Featured Refresh
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How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.
Big lesson this week: stuff is just stuff. I was putting our kiddush cups away in the china cabinet when one flew out of my hand and smashed into the salt water dish that I had inherited from my Bubbe. Pre-pandemic me would have cried, found the glue, pieced it back together, prayed until Pesach that it would work, stressed over it not working, and cry some more. Post-pandemic....ooops, nope, guess we're not there yet! Pandemic-me takes a picture, sends a text to my mother with an "oh well" and tosses it in the trash. It's just a thing. Yes, it gave me joy. It helped me connect with my past, my traditions, and my family. But in the greater scheme of things, when everything is so scary and there's just a fine line between life and death, I'm not going to waste my time worrying about the fine lines in my now cracked salt water dish. No salt water, no tears. Just prayers that next year we can be together!
September 11, 2020
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How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.
This has been a tough week. Covid fatigue is one thing. Anxiety about the elections another...those feelings I’ve been dealing with fine, I thought. After flipping back and forth between the town halls and such different visions of what represents America and who we are, and who we want to be, left me reeling. I don’t watch the news so am pretty insular to such a stark difference. It left me numb And unmotivated to do much... my screen time is up as I surf YouTube for something, anything to lift my spirits ... Well not just anything as cute puppy and adorable kittens feel too immature and wasted. I need knowledge, I need to learn something, I need to feel that somehow in the midst of all the divisiveness in the country knowledge is power and I can take back mine some how. So tiptoeing past TikTok, no politics, and no conspiracy theories is not necessarily an easy journey. A crystal in my window gave me this prism on the wall. The colors danced and shimmered and got lighter and brighter from moment to moment. It gave me hope that the dark cloud i felt settling over me might be held at bay somehow. If the smallest bit of light can change a dull flat empty white space to a reminder of joy, and color however brief the encounter, then maybe there can be some sort of symbiotic energy transfer to my soul. Then i realized I have a choice each day to decide if I want to carry forth the lasting shimmer of possibility, or the blank emptiness of the white void. That choice is mine to make, and is the start of taking back my power.
October 27, 2020