Dwelling in Possibility

Summer Magic

The leaves on the dogwoods are always the first to go. Early August, you start to see the brilliant red burst out on the trees, and you know that it’s soon going to be over. Kids start coming home from a long summer at camp, with bites and scratches and rank laundry and a new sense of independence and poise, as well as secrets that we, their parents, will never know.

Back-to-school overtakes all shopping, and while many are still away on vacation, many have trudged back, and are already counting the days – kids usually with trepidation, parents usually with enthusiasm that the less structured time of the year is winding down.

High school sports start two weeks before school, and those who happen to have a college student who happens to also be a Resident Manager have already trucked that child off to school, nine hours from home, for a two-week training session before school starts.

And yet, I am still experiencing some summer magic.

It’s midnight, and my backdoor is wide open, as it is another gorgeous and cool night in a summer that has been rife with them. The fireflies and cicadas are lighting up my backyard and filling it with song. There is still a hint of jasmine and honeysuckle when I take my morning walks in the park before it gets too sunny.

This week there was a second Super Moon, which I missed because it’s been cloudy, but I saw the one in July hover over the beach – huge and red and magnificent and portentous. I always tell my children that when I travel overseas, I am seeing the same moon they are back here, and when I see it here, I like to think of my friends and family who live across oceans and time zones and sometimes intractable distance.

Philosophy 101 at 50

I’m no philosopher, but I’ve found myself pondering questions of great consequence of late. Not sure if it’s middle age agita, which, while a lifetime away from teenage angst, is still rife with questions that seemingly have no answer (you’re just not as likely to write maudlin poems about them.) Or if it’s merely watching my children grow, sprout wings and suddenly leap, learning how to fly along the way.  In either case, I am consumed with the great questions of life these days. 

What is my purpose?

What happens next?

What will I accomplish before I die?

The death one is particularly loud and penetrating in my ears. Maybe it's because I was weaned on Woody Allen, but I have found the question of my own mortality to be clinging to me almost constantly. Not so much in a morbid way, but as an almost-constant companion, a prism which overlays much of what I do and see. As in: I will not always be here; I must appreciate the quotidian moments of life.  The lines from the Mary Oliver poem, “Mindful,” describe it perfectly:

Everyday
I see or hear
something
that more or less

kills me
with delight

This is how I want to live each day.  To be killed by delight. I like its oxymoronic ideal.

I attended a synagogue service today. The rabbi gave a sermon on the existential issue of fate versus destiny, and how free will impacts them both. She concluded that fate is the hand we’re dealt – into what time and place we are born, our gender, our parents, our physical characteristics – while destiny is what we choose to do with it.

Choose life, she implored. Free will is our ticket to life on this earth.

Heavy stuff, especially for the bat mitzvah girl that morning, who was probably thinking more about her friends and her party. Never the less, it made me ponder my choices over the past year, all of which have changed my life and the lives of those around me dramatically.

Only Connect – A Paean to Dinner, Dancing and Discovery in Mid-Life

It was a dark and stormy night …

No, really, it was.

The waves crashed over the retaining wall at the North Tel Aviv port. The storm had been hanging over Israel for days, making usually sunny Tel Aviv chilled and cloudy and feeling more like Seattle.  Snow was already starting to fall in Jerusalem, which, later in the week, would shut the city down, closing roads, stranding travelers and even blocking the entranceways to the city itself.

Few ventured out that night, the surfers waiting for the light of day to take advantage of the wild, giant waves. Two intrepid diners made their way to one of the hip restaurants in what is usually an area bustling with nightlife. On this night, they dined alone.

One of those diners was me, determined to enjoy a respite from a long work trip to Israel, despite the discouraging weather. I had promised a friend from home that I would deliver a package to her friend in Israel, whom I had met once before.  So her friend was my dinner date.

By the end of dinner, he had become my friend as well. Actually, to be fair, we had established that connection long before the end of the meal, certainly before the second glass of wine and the exchanging of personal life stories, mixed with complicated conversation about Israel, our mutual work, his life there and my life here.

To be honest, I was kind of dizzy with pleasure, because, truly, how often do we, at mid-life, make a new friend? Sure, we connect with people at our work places, and that can be rewarding. If we’re parents, we might make a connection with the sympatico parent of one our children’s friends. We meet people at our places of worship, and in our volunteer activities. It’s also possible that we can meet someone in a random place, and realize that we’re destined to know each other.

But to really, truly make a new friend?  Rare. Hard work. It has to be unusual circumstances to lead to such an encounter.