Sounds Like...

When I was a little kid, there was really only one thing I liked about high holiday services: hearing the shofar. The service itself was words, words, words. But the shofar! The shofar was this powerful sound that just filled the sanctuary, filled my ears, filled my imagination.

At Rosh Hashanah services today, I watched parents go get their kids out of the babysitting room to come in to the sanctuary right before the shofar-sounding was about to commence. The kids came in with the same enthusiasm that I had when I was a child. The shofar! Yeah!

Now a grown up, who can value the words, words, words that make up the rest of the service (well... most of them...) I have to admit - there's still something about the sound of the shofar. If you've never heard the sounding of a shofar, well - it's hard to describe the sound. A shofar is a long, often twisted, ram's horn; not an easy instrument to play. A skilled shofar sounder, though, can render long, primal notes from it.

Note: I am not good at playing the shofar.
Nor am I great at self-portraits.

In ancient times, the shofar was sounded to signify holidays, the coronation of a king, the start of a jubilee year. It was also used in war - to warn the Israelites of enemies oncoming, and to panic and disorient those enemies. It is a powerful sound... and listening to it today, I also realized it might be one of the only sounds we hear today that truly and literally hearkens us back to assemblies thousands of years in the past.

We're surrounded by sound now - traffic, radios, humming electricity, buzzing cell phones. But there's nothing else that sounds like a shofar. And somehow, the sounding of the shofar silences modern noise and summons people, once again, to listen to an older, plaintive, summoning-sound.


(And if anyone's cell phone had gone off during the shofar-sounding, that army of kids and I would've taken that disrespectful brute down.)


Wishing you all a sweet year filled with love, health, momentum and abundant blessings!

Starts with a "P." Ends with "erspective."

The universe can be very, very subtle in its messaging. sometimes too subtle. But lately, at least in my life, the universe is about as subtle as the box of extra-strength mints your best friend shoves at you when you're killing small plants and animals with garlic-Dorito-onion breath. I mean, really.

There was the humbling realization that my stressful day really wasn't that bad when I watched a soldier bid his family farewell.

Two days later, stressed out again, this on a train, running late for a work meeting and about ready to explode - a passenger in my train car had a heart attack. Our train was evacuated, I wound up being even later to the work meeting, of course. But gone was my ability to feel like being 30 minutes late was anything even close to resembling a bad day.

Then last night, I was at FedEx. It was about 7pm, and I was there for work, waiting on a full-color multi-page work document to be printed, so I could then priority-overnight it... and then I'd head home to do a few more hours of work. (I haven't put in fewer than 10 hours of work any day this week. Or pretty much for the past two months.) Needless to say, I was - again - caught up in my own stress and impatience.

The woman in front of me was taking forever to ship her package. The items she was shipping also clearly cost less than what she was going to pay to ship them: all she had were three bottles - shampoo, conditioner and some sort of mousse/styling product - in a Walmart bag. The items were probably collectively worth less than $10, and she was spending almost $40 to overnight them. She was also taking her time, carefully peeling the price tags off the bottles, s-l-o-w-l-y adding each to the overnight shipping box. I was mentally tapping my fingers. Come on! I'm hungry! I have more work to do! Let's go!

"Any of them aerosol?" Asked the girl behind the counter, gesturing to the toiletry items as the woman placed the last one into the box for shipment.

The woman shook her head. She was wearing cargo pants, and large brown work-boots covered in mud.

"No ma'am," she said. "This is all for my daughter, and she's not allowed to have aerosol where she is right now." She paused, and then added, as if she somehow had to, as if she couldn't not say the words, a little softer but with steel behind them: "She's in jail."

All I can really say is that I am reminded of the quote: Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle. (Apparently, the attribution for that quote remains under debate - which doesn't diminish its truth.)

I totally created this artwork myself.
I know, right?!

It's appropriate, too, that tomorrow is Rosh Hashanah, the new year. And in the coming week, two more milestones are ahead: my four-year anniversary with D, and the one-year anniversary of miraculously surviving a horrible wreck on I-55. Time keeps on ticking. I'm out of excuses for wasting a minute. (Except for those minutes 'wasted' on the occasional trashy TV show or visiting Damn You Auto-Correct. Used sparingly, those are not wasted moments, they are rejuvenating ones.)

