It's exciting. And thoroughly exhausting. A friend called the other day and I just managed to get to the phone after all the rings before the machine kicked in. Breathless - "I heard it ringing but couldn't find it - finally realized it was buried under the challahs!" I could hear her confusion and explained - "I baked four batches of challahs this morning and they were all on the counter cooling - somehow the phone got lost underneath them!"
Cooking, lots of cooking, friends will be coming - it's easier now that I agree when they offer to bring a course - salad? great! your dessert - wow! roasted root vegetables? yum! And yet, endless cooking still...
What's special? This year the HH writing prompt for my students was to remember a moment from the summer, a time when you felt whole, full, authentic, happy to be you, comfortable in your skin. Reenter the moment, describe it. And then, what were all the things you did to make that moment possible - the logistical level, the deeper levels. And then, how can you bring the spirit of that precious moment into the new year? And then, how can you bring those parts of yourself into the new year?
What insights emerged, for them, for me. Imagine, beginning a new year by focusing on joy in the year that's ending, striving to bring joy and authenticity into the new year...
Excitement as well anticipating using Eddie's mahzor, Lev Shalem, awed by its beauty, by the power for blessing contained between its covers. This, the first year out, 200,000 copies have been sold, so many communities and individual hearts transformed by this new prayerbook...
Special today: back home after a few weeks on the road, able to take time for yoga at noon with my cherished teacher of a dozen years. After class we stand chatting and a young woman, autitistic, (she has been coming all summer with her mother), inexplicably approaches to kiss us both - I understand how unusual this is, have no idea why I have been so honored by her. Of what is this a harbinger in the year to come?
And of course, calling as many people as energy and time permit who are dear to me but with whom I'm not often in touch - their pleasure hearing my voice, knowing they are remembered and cared for; and receiving calls from dear ones not often in touch, saying to me, "I think of you with love, wish you happiness this year." How we give these gifts to one another, so beautiful, that power, just by reaching out to find the phone underneath the cooling challahs...
P.S. - Writing now Sunday morning after Rosh Hashana, a funny story - as my mother used to say, "Pride goeth before the fall":
For the last three days, meal after meal, new round loaves of my homemade challah. Puzzled after the first bites at the first dinner Wednesday night (as you can see from the photo here, I top my challahs with sesame seeds) - when I pick up the extra sesame seeds which have fallen off the loaves onto the tablecloth and put my finger to my tongue, the seeds are hard, crunchy, don't yield in the usual way. I keep looking, thinking, they look like sesame seeds, and yet, how subtly different, somehow not quite seeds... But they came from the freezer where I put my new bag of Whole Foods sesame seeds...
The next day, lunch, the same. Finally it dawns on me, next to the bag of sesame seeds in the freezer is a bag of quinoa - not the dramatic red kind I've come to prefer, but an older bag purchased when I still bought "plain" quinoa. Hm, same color, same size as sesame seeds, remarkably close... Eureka, all those loaves of which I was so proud - which I photographed and featured in my blog here - they are adorned with quinoa! What does that signal for the coming year, what is the symbolism?! Initial dismay, embarrassment, softens to self-mocking smiles - OK, not perfect after all, really not important to be perfect Merle, let it go.
By the second day my guests discern the unusual topping and declare it a success - "I like the bit of crunch," "interesting contrast of tastes," "very subtle." Gradually I begin contemplating doing it again, on purpose... What do my readers think, quinoa challah?
Cooking, lots of cooking, friends will be coming - it's easier now that I agree when they offer to bring a course - salad? great! your dessert - wow! roasted root vegetables? yum! And yet, endless cooking still...
What's special? This year the HH writing prompt for my students was to remember a moment from the summer, a time when you felt whole, full, authentic, happy to be you, comfortable in your skin. Reenter the moment, describe it. And then, what were all the things you did to make that moment possible - the logistical level, the deeper levels. And then, how can you bring the spirit of that precious moment into the new year? And then, how can you bring those parts of yourself into the new year?
What insights emerged, for them, for me. Imagine, beginning a new year by focusing on joy in the year that's ending, striving to bring joy and authenticity into the new year...
Excitement as well anticipating using Eddie's mahzor, Lev Shalem, awed by its beauty, by the power for blessing contained between its covers. This, the first year out, 200,000 copies have been sold, so many communities and individual hearts transformed by this new prayerbook...
Special today: back home after a few weeks on the road, able to take time for yoga at noon with my cherished teacher of a dozen years. After class we stand chatting and a young woman, autitistic, (she has been coming all summer with her mother), inexplicably approaches to kiss us both - I understand how unusual this is, have no idea why I have been so honored by her. Of what is this a harbinger in the year to come?
And of course, calling as many people as energy and time permit who are dear to me but with whom I'm not often in touch - their pleasure hearing my voice, knowing they are remembered and cared for; and receiving calls from dear ones not often in touch, saying to me, "I think of you with love, wish you happiness this year." How we give these gifts to one another, so beautiful, that power, just by reaching out to find the phone underneath the cooling challahs...
P.S. - Writing now Sunday morning after Rosh Hashana, a funny story - as my mother used to say, "Pride goeth before the fall":
For the last three days, meal after meal, new round loaves of my homemade challah. Puzzled after the first bites at the first dinner Wednesday night (as you can see from the photo here, I top my challahs with sesame seeds) - when I pick up the extra sesame seeds which have fallen off the loaves onto the tablecloth and put my finger to my tongue, the seeds are hard, crunchy, don't yield in the usual way. I keep looking, thinking, they look like sesame seeds, and yet, how subtly different, somehow not quite seeds... But they came from the freezer where I put my new bag of Whole Foods sesame seeds...
The next day, lunch, the same. Finally it dawns on me, next to the bag of sesame seeds in the freezer is a bag of quinoa - not the dramatic red kind I've come to prefer, but an older bag purchased when I still bought "plain" quinoa. Hm, same color, same size as sesame seeds, remarkably close... Eureka, all those loaves of which I was so proud - which I photographed and featured in my blog here - they are adorned with quinoa! What does that signal for the coming year, what is the symbolism?! Initial dismay, embarrassment, softens to self-mocking smiles - OK, not perfect after all, really not important to be perfect Merle, let it go.
By the second day my guests discern the unusual topping and declare it a success - "I like the bit of crunch," "interesting contrast of tastes," "very subtle." Gradually I begin contemplating doing it again, on purpose... What do my readers think, quinoa challah?
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