Increasing Memory Recall Using the Mind's Eye

One of the "totally cool" things about unschooling is that it goes on. It happens on weekdays. And weekends. Morning. Evening. And in the case of the recent lunar eclipse, even at 3 o'clock in the morning. And so it happens also during the Holy Days.

On Friday evening, I got out of the bath and headed for the kitchen to get the finishing touches on the Shabbat dinner. (Yes, it did feel like overkill just a bit--given that we had been doing ritual for two full days straight. Evening to morning to evening. But Shabbat comes every week, Holy Days or not). Anyway, I called out for N., intending to have him feed the dogs. But there was no answer. I called again and Bruce responded: "He's busy right now, don't talk to him."

I came out of the hallway into the dining room and found N. seated on the couch--yes, the couch--it's a living room refugee, having taken up temporary residence in the dining room while the living room gets a wooden floor. He was holding the Reader's Digest Guide to North American Wildlife in his lap, and he had his hands in the air and his eyes tightly shut. I half expected him to launch into a sermon of some kind. I was thinking that perhaps we had overdone the holy days just a teensy little bit. Then he suddenly opened his eyes, and taking up a pencil and chart paper he had nearby, he began drawing.

Later, over Challah, he explained what he was doing. He was using his mind's eye to practice imagining and sketching wildlife. It is a journaling exercise for Kamana II. He told us that first you choose a picture of an animal or plant you want to sketch into your journal. Then you study it carefully for a very short time--no more than about 15 seconds. But for that time, you focus on it and discern important details. Then you close your eyes and hold the picture in your mind for 15 seconds or so more. You then look at the picture in the book again, and ask yourself questions about the animal or plant. What does it feel like? smell like? How does it sound? And so forth, recalling detail as you question yourself. You repeat this process several times, then look at the picture again, studying it once more before you close the book and then sketch the picture from your mind's eye.

Although the Kamana Book does not say this explicitly, what this exercise accomplishes is a training of the visual sketchpad (short term visual memory) and a connection to the mind's associative powers in order to put what you have learned from an observation into your long term memory. The point of the exercise is not to draw every hair on the animal's head, but to get the important details sorted and into memory quickly, so that they can be called upon in the future. As time goes on, I told N., if he practices this a bit every day, he will soon do this without even thinking about it, and be able to store his observations and call upon them without a great deal of effort. This frees his mind to do more complex processing of the information.

There is a similar journaling exercise in Kamana for learning from text. The process is to get the details into memory for association and use effortlessly. But of course, the exercising require effort at first.

What is interesting is that the primary sensory pathway for both of the exercises is visual. Even though the text is words, the mind's eye exercise with text is using the visual sketchpad and visual memory. And the processing that is happening is associative rather than linear. Memory is strengthened by the process of attaching emotion and imagination to the mind's eye images.

This is very interesting because these are N.'s strong suites-- visual memory and associative thinking. When they say a picture is worth a thousand words, what they really mean is that you can remember and call up the whole in a picture instantly. It is right before you. And associative thinking allows you to attach new information to previously stored memory in a non-linear fashion. New associations can be formed every time the information is recalled in visual form, allowing a random access that is difficult for the auditory-sequential learner to imagine. It is like using random access encyclopedias on the internet rather than an alphabetized book that can only be accessed linearly. It is orders of magnitude faster!

And that can be a problem for some extremely visual-associative learners. They do not choose to use the auditory-sequential channel because it is so slow. However, it is important for correctly processing verbal information and for ordering and executing sequential tasks. When we test working memory in intelligence and other functional tests, we are really testing auditory working memory. Even reading, which may seem to be visual, is actually auditory-sequential in nature. You are translating sounds into visual symbols and then speaking them in your mind. You read in a linear fashion, and the story is sequenced to have a beginning, middle, and end.

N., like many brilliant visual-associative thinkers, has very poor auditory working memory. He had difficulty sequencing and cannot follow a complex set of spoken directions. Last year, he began working on sequencing by watching Titanic and then taking pictures of the sinking of the toy Titanic in the snow. From there he went on to make a power point, into which we introduced more and more complex written story line about what the different characters were doing. He found the way to learn something he needed to know about sequencing, building on his strengths in order to develop skills in weak areas. He needed some guidance from me to bridge the gap, but although I suggested and guided, I did not make it my project.