Anyway, the point is -- hey, You up there? I get it. Third time's the charm. Starts with a "p," ends with "erspective." Time to gear up for a new year, to focus on what really matters, and to get closer to who and where we all want to be.

And don't worry... sentimental as I've been of late, I'm not abandoning the snark. Sometimes that saves me as much as anything else. I'll add it to the list of things for which I'm grateful ;-)

A Week of Heroes... and Heroines

Clipart illustration
by Rosie Piter
for Acclaim Images.

Tomorrow, I'll begin my next week-of-blog: A Week of Heroes! (Thank you to everyone who cast their vote on this topic. Some of the others will be getting their week in the spotlight, too.) I've decided to alternate between heroes I worship from afar, and heroes I've been lucky enough to hang out with in real life.

Before singling out the superheroes, I give you the definition of a hero, courtesy of Merriam-Webster:


he - ro
1
a : a mythological or legendary figure often of divine descent endowed with great strength or ability
b : an illustrious warrior
c : a man admired for his achievements and noble qualities
d : one who shows great courage

2
a : the principal male character in a literary or dramatic work
b : the central figure in an event, period, or movement


Well.... hmmm. I suppose to be correct, I should call this a week of heroes & heroines, since technically, heroes = dudes. The definition is interesting in general, because the roots of the word are so tied to war and so many of my own heroes-and-heroines are peacemakers. And funny-makers. But they're also survivors, and protectors...

Defining and re-defining what heroic looks like could be pretty interesting.

There's No Place Like It

I've been thinking about "home" a lot lately.

Partially, that's because I've been on the road a lot, for work and for family/friend celebrations. In fact, tonight will be the first time I get to sleep in my own bed since Monday. (My excitement pales in comparison to my muppet-dog's excitement; he has missed me, as evidenced by his clingy little self tonight.) I'm so tired, and when you're tired, you just want to be home.

It's also because of watching that soldier leave to defend our homes and nation.

It's also because my grandmother is not in good health right now, and my parents are caring and advocating for her, and I ache that I am not closer to where they are.

It's also because I have such conflicted feelings about what home really means, and whether I'll ever really be "home."

I live in a region, and most definitely a state, where even today, there is a deep-rooted cultural understanding that if you're not born here, you're never really from here.

I was born in Chicago, but was still a wee babe when my family moved to Michigan. I lived in several small towns there, but thanks to alternative education, never attended a school there, always had friends and family elsewhere - and at this point, other than a brief graduate school stint, it's been more than a dozen years since I resided there. I still have family in Michigan, and for as long as my parents live there, it still gets to be called "home." But I don't live there, vote there, have many childhood friends left who live there; don't know my way around there as an adult.

I periodically get choked up over the recurring realization that no matter where I live, I can never live near all my loved ones. They are scattered as the stars in the sky, living in so many states and countries that I have a port in every storm... but will never be able to host the world's biggest cookout and convene all my nearest and dearest under one giant tent. (The food would be so flipping awesome, though; everyone would want to be there.)

So I keep wondering: what is home? And I keep coming up with different answers:

• Home is where my parents are... not necessarily where they live, but where they are.
• Home is where I have a safety net, even though I hate to admit that I might need one.
• Home is where I can provide a safety net to loved ones, which I will always do in a heartbeat.
• Home is where my books are, and I'm not planning on getting a Kindle just yet.
• Home is, for the first time, something I am sharing and re-defining and learning about D, which is pretty amazing.
• Home is also, well.... me. As I wrote a few years ago, in a now-extinct blog, I have another, quite literal definition of home. My own name, Beth (Hebrew: Bet), means "home." * 

And every once in awhile, I remember that last definition, and I take a deep breath. Because maybe our name is our destiny, at least a little. Maybe there is a blessing in my name, even while I wrestle so much with its meaning. Maybe my deep yearning for home will enable me to make others feel more at home. Maybe home really is where my heart is, even if that's a thousand different places ... and maybe, God willing, I can live up to my name and create home all around me, wherever I am, not only for myself, but also for all those loved ones who need a cool breeze or a warm hearth.

