To Hear One’s Voice

Posted on July 31, 2016 Updated on October 24, 2018

Ken and I spent the morning sharing readings and ideas.

He cut out an article to read about an Australian woman writing about her grandmother who was a refugee from wartime Europe in 1939… and of being the guardian of her grandmother’s jewelry and archives. Burglars got the jewelry. The archives remain.

I too have archives and artifacts that I am responsible for. I am struck with the dilemma of being the hinge generation. In her case, the generation that experienced the Holocaust are nearly gone. This woman in the article has inherited an imperative to represent this past, to prevent this history from crystallizing into myth. How does one do that?

I think, oddly, about how making bread or a holiday recipe is a way to connect with family history. My mother taught me to do this in such a manner and her mother taught her, etc. Also, at the Passover Seder we tell the story of the Exodus from Egypt and we say “our fathers told us this.” And, of course, their fathers told them, etc.

I then read to Ken a passage from a book I was reading about the power of liminal moments. These threshold moments are soul moments, the author says. I think he means that they are crucial to who we become. The door opens; the door closes; the hinge is both here and there and in neither place. It facilitates that threshold moment. Isn’t that we we are talking about?

And suddenly, out of nowhere, a phrase comes to mind: “C’est ridicule.”

This was my father’s judgmental catch phrase. Sometimes it was aimed outwards at life’s clearly silly, ridiculous events. But sometimes it was aimed at me.

Ken and I went on talking and sharing ideas. They flowed off my tongue. I felt the ease with which they formed themselves into cogent sentences as I heard myself speak. Why, I even inspired myself! Then I knew what he would say: “Go write these thoughts down. Take a moment.”

But, I knew I could not. I explained that speaking rather than writing brings out something…like the creative tension of being onstage and having to produce sound in a composed and persuasive manner. The instant, the very moment of reacting with words, to whatever is being said, read or presented, is potent… and then lost.

I added that there are two levels I can discern.

One, is to have an insight and to think: “Wow, that was really sharp, interesting, and even useful.”

And, two, which I hesitate to share with anyone, is that there is a secret place in me that wishes for a larger audience–perhaps to be able to help others with my experience and insights… or less humbly, to be known as someone with certain …je ne s’ais quoi… wisdom?

Ah ha, this must be where “C’est ridicule” comes in.

I can’t seem to get from the deep, interesting conversation to placing those same ideas on paper. Why is that threshold, that liminal moment so hard to cross? Enforced modesty or humility has its price. Don’t be ridiculous, Jane. “They all know better, are smarter, are well-known…who are you to speak at all?” This old message took it’s toll. Way back in high school, in college and even later, my knees would visibly, and even audibly shake as I waited my turn to ask a question in public. Time and repeated experience let me observe that my questions were valued, useful, even hoped for.

But, here I am unable to recreate on paper what flowed from my brain to my lips just an hour ago.

I know, it’s enough that I had the thought. The thinking of the thought is enough, isn’t it? Ken heard me, and importantly, I heard me. Speaking aloud is so definitive. Thinking can be so amorphous. Forming words, forming sentences… syntax has a force that is underestimated by everyone. But when I speