Wednesday, October 29, 2008

waking up to turning leaves

No, really - I'm here.

Good things are happening here, but also there were a bunch of holy things, and we just got chagged*. Deeply chagged, and we're emerging in to the light and blinking and looking at our astonishing lists of things that got put off, and oh boy but did we get chagged.

As I wake up from a haze of shul and family and wonderful allergy-friendly food (a significant proportion of which I did NOT cook), I realize that it's autumn, and the leaves have turned. I'm an autumn baby, and I've always loved the crispness and colors of the season. Summer is gloriously, showily generous with it's produce and flowers, but autumn asks me to be patient, and then smacks me with color. Bless Julia, whose eye and camera caught some wonders of autumn, and I'll let her show them to you. For me, I'm catching those wonders at about 40 mph. It's a daily pleasure to see the fire and the light in the leaves on our daily commutes to school, to the other school, home from the second, back to the first and then back home. On leg 3 of the daily schlep, there - there! - is a tree lit with yellow and orange. It lifts the heart, and onwards we go.

(hey Julia, does that let me off the hook?)

We've had a wonderful haze here, filled with grandpaternal liturgical music ("hi, Grandpa!" says the Toddles, as the FIL sings to us from the High Holy Days' liturgy), a birthday (and I couldn't spend it anywhere better than at camp), a rock climbing wall for 3 out of 4 Imperfects - but then again, possibly for all 4. And thoughts and stories about the first two months of school, for both the smaller and the larger of the Imperfect Jrs. I'm hoping to resist the urge to write about the election, but, well, have we met? Yep.

And gluten-free, vegan, nut/seed/etc-free pumpkin muffins, made the lazy way. Hang in there - it's on the way.

* chag means "holiday," the plural is chagim.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

great to see you post again, and I really enjoyed the "reading materials" one also ... my interaction with my mom is not so different (when it comes to organic, minimal strong household cleaners, etc.)

Although I'm in Canada, we are also watching the US election very closely. Our federal election happened recently and wasn't nearly as exciting!

ZM said...

Hey, there!

I'm glad to see you enjoyed the reading materials post. What a fascinating, irritating subject that was. Out of curiosity, is your mother pushing back for a specific reason? General skepticism?

Yep, we're on the edge of our seats here. And not just for the election, for what happens afterwards.

Anonymous said...

Please do post your election thoughts.

I am upset by the commentators who make fun of undecided voters, implying we are stupid for not being able to choose between two very different candidates. Just because two entities are different doesn't mean each doesn't have aspects that are desirable, or, perhaps more to the point, undesirable. Being opposite doesn't mean being one-dimensional.

And then another commentator said the undecideds are simply those who are uninformed or uninvolved and therefore have no opinion and probably won't vote, totally ignoring that candidates are complex package deals whom educated voters will not see as simple binary choices.

It feels ridiculous that I do not have a clear choice at this point. Neither candidate addresses my needs. Voting is an important right, but what use is exercising it when I do not favor either of the candidates winning?