Watching N. work with his visual sketchpad, I am thinking that we need to find a bridge to strengthen his auditory working memory and linear processing of auditory input. I am going to read through Kamana a bit to see if there are exercises that lend themselves to this, or if it something that may need some guidance from me. Since the majority of the population is auditory-sequential, it is likely that the exercises in Kamana are meant to guide them toward the ability to choose visual-associative thinking processing in their observations of nature. Visual-associative is the better mode for observation of an ever-chaning natural landscape. For N., who almost always uses the visual-associative mode, it is important to have the auditory-sequential option available. Although most research scientists, engineers, and naturalists are visual-associative, they also must learn to apply the auditory-sequential skills in order to communicate with the rest of the world.

There is a problem here, though. N. and people like him have very dim views of the whole "normal" auditory-sequential world. They have learned that in that world, they appear to be slow, dumb and awkward, to say the least. They are associative to the max, and they have a lot of bad associations stored in their minds. I must guide, not dictate. That means that he has to find us the pathway and be willing to venture down it far enough to see that he can successful. He must be able to start with his strengths as a scaffold and improve rapidly.

These things must be done delicately!

Yom Kippur: Perfectionism, the Cult of Control, and the Journey to Wholeness

We are in the Yamim Noraim. The Days of Awe. Yom Kippur is coming. And every Yom Kippur, I try to do it perfectly. This is the first annual Yom Kippur musing that I will blog. G-d willing, I will not repent perfectly, but rather live imperfectly and thus have more to muse about next year.

An admission. I am a perfectionist. I am not a "recovered perfectionist" or even a "recovering perfectionist." Alas, I am a dyed in the wool, true blue perfectionist. Whether it is a personality trait or whether it is determined by other attributes; whether it is genetic or developmental or environmental in origin, I do not know. But I am one. A perfectionist.

And there is something that I do know about this trait: it is highly rewarded in our culture. That unbroken string of A-grades in high school, those scholarships I received in college, that really high and darn near perfect GPA all attest to that fact in my own life. And I know something else from nearly half a century of wrestling with this highly-rewarded trait: It can be really, really difficult to live with regardless of whether you are the individual living with the trait or the unfortunate soul living with the individual living with trait. Or both. Like me.

The phrase "good enough for the government" has no currency in our household. In fact, it took me a long, long time to understand that phrase in a positive manner. I finally understood it in a flash when I was teaching a chemistry class how to differentiate between accuracy and precision. "Accuracy," I explained, "Means how close you can come to the correct answer for a measurement. For example, if the answer is 1.36 kilos, and your scale gives you a weight of 1.30 kilos, you are accurate only to the tenth of a kilo. Well, actually, kilos aren't really measuring weight at all--they are measuring mass, but in the common parlance we say weight, but...Class--don't worry about that last bit. Just focus on the meaning of accuracy." (Did you catch my perfectionistic aside that I had to correct in order not to confuse the issue further)?

But on to precision. "Now precision," I told the class, "Is something else. It tells us the number of decimal points to which a particular instrument is capable of measuring. For example, our balances in here can give us a mass to the nearest tenth of a gram. Suppose I take the mass of an object and it comes to 4.2 grams, but there is play in the pointer between the point 2 and point 3 mark. And it settles halfway between. Then I can estimate the hundredth of a gram, making it 4.25 grams, but no further! I cannot say that it is 4.23 grams and I cannot say that it is 4.250 grams. My instrument is not calibrated precisely enough for me to make any further estimations."

And at that moment I got it! The phrase "good enough for the government" does not mean that the government is okay with sloppy and therefore inaccurate measurements. It is not talking about accuracy at all! Rather it means that in a particular instance, you do not need further precision than what you have! I felt like shouting "Eureka! I have found it!" Of course, I did not. I thought I had said enough to confuse my students for the day. I admit I am slow. It only took me around 20 extra years to figure that out compared to your average person--the one who had it down at age 20 or so. But I have an excuse. My perfectionism got in the way.

Lately, I have come to develop another hypothesis about perfectionism. My new hypothesis came from several different streams of thought that I have been pondering lately. One is from reading Tom Brown, Jr.'s books. You know that reading blitz that our family has been up to lately? Well it has entered my consciousness and has been rumbling around in my cortex, causing all sorts of interesting ponderings that are quite unrelated to what my cortex is supposed to be processing given the two tests I have this week. It's amazing how productive I am at pondering right near test time. One might think that it is an avoidance mechanism. But that's kind of Freudian, don't you think?
Anyway, back to Tom Brown, Jr., the illustrious Tracker. All of his writings contain references to a spiritual element that underlies his tracking and survival abilities. Sometimes he states it explicitly, but mostly it is implicit to his world view. The idea is that you will think and act like an alien on your own planet until you understand yourself as a part of the whole, living being of the environment you are in. When this happens, you become a part of a whole greater than yourself and experience a belonging in the environment that makes the process of survival natural and undifficult. It becomes like experiencing flow. You are not trying. You are being. Sounds Zen. Or Chassidic. Or mystical. In other words, it is a truth that underlies all of the myriad religious traditions humanity has developed. The point is that the Tracker talks about wholeness and being part of a living whole. As we shall see, I have come to see that perfectionism is the antagonist of wholeness and of life.