Amen.

*All right, so "Bet" is most often translated as "house," but "home" is not inaccurate - it's our more modern, touchy-feely interpretation of the word - there wasn't  distinction between house and home back in those Canaan days. Google even agrees with me in its translation. And anyway, calling myself House might give me some sort of body-image issue, or make me a mean cane-wielding doctor, or something.

What a Hard Day Really Looks Like

I thought I was having a hard day.I was up working last night until after midnight, stressing out about the current projects and deadlines.

I was up at 7 to take care of the dogs, pack my bags, and get as much work done as possible before heading out to get a haircut before catching an afternoon plane.

I arrived early at the salon - 11:15 for my 11:30 am appointment. The stylist was chatting away with the woman in her seat. And chatting. And chatting. 11:30 came and went. 11:45. Finally, at noon, so frustrated I thought I'd burst, I went up and said I'd have to reschedule. The stylist apologized, shooed her friend out, told me she'd get me in and out really quickly - and proceeded to chop off my hair. I'd said I wanted it to hit my collarbone; apparently she heard "jawbone." Seven inches - gone!

Feeling irritated and insecure about my surprise new 'do, I rushed out of the salon to meet up with D so he could drive me to the airport. He assured me that my hair looked great, but I was rushing past the compliment, double-checking my bags, grabbing a bite to eat.

We hurried to the airport; the plan was to arrive early there, too, so he could be back at work for an important meeting and I could just keep working from the airport. When we arrived, I hurried to stuff my purse into my backpack (stupid baggage rules!), rushing as D reminded me I had to get back to the office for his appointment.

Going through the security line, my computer broke.

Reaching the gate, I realized I didn't have my smartphone on me. My smartphone with my bus pass, my client's phone number, my host's address, everything.

I tried to call D using a payphone. It cost a dollar! Change only! Who has a dollar in coins? No one in my terminal! The bastard phone at my 75 cents and I still couldn't place a call. I dashed back to the check-in area and begged the use of a phone. Called D. He ran out to his car, found my phone in the backseat, where it must have fallen out as I jammed purse into backpack (I knew I shouldn't have rushed! And damn those baggage rules!). Couldn't get out of his meeting. A kind coworker offered to drive the 25 minutes out to the airport to deliver my phone. I said I'd be waiting outside by the Departures drop-off.

Standing outside, in the heat, phone-less, short hair clinging to my neck, waiting for the car, thinking about all the work to get done, I was feeling pretty bad for myself. Hard day, right? I really had it rough. I kept staring at the little service road, waiting for the coworker's green Honda to appear.

Instead, a red GMC pulled up. A woman, middle-aged, wearing an oversized grey T-shirt with splotchy 80's-deco designs, got out of the passenger side. She looked on the verge of tears. Then, someone exited from the backseat: a young man, clearly her son, in army fatigues.

He walked up to her. She reached up to put her hands around him. He laid his head into her neck and stood there in his uniform, sobbing. They just held each other for a long, long time. I kept looking away, wanting to respect their privacy; the porters, otherwise so aggressive about offering to carry luggage, did the same. But I kept glancing over; I had to - I had to flag down the coworker. But a lump formed in my throat every time I looked at them.

Then, the woman climbed back into the passenger seat. The soldier walked over to the driver site, and leaned in through the window. I can only guess that the arms that reached through the window and wrapped around him were his father's. I couldn't see his face. Only the strength of that grip.

Then the soldier returned to the sidewalk. A back door opened, and out stepped a young woman - several years younger than I - blonde hair pulled back into a messy ponytail, wearing a Saints jersey and a giant engagement ring. She took the soldier's face in her hands, and they kissed.

The red GMC pulled away, and I thought, oh. She's going with him. Oh, thank God, maybe they're just moving to a base or something, he's not going away, his parents will miss him but they'll have each other.

They kept kissing, and kissing. Just standing there and kissing. And then, as with his mother, the soldier buried his face in his young fiancee's neck and sobbed. I could hear the wrenching sound.

