I am still writing every day.
I write every day to communicate I write every day to ease my anger and frustration. I write every day to make sense of things that can’t make sense.
For weeks and months the world has been screaming for a ceasefire. Only the US stood up to them. Now the pressure is on for a “two state solution,” untenable, dangerous. Where is the pressure to release our hostages? How is it that so few have the guts to make this demand?
“Hostage” woven sculpture by Sam
Yes, I continue to write because it has become my way to process the cavalcade of events, thoughts, experiences that are happening at a feverish rate in my not so quiet retirement life.
Does anyone else feel what Sam and I have been sensing and discuss every day ? Do others feel this poignancy in every interaction? The constant triggering?
I feel like the intensity of daily life has been dialed up several notches. Are we now just more aware? What has really changed ? Since Oct 7th I feel like my Jewish antennae have been working overtime. Maybe I have always been in training for this moment. My antennae are well exercised from 70 years of sensing anti- Israel and anti-Jewish behavior even though I felt safely Jewish in America.
So what is new? What is new is that I realize that the little insults may not have been so little after all. For so long I chose to be quiet, to look the other way, to focus everyone else’s problems.
Now it is not easy to communicate such deeply emotional and fundamental shift in myself awareness. This is why I must continue to write. Through my daily explorations I am exploring and documenting this moment in history. Yes, I am living in an historical moment that needs careful documentation. Writing is my exercise for awareness.
Speaking of exercise…..
Every Sunday, I am walking with my neighbors in nearby Clearwater in an international movement called Run for Their Lives. In over 100 communities people gather to run/walk. We hope in this way we can increase awareness in our communities of the plight of the hostages Hamas stubbornly holds in captivity. We hope every week our meetings will no longer be necessary and that the hostages will be released. But until they are freed we gather and will say prayers for their l welfare ( mishaberach)
As we say each person’s name we are seeing them clearly as the individuals they are. We use the Hewish tradition of saying their Hebrew name as well as the name of each person’s mother or father. In Jewish tradition we are not isolated loners. We are always connected to our lineage, to our parents and our ancestors. We hope that during these interminable days each individual hostage senses the energy and love we are transmitting from all parts of the world.
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