Another thread for the wool-gathering comes from some other reading that I am doing. I have been reading a book called The Overscheduled Child which was previously called Hyper-parenting. The authors changed the name because a lot of parents would not even pick it up due to the implied criticism of their parenting. See what I mean by perfectionism being a highly rewarded trait in our culture? The authors talk a lot about the origins of the need to be perpetually active and competitive in our culture. They believe it comes from a false sense that we can control all outcomes if we are perfect parents.

Finally, at Rosh Hashanah second day services, I ran into a friend that I had not talked to in a long time. In the course of our conversation with still another person, she brought up the fact that I am a member of 'the club.' She meant the cancer survivor's club. And she commented to both of us that, "Elisheva has been through some really tough experiences and low moments, but through them I have seen her grow." Turning to me, she said, "You have given up running around trying to control everything all the time, and you now have a peace and wholeness you did not have before." (I call it an AFGE--Another F-ing Growth Experience. It's another version of the two-by-four's that the Eternal regularly aims at our heads. Look, I rely on G-d, but that doesn't mean that I think S/he/it is nice. As 'Rabbi' Mick Jagger puts it, you get what you need).

I began talking about how, really, this was not a conscious change on my part. What really happened was two-fold. First, I went through my cancer experience rather passively. I was exhausted from surgery, my marriage had ended, I was trying to raise my kids and support them all on my own, and now I had treatments to manage as well as a household to keep up. Not to mention that full time job that goes with supporting said kids. I was too damned tired to remember my own name half the time, let alone try to control what was happening. And it felt good to be passive and not try to "run around controlling everything." Secondly, I went through anger. I was angry that I had spent more than twenty years being a good girl. I ate right. I exercised right. I denied myself chocolate. I did Tai Chi. I got A's. I was darn near perfect. And it still happened. I got cancer. Obviously, attempting perfection did not lead to control. And control did not lead to a perfect outcome. In fact, the outcome was downright lousy. All that work and misery about perfection and I get this? The big "G" really does have a twisted sense of humor.

Aside: One side effect of this is that I no longer buy into the "perfect health, perfect body" mythology that pervades the airwaves in the US. I now enjoy eating and drinking and being satisfied. I figure that G-d designed chocolate to go with your whole grain cereal and morning coffee, and that a glass of wine with Brie is as close to the Garden of Eden as I'll ever come. And that union with my husband on Shabbat really does help reunite the Eternal and the Shechinah, even if my body and his are far from the ideals that grace every fashion magazine in the western world. I'm going to die sometime in the future no matter what and I refuse to stand before the Eternal and say that I did not enjoy every good thing creation offered because I was worried it would kill me. That means Tai Chi and CHOCOLATE. Walking and Wine. Break the symetry and live!
Of course, I do not do that perfectly either. But every time I slip into perfectionistic thinking I make myself and everyone around me unhappy. As I said, It comes slowly to me.

But back to the hypothesis I mentioned.
Hypothesis 1: Perfectionism arises in part from the idea that we can control all outcomes.
Hypothesis 2: This concept of control comes from the idea that human beings have godlike power and is, therefore, idolatrous.

Now on to some language lessons.

First: The word "perfect" has a teleological implication. Perfection is something to be attained at the end of something. It is not a state of being and becoming. It is a state of finality. Or to put it more plainly, as the biologist that I am: Perfect is non-living. No living system can be perfect. Since perfection implies lack of growth and change, anything that is perfect cannot be living.

Second: There is no Hebrew word for perfect. Any translation that renders a Hebrew phrase into something like "perfect sacrifice" has been misunderstood. The closest we can come is the Hebrew root, Shin-Lamed-Mem
שלם, which gets rendered into words like Shalom, Shalem, and Shleyma. The root meaning has the sense of wholeness or completeness. The greeting 'Shalom aleichem,' often rendered as 'peace be with you,' is really wish for wholeness. Shalem, as in "Ma-shlemcha?" which is often rendered as "How are you?" actually means something like "how is your health/wholeness?" Think about it: the English word health, comes from hale and means whole. And that brings us to the problematic word "shlayma" which is the one that gets translated as "perfect." But the sense of the word is more like "complete" or "whole." As in the phrase "refuah shleyma" which gets translated sometimes as "perfect healing." It would be better translated as something like "complete healing" or "whole healing."