And then the red GMC pulled up again. His parents had merely driven around the airport loop once, giving the couple a moment alone for their farewells.

The couple parted, both red faced and tear-streaked.

She crawled into the back of the red GMC, and everything that mattered most in the world to the soldier drove away from him.

He straightened his back, picked up his luggage, and walked towards the airport doors.

Every porter shook his hand on his way into the building, or saluted him, patted his back.

God, please keep that soldier safe, and watch over his parents and his love until he returns safely to them. Thank you for the sacrifices made by him and so many, who enable us to live in such comfort that we can think a stressful work deadline or a surprise haircut or a lost cell phone constitutes a bad day. As soon as I stop crying, I'm going to take a deep breath and be thankful, because my day is just fine. I saw what a really hard day looks like. And even that day was full of love.

Cast Your Vote, Pixie Readers!

All right. I have a lot going on right now on work fronts, life fronts, age-and-stage fronts, you name it. I also have a lot of writing I want to get done, beyond this blog.

But there's something about Little Pixie Magic. When I keep things going here, I keep things going everywhere. It's weird. Or speaks to the appropriateness of the name, or something.

Life tends to throw me plenty of things to write about, but sometimes it's easiest to crank out the blog if I have a theme for a week. I've done a week in a bridesmaid dress. I did a week without restaurants. It's time for the next week of/in/with/without.... whatever. And I've decided I need some help in deciding what to do. So I'm posting a few options... cast your vote, dear readers, on whatever you think will make for the best readin':


Tough Truths Week. Never talk about religion, politics, or the things you really fear. Unless, of course, your challenge for the week is to write about exactly those things.

Exercise Week. I've been bad about exercising the last week or two. I can tell you why: I don't like it. I feel better after I exercise, of course, and there have been some classes I've enjoyed - salsa dancing, yoga, Christian kickboxing (now THERE's a blog!) - but the thought of exercise alone is exhausting lately. This topic is kind of a selfish one. Y'all would keep me accountable and be my gym buddies, essentially. But I do promise funny commentary about things like running in Vibrams and, y'know,  Jillian Michaels.

Formal Week. I own way too many formal dresses, and since the good folks at Oscar/Tony/Emmy headquarters have yet to call, not a lot of occasion to wear them. Might be a little too similar to the bridesmaid dress thing, but wearing a different formal dress every day for a week is definitely an option. There are plenty of venues I didn't hit while wearing the bridesmaid dress.

My Heroes Week. I'm lucky to have a life filled with some pretty amazing people. Spending a week profiling some of their stories, assuming they'll all give permission, would be a worthy task, for sure.


That's what I've thought up thus far... cast your vote via comment, or chime in if you have a write-in vote that you feel deserves consideration. I'm listening :)

A Little Bird Told Me: Kids Are Mean!

Here's a flashback find from a few months ago: a video I took on my cell phone while in St. Louis with the family. We were at the St. Louis zoo. I was actually only intending to film the friendly ducks that were wandering about, maybe even catch an adorable moment of wide-eyed child interacting with gentle creature.

I wound up inadvertently documenting how aggressive little kids can be when a pint sized girl thwacked a duck on the head while I filmed. We'll call it "Mean Girl Junior":

PS The voice telling her to be nice to the birds? That'd be me. Not her parents, who sat there staring vacantly while their kiddo attacked the birds.

If Good Fences Make Good Neighbors...

I mean, really.
Why would I even try to caption this?

... then what does an awesome mailbox label like THIS say about your neighbors?

Welcome to my 'hood, y'all.

Which I just learned is the home of
SUPERFLY XTREME.

And SX, whoever you are, thanks for giving me a grin as I jogged up our street. I can't believe I never noticed you before. I hope that you get really, really fabulous mail delivered on a regular basis.

(It's nice that this happened in real life.)

Dammed If You Do, Dammed If You Don't

Well, Dam.

I was running an errand this afternoon, listening to NPR (like I do). I was sort of tuning in and out as I drove, but started paying attention to a segment on the dismantling of dams.

Before you start yawning, give me a minute, okay?

