, grandfather and great-grandfather in my paternal line, I give thanks for my life today.
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| This is what 70 looks like |
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