As I said, I am a perfectionist. And perfectionism is death. It is idolatry. So what to do?
Well, the first step is definitely not to apply perfectionism to becoming whole! I am going to become whole and try to do it perfectly! That's a trap!
Do you see where it is, o wise and gentle reader? The trap is in the trying. Trying is stress. Trying is hard. It disarticulates things rather than putting them together.
Our culture is about reductionism. The art of picking things apart into smaller and smaller pieces until nothing means anything. And at Yom Kippur, this is what perfectionists like me tend to work at. Taking it all apart. Trying to find out where we failed at perfection. Resolving to correct it. To be more perfect next year. An impossible task.

Wholeness--well, that's the state of things that are living and being. Completeness.
Somehow, you cannot try to become whole. You either are or are not whole. You either are or are not part of the whole. Wholeness. Oneness with "the Spirit that moves through all things." Completeness.

I seem to be approaching the idea. And I get that getting it is the same thing as being it. It is like approaching a limit in math. You can approach and approach but you will never get there. You are there. Or not. You are whole. Or not. It's like I need a calculus to transcend the dichotomy. (I always did say that math is mystical in the extreme). Thank goodness I do not have to become like Isaac Newton and invent this calculus. It is there in the practices and teachings that underlie all of human spiritual ritual and custom. Including mine.

So this Yom Kippur, I am not going to work at it. I am not going to try. I think I'll just get dressed in white and be there. Fast not because it is hard and making things hard is the way to get to wholeness. Fast rather because it allows one to understand the fundamental importance of the cycle of hunger and fulfillment, of thirst and satisfaction, of emptiness and fullness. It is not the one or the other. It is, rather, in the completion of the cycle, the fusion of the yin and the yang, the devekut--the clinging--of Adonai and Shechinah--the completeness of the sparks from the shattered vessels, that allows us to break the dichotomies and become at one with all of life.

In Yiddish it is rendered in a more homely way:
Es iz nito a gantsere zakh vi tsebrokhn harts.
There is nothing more whole than a broken heart.

There is nothing more whole than a broken heart.
Not a perfect heart. A perfect heart is non-living. It is a fantasy, an idol we pursue because we are so alien to where we actually live.

That is Yom Kippur. To stand before the Eternal offering only the wholeness of a broken heart.

May we all be inscribed for life and goodness, wholeness and blessing in the new year.
(Note that the word perfect is nowhere to be found in this blessing!)

Rosh Hashanah Sweetness

We had a sweet Rosh Hashanah.


On Wednesday evening, we had an early dinner and then hurried to synagogue, where Bruce and I ushered. I love ushering, because I see and hug so many people that I have known for over 20 years, many of whom I have not seen recently! I get a high off of just standing at the door and greeting them and saying "L'shanah Tova!" (A good year!) and "Gut Yontiff!" (Good Yom Tov--which means holy day).

A funny thing happened this time. An elderly woman unknown to me came in the doors. I greeted her, and because she looked European in her dress and manner, I greeted her with the Yiddish "Gut Yontiff!" rather than the Hebrew greeting. She sniffed at me and said: "I don't speak Yiddish." So I said, "Aht m'diberet Ivrit?" (Do you speak Hebrew?). She said, "I speak German." I apologized that I have not learned German yet and wished her a sweet new year in Hebrew and in English. Then she went up to M., another greeter, who has a Spanish surname, and said testily: "What kind of name is G. for a Jew?" M., without missing a beat, said, "I'm a Spanish Jew. My family has been here for four hundred years." She muttered and went on in. M. wondered what that was all about. I suggested that she is probably Israeli. She clearly understood Hebrew although she did not answer me in it. She spoke English with a German-Hebrew accent, and she was offended by Yiddish. She was forthright to the point of rudeness from an American point of view, which is typical for Israelis, especially the 'Yekkies,' (German Israeli Jews--so called by other Israelis because they insist on formality and wear suit jackets even in the summer heat among the much more relaxed and pragmatic Israelis).

On Wednesday, after morning services and hearing the Shofar, we brought S. and J. home with us to eat Rosh Hashanah Dinner. They are the most wonderful couple that have known for years. We enjoy their company very much. They are retired teachers who love children, too, and they get along wonderfully with N. They do not have grandchildren, so they are informally local 'grandparents' for N. and he is their "kadishul"--the person they expect to remember them by saying kaddish for them when they return to G-d, may that be a long time coming!