Apparently, putting a dam up, while time-consuming, is a pretty routine procedure at this point. We know how to build the wall. Taking it down, on the other hand, is a big dam deal.

The story caught my attention for a couple of reasons. First of all, on the metaphorical level - what an interesting turn of perspective. I mean, usually we think about how difficult it is to build something, and how easy it is to destroy it. Sand castles, laboriously built, easily knocked down or washed away. Trust, meticulously built, easily knocked down or walked away.

But with dams, it's different. Instead of easily crumbling, dams are a fortification that, once constructed, is hard to dismantle. Isn't that a nicer way to think about things like love and friendship? That these structures, once built, can not only consistently withstand tremendous forces.. but also, even if you try to dismantle 'em, you'll find you have your work cut out for you?

Yeah, see? That's nice. In honor of this new knowledge, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of my dam friends, not to mention my dam family. Much love, and may you all be dammed.

Also, I can now segue into the other reason the piece caught my attention: it was really funny to hear the calm, nonplussed NPR journalists asking questions like, "So what are the dam politics behind this?" and "What's the dam budget?" and to continually refer to "the dam project." It must have been a tremendous release after all the political coverage they do to throw the d-word around so freely on air.

Now, let's just hope that this doesn't lead to MPB dropping All Things Considered, or, y'know, all national potty-mouthed programming.*

*For you non-Mississippians, that's a jab about MPB's ridiculous dropping of Fresh Air with Terry Gross last year following one complaint about her interview with comedian Louis C.K. - you can read all about that dam, er, damn debacle here.

A Decade, Now: Remembering September 11, 2001

In honor of the ten year anniversary of September 11, I am posting a piece I wrote shortly thereafter about where I was when the towers fell and our nation shook. Hard to believe it's been a decade. Still hard to believe it happened, at all. May the memories of all those lost be a blessing; today's prayers are for them, and all the world.

September 11, 2001



A Tuesday. My junior year of college. My favorite class day, because the first three hours were spent in my creative writing workshop. 


We are sitting around the table that morning, all the students in my creative writing class. A table full of young writers, taught by a vibrant Southern author, Jill McCorkle, who tsk tsk tsks us whenever we use cheap clichés like "her eyes are filled with tears." She is tough, and we love her for it, because she makes us better. 


It’s a 9am class, and we are commenting on a classmates' story of new love -- a particularly challenging topic to tackle without using any clichés. Almost immediately after the class begins, a cell phone rings. This elicits an instantaneous tsk as our professor's eyebrows hit her hairline. This is unacceptable.


"All right, now, which one of y'all brought a cell phone to my classroom?"


We all turn innocent faces back to her. We know the rule. In honor of our beloved teacher, our cell phones are all off or absent. The phone keeps ringing.
“Oh good Lord, it’s mine,” she chuckles, reaching into her oversize knit bag. “It’s my husband – must be some sort of emergency. Please forgive me... honey, I’m in class, so this better be– what? Well, that’s strange. Huh. So... okay. All right – bye.”


She places her cell phone back in her purse, and reports with a puzzled face, “My husband says that a plane just crashed into the World Trade Center. In New York.”


We are all mystified, all start buzzing: A small plane? Amateur pilot? Anyone hurt? Was it a navigational error, or some sort of mechanical failure? One student, saying her father works near there, excuses herself to see if she can reach him. The rest of us return to our stories, confused but not yet realizing how shaken we should be.


The phone rings again.


Flinching slightly, our professor takes out her cell, looks at the caller ID. “It’s my husband again. I can’t think why he’d need to call back – I won’t be a minute – I’ll just – hold on. Hello? Hi, sweetheart… what? … What? I… That’s just … okay. Okay. I love you too.”


She ends her call and somehow seems to meet all of our eyes at once. Her voice wavers like the watery air above a blistering fire. “A second plane flew into the World Trade Center. They’re pretty sure they're... we’re ... we're under some sort of terrorist attack.”


Too stunned to speak, we stare. It never crossed our minds. Our naïveté had shielded us from the first crash, but the second plane went right through us.


Our teacher says, softly: “Well, y'all, I don’t believe there’s anything we can do just yet. Shall we stay in our story-worlds a little while longer?” 