They were here last Rosh Hashanah and the weather was cold and windy. They were also here at Passover, but we were busy with the Seder. So this was the first time they had a chance to walk around outside at "the new house" and enjoy the beauty of what Bruce call's "our little piece of paradise."

N. has been enjoying being up in trees lately. He climbed up in "his" tree and blew the shofar on Rosh Hashanah afternoon. I did not get a picture of the shofar, but upon hearing it ran in and got the camera. By that time he was done, but here he is in the tree.

On Friday, we went over to Oak Flat for Second Day services. It was warm and beautiful. There is something special about praying together surrounded by the fragrance of Ponderosa Pines and the sounds of birds and children.

N. climbed up about 25 feet in a Ponderosa Pine there, too. I had several of the Yidishe Mamas (Jewish Mothers) shouting at me and frantically pointing, telling me that he was up there. I smiled and waved at them, not the least bit worried. N. has been climbing trees for years. I know what he is capable of, and I saw that he was close to the trunk of the tree and perched on thick, strong branches. The YMs shook their heads, certain that he was headed for disaster. But we finished the services with N. intact, and after the Aleinu he came down from the tree, eager to join us for Kidush and lunch. When admonished by one of the YM's, he gave her a look that plainly said 'Poor earthbound one, you don't even know what you are missing,' and bit into the cookie she gave him. " Thanks," he said, "I'm starving." She looked gratified and handed him another cookie. He's got the YM mentality down. Just eat what they feed you and all will be forgiven.

He said to me: "Two cookies on the second day of Rosh Hashanah! It's going to be a very good year."

Happy 5768!

Rosh Hashanah: A Sweet New Year

Tomorrow at sunset Rosh Hashanah begins, and with it the most solemn and yet joyous season of the Jewish year, the Yamim Noraim--the High Holy Days. This ten day period of supplication and repentence ends after Yom Kippur.

The High Holy Days are not really "home" holy days, unlike most of the rest of the Jewish holidays. Rather, these are synagogue holy days, upon which the congregation comes together for an intense period of ritual and prayer. But there are some sweet home customs for the two day holiday of Rosh Hashanah.

Rosh Hashanah at Home

by N.

We spend a lot of time at synagogue on the High Holy Days, but there's also the home front. On the home front, most of what we do is about food. When we sit down to dinner tomorrow night...well, it will be dinner but very early because Mom and Bruce are ushers at temple and have to be there early. So when we sit down at 4 o'clock, there will some unusual things on the table along with the china, the candles and the kiddush cups we have on Shabbat. First, there will challah, which we have for Shabbat, too, but this Challah is different from all other Challah. It is round! We make the Challah round because roundness symbolizes the fullness of life, something that we pray for on Rosh Hashanah. Some people also make Challah in the shape of ladders, to remind them of Jacob's Ladder. Mom makes the challah with raisins and cinnamon for a sweet new year. Another thing we have on the table are cut apples and little bowls of honey. The apples, a symbol of the coming fall harvest, are dipped in the honey, and we say a blessing and then serve each other bites of them and say: L'shanah tova mituveka--Have a good and sweet year! And then there's the fish Mom bakes, head and all! Rosh Hashanah means 'the head of the year' so we have the whole fish. Also, mom says to remind you that fishes have their eyes open all of the time--and at this time we want to have our eyes open to our sins so that we can know them and make t'shuvah for them, which means to turn around and go a better way! Last of all, we have honey cake for dessert--again, to remind ourselves to have a sweet new year. So that's the evening.

On Rosh Hashanah day we have a big dinner after services, kind of like at Thanksgiving. Some years, when we have lots of people, we have turkey. But this year mom is only having a few people because of the floors, so she is making Fez Chicken with Couscous from the Jewish Holiday Cookbook. She says she used to make it all the time when I was little but I don't remember. And there will be more round Challah and apples and honey. But Mom also makes Tayglach--which is a honey and nut candy for dessert. Last of all, we will have rimmonim, which a known as pomogranites. They remind us of Torah because they have many seeds, just like the seeds of Torah that are planted in every Jew. They also qualify as "funny" fruit--a fruit that you don't eat very often. Maybe once a year or so. That way you can say the Shehecheyanu--a blessing for special days--when you light the candles for the second day of Rosh Hashanah.

I like Rosh Hashanah. There's lots of good things to eat. It's different in ten days when we come to Yom Kippur, but that's another story.

Back to you, Mom!

I think N. has done a great job of telling about our food traditions for Rosh Hashanah.

In the synagogue, Rosh Hashanah is a joyous holiday when we greet the New Year with the blowing of the Shofar. The Shofar is a ram's horn, and it is sounded after the Torah reading. There are three parts of the Shofar service, and during each part, the Shofar is sounded with three calls. Each part reminds us of an important aspect of the Eternal.

The first is Malchuyot, which means "kingship," or sovereignty. We say: "As it is written in the Torah: For the kingdom is Yours, and from eternity to eternity You will reign in glory." The Shofar is sounded. And we say: "Hayom harat olam...this is the day of the world's birth...as we are Your children show us the compassion of a father, as we are Your servants, we look to you for mercy...O Holy and Awesome G-d!"

The second aspect is Zichronot--Rememberance. We say: "This is the day of the world's beginning; now we remember creation's first day. On this day the fate of nations is in the balance...Happy is the one who does not forget You..." The Shofar is sounded. And we say: "In love and favor hear us, as we invoke Your remembrance."

The third aspect is Shofarot, which is revelation. We say: "It is written: 'The Eternal will appear; G-d's arrow will flash like lightning. The Eternal G-d will cause the Shofar to be sounded and stride forth with the storm-winds of the South.' Thus will You shield Your people completely..." This time, after the shofar is sounded with all the calls, the very last blowing is Tekiah Gedolah, the great sounding that lasts until the blower runs out of breath.

This is the high note of the morning service. When it is over, we mingle and greet each other, eat some Tayglach and then go home to the family table for eating and schmoozing. And eating some more, until, rather like hobbits, we resort to filling in the corners with honey cake and pomegranites. Then on the second day, we have services and a picnic here in the mountains. And of course there is more eating and schmoozing and playing games after.

So Rosh Hashanah is the serious time, the time that begins the ten days of t'shuvah (turning) and supplication for life. But although it is a synagogue holiday, there is also family time and time to be with one another. For what are we without family and friends?

The Days of Awe come down to this prayer:

"Remember us unto life, O King who delights in life; inscribe us in the Book of Life, O G-d of Life."

For really, that is what the whole idea of turning ourselves anew, and aiming the bows of our lives more truly. It is so that we may have the life that we were born to live and be the people we were meant to be.

Chaos Moves!

Chaos is moving at our house. Not far. Just from the dining room to the kitchen





Tonight, Bruce's friend Tom came over because there are two things N. and I cannot help move.

The first is the china cabinet.
It's back in it's place, and they leveled it perfectly! See the yello level inside the main area?










The other thing that is too heavy for me and N. is the entertainment center. It is now in two pieces in a rather incovenient place.
But it was even hard for two guys to move. So it didn't go far. And they didn't put the top on the bottom. This saves them work in a month or so, when the floor is in and they move it back.








Tonight, Bruce also took a frame that was on the wall. The previous owner had left it and we finally took it off. It was behind the entertainment center before.

Sometimes we're a little slow!
I got the wall under the windows painted. One more part to go--the wall where the entertainment center was!





Yesterday, Bruce, N. and I moved the rest of the living room furniture. I painted the wall behind the couch then, too,

N. and Bruce a posing. They had to wait for me to actually move the couch! :)







Tonight, while we ate in haste, the coolest thing happened.
One of the does from last spring came back.
And she brought her fawn and her yearling male.


Here's the young man, himself.
He had just munched on the sunflowers by the scrub oak.

Amazing! They were only about twenty feet away from the kitchen window!









Here are the two together.
Handsome couple, aren't they?

Evidently, they really like our weeds and sunflowers out back.

A storm had just passed, and the foilage was wet and green and juicy.

N. says that the deer often come out between storms in the evening like this.

This time he was right. A new storm is brewing as I write.

Cold air is blowing in and the thunder is rumbling.

Chaos is moving in our house. And that's progress.

But we still have time to enjoy this little bit of G-d's country and the wildlife!

Paradise surrounds our chaos.

She's Twenty-Two and in Las Vegas!

Today she is twenty-two.

It is a little hard to believe that twenty-two years ago today I was pacing the short distance from the bedroom ro the living room of our student apartment, trying to breath through the contractions.

I ache in different places now, and my baby girl has gone to Las Vegas with friends to celebrate her birthday.

It's funny what you remember, isn't it?

I remember that when she was newborn, she was looking around our bedroom, appraising it, as if it were somehow familiar. She didn't cry. At least not right away. Instead, she had this intent, serious look on her face. In the late afternoon sunset I could see the green-gray behind the milky infant blue in her eyes. I said to her father, "She has my mother's eye color there, just behind the blue."