It is not yet 9:30am on Tuesday, September 11th, 2001. 


We mutely nod: yes. We want to live in our fiction just a little while longer. Please, let's just stay where we were.


But then our classmate walks back into the classroom, and her eyes are filled with tears.

©Beth Kander (please do not reprint without permission of the author)

Half-Written, Half-Awake

It's midnight and I'm just wrapping my 'workday'.

I'm half-awake.

I have three blogs half-written, at least half of which are half-decent (have fun with that math).

Several others running through my head, but I can't quite catch them, because it's hard to see these things when your eyes keep closing...

...although LET ME TELL YOU, my dreams have been vivid as all get-out lately. Maybe I should blog about those.

After I finish the other blogs.

And finish this script.

And my novel.

And after I ride this lovely sparkly unicorn....

My, How Green Your Grass Is...

You poor, stupid humans.
You just never learn.

Picture this: your bedroom door is shut, and your cat is yowling on the other side of it. You finally relent, open the door, let him in, close the door to go back to bed... and five minutes later, he's yowling again. Because, see, when he was out in the hallway, he was sure that all of the Most Interesting and Awesome Stuff in the World was behind the door. But then, when he's in there and sees that it's nothing but a boring sleeping person, his new mission in life is GET BACK OUT INTO THAT HALLWAY, because that's clearly where the action must be. 


If you have ever lived with a cat, this scenario is familiar. Because it happens over, and over, and over again. The universal truth is that cats are always on the wrong side of every door. 


In people-terms, we call this syndrome "the grass is always greener."


(Actually, come to think of it, that sounds more like cow-terms. I don't know a lot of humans who sit around envying grass. That particular passion seems more bovine; perhaps caprine, or even equine. But, once again, I digress.)


On an even more basic level, we call it envy. That particular kind of envy where we become convinced that whatever we don't have must be far superior to whatever we do have. If we're busy, we long for days of lounging around the house, doing nothing. If we're lounging around the house doing nothing for days on end,* that's when we know for sure that this boring day would be way better if it were packed and hectic. If we have curly hair, we want straight hair. If we have straight hair, curly is the desire. If we have flexibility, we desire stability; if we have stability, it suddenly seems like something we'd give up for just a little more flexibility.


What is wrong with us? 


It's hard not to envy. And even with a working knowledge of the "grass is always greener" cliche, we still sometimes have a hard time appreciating what we have... even knowing that other people are likely envying what we have, and even knowing how much we'd miss it if we didn't have it. 


There are somethings I know I can never have, or never be. For example:


I will never be the naturally thin woman who gets up early every morning to go for a run, just because she "loves it." I will never be her, and I am also apparently not allowed to smack her.


I will never "fit the norm" of everyone else around me - this is particularly true when I'm living in the buckle of the Bible Belt, but really... pretty much true always, and anywhere.


I will never understand imaginary numbers. Like, at all.


And in my better moments, I know that it's probably building my character to struggle my way through a run and make myself do it; I know that not fitting the norm makes me a much better friend for anyone else who, in their own way, does not fit the norm; and though my father is a math genius, most other people around me aren't, and I should really get over the imaginary numbers thing. I know that my grass is an incredibly vibrant, shimmering emerald-green.


In my worse moments, I sit there, chewing my cud, and mooning over the delicious grass over in  the land of the Naturally Skinny/Socially Standard Setting/Understanding Imaginary Math Also Lets You Keep Unicorns.

But the good news is I'm having fewer of those worse moments. Trust me, I still get them, but lately this is what resonates with me more and more and more: If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's, we'd grab ours back. If that magical hallway door opened, we'd walk through it and as soon as it shut, we'd know we were on the wrong side.


And this morning, I'm enjoying my metaphorical lawn, and even fully embracing my identity as a writer who used way, way, way too many metaphors and cliches in this particular post. Because, well, I have a pretty good imagination, but I still have no idea how to use imaginary numbers to write a blog. 

* I had to specify "days on end" because, well, if ONE day of lounging around drives you nuts, you may want to talk to someone about that.