I remember pacing the floor with her that fall, as she screamed her way through colic every evening between 6 and 8:30 PM. I played the Walkman with the earphones in, hoping to remain calm--as if any new mother could--through the fussing. At the time, it seemed like forever until she grew out of it, but looking back--well, what is six weeks compared to twenty-two years?

I remember when she started pre-school. On the very first Shabbat at home, she began singing: "What do you like about Shabbat!" And then she used her left arm to turn her whole arm toward her dad, and sang: "Mah-dy," (her made up word for her dad), "what do you like about Shabbat?" She was every inch the teacher leading the class.

And what about the second-night Hillel Seder when she was three. She stood up on the chair in roomful of 40 college students and adults and fearlessly sang the four questions. In tune. She was wearing a pink sailor dress, I remember, that it was almost as long as she was.

I remember reading The Hobbit aloud to her when she was three or four, and then she took the book away from me and began reading it back. And the insatiable love of books began right then and there, when we went "On Beyond Zebra!" She was going to open her own bookstore and call it Gold Medal Books. In it she would sell Newberry Award books and American Library Awards books, too.

I remember that at her little brother's birth, she was the only person who could rub my feet and make me feel better. She was thrilled about him. And not so thrilled, too. She used the phrase, "But that was before my little brother came along and ruined my life!" Alot. But when there was a fire alarm in theater, she was the first one out, pushing past other people, little brother in tow.

And the birthdays. At two, she got a tricycle, and by four, a two-wheeler. At three she came skipping home singing "Balloons for the Birthday Girl!" Barbie came somewhere in there, and her favorite Miko, who got lost one day years later. She mourned for months and searched for nearly a year. There was the year of the pinata in the courtyard, and the year of the party at the local park. There was the year she had a little brother. At twelve, we had to return a cd because it had the parental warning on it. That was also the year of teeny-bopper pop--Janet Jackson and the boy bands. At thirteen, her Bat Mitzvah overshadowed her birthday, and we had a sleepover on October 9th--a thirteen-and-a-month birthday party.

Fifteen was a really hard birthday because her cat was killed by the neighbors dog the day before it. We postponed the party until the 10th, when we brought home a new kitten. But it wasn't the same. Those teen years are hard, when the magic of special days wears off and Mom and Dad have lost their shiny virtue and have become merely human. Or worse. Sixteen and another sleepover and anger that it wasn't what we had talked about for her "Sweet Sixteen." Hard years. Little money and less time.

But at seventeen, she not only got her drivers license, but her stepfather invested in a car for her. Gertrude. It was a "grandma car." But she was happy to have it so that she could stay at her high school after we moved.

Eighteen. Was it cheesecake or ice-cream cake? But there was a shopping trip for special jewelry. Her birthstone in a necklace and earrings.

Nineteen, and we got her a rice-cooker for her dorm kitchen comfort.

Twenty. Back home, lunch and a shopping trip. And she broke up with her high-school boyfriend. Finally.

Twenty-one. That was a very good year. A birthday celebration at home with her new boyfriend--and for sure, cheesecake, her favorite. What a difference a year makes! And a trip with friends to Disney World in Orlando the weekend after Yom Kippur.

And today--twenty-two. Her first birthday away from home. She's in Las Vegas. Staying at a fancy hotel. She could be--G-d forbid--playing the slots. Certainly, she is eating well. I hope. Did I tell her not to drink too much? Well, I should have! I hope she doesn't elope today!

We'll have to schedule a time to make a party with the family and give her a gift. She might be too busy to have Rosh Hashanah dinner with us. Am I complaining? Maybe a little. But she should have fun. She's young, she's pretty, she's--twenty-two. Soon enough she will be celebrating her own babies' births! She'll be the mom. It's coming. I can see the look in her eye when a baby passes by with its mother. And I see how she looks at her boyfriend. Sigh. Well. He's a good man. But shouldn't she be older? Like maybe 40?

Today I did a bit of this and a bit of that. Nobody said to me, "Remember what it was like twenty-two years ago today?" I cleaned the new floor. I painted two more walls in the living room. One to go. I practiced giving the WAIS to Bruce. The results aren't valid and I couldn't tell him what they were--Dr. Yeo said absolutely not. It took a long time. It sort of took my mind off the fact that my baby girl is not even home on her birthday. For the first time since she came sliding into the world in our bedroom, all eight pounds, eight ounces of her. Looking around the room contemplatively. Like she knew the world and approved.

And she's taller than I am.

Sigh.

Some mothers can hardly wait for the empty nest. I thought I was one of them. But here I am. My nest is, at most, less than half-empty and I am feeling it.

I guess I should think about the grandchildren to come. Then I'll have more birthdays to celebrate. At her house. I wonder what kind of cake they'll want? Cheesecake. Gotta be.

It was just one of those days. Cloudy. Cool. Drizzly. Fall is coming. It was sunny and hot the day she was born. A Monday. "Monday's child is fair of face..."

And she's twenty-two. And in Las Vegas. And the world keeps turning. Day follows night. The stars move in their courses. Time marches on, no matter how much we want it to stand still.

When One Project Leads to Another

Yesterday was Bruce's 9/80 Friday off. In the morning the house was filled with the sound of the hammer as Bruce put the baseboards back in the dining room.

Here are Zoey and Lily helping me model the new floor in the dining room.

They kept getting into the pictures--I'd have a half a tail in one, and a wiggling back half in another! I finally decided that they really wanted to be in the picture, so I put them in the sit-stay and made like I was taking their picture instead of pictures of the floor.

The wood looks lighter in the picture than it does on the floor itself. Eventually, the actual color will darken further as the wood is exposed to light for a period of time.



When we put the wood in the hall and dining room, I touched up the pain where the baseboards had been because the floor is slightly lower now than the carpet was.

But I had no paint for the living room lower walls. The previous owners did not leave any for that antique green. That meant that we had to buy some paint that would match.

And I began thinking about that. I really did not like the actual color. It had too much yellow in it, and clashed with my hunter green leather living room furniture. And since we would have to buy paint anyway...well.

The other day I stopped at Lowe's and got some samples. The original idea was to paint it the same color as the kitchen lower walls. So I got that sample, and got some similar colors as well. Well the "Green Peppercorn" of the kitchen did go alright with the new floors. But the "Irish Paddock"--a lighter green with a little less blue really popped out when held against the floor. So Thursday, we came home with a gallon of it. And I started with the walls that needed baseboards put back on yesterday...

You can really see the difference here...The "Irish Paddock" is lighter and brighter.


Here, I have finished the wall between the entry and the back hallway.
The blue line at the top is actually painter's tape, put edge on at the bottom of the white wainscott border between the lower and upper wall.

I really like this color. It is lighter and brighter than the previous color, and I used a satin finish--it shines a little and is much easier to clean!

But now...well. I am thinking that the upper wall done in a rich neutral color doesn't work so well with it. I am thinking that maybe something a little lighter and creamier might work better there...this is how one project can lead to another one. I may paint the upper walls next. And that would mean painting the halls, too.


While I was painting, Bruce was putting padding on the bottom of the pellet stove platform. Then Bruce, N. and I put the stove back on the platform.

Then we put the dining room table up. It had little rubber pads on the bottom of each leg. But we had to put felt rounds on the chairs.

Bruce is holding the can of pre-cut, glue-on felt rounds that came with the Bella Wood Floor Care package.

Bruce and I took a hiatus for some paperwork chores (more on that later) and then N. and I went to the library and the skateboard park. N. bought a new board and new bearings with some of the money he has earned helping with the flooring. He's still using the old trucks and wheels, though. When the living room is finished he'll have those as well. When we got back, Bruce had the chairs done and the hall floor prepped for putting in the baseboards there. And it was time to call it a day and prepare for Shabbat.




After our baths, we set the dining room up for Shabbat dinner.

Yes! The first Shabbat in our dining room since the end of June. Whooo-hooo!

On Monday, a neighbor will come to help move the china cabinet in. Today we will move some living room furniture into the dining room--the living room is next!

But it was a Shehecheyanu moment.
This is a blessing that is said when you experience something for the first time, or haven't experienced it in a long time. It is also used on Holy Days.

In English it is rendered:

Blessed are You, Adonai our G-d, ruler of all space and time,

for giving us life, for sustaining us, and for enabling us to reach this special time.

We have done the hall. That was hard because of it's length. The dining room went faster. And now all we have left is the living room, and we will be done with the "public spaces" of the house. After that, we will take a break before tackling N.'s bedroom, and the two offices.


This morning we woke up to a lovely fog over Mountain Valley.

I got a picture just before the sun rose.

It was gone before we walked up to the high meadow to see our lot. That's right--we not finished the dining room and ate Shabbat dinner there, enjoying the new floor. We also signed the contract on our first choice lot in the high meadow.

What a good way to spend the last Shabbat of the year.

On Wednesday at sunset, the Jewish year of 5768 begins! May it be as sweet for you as this one has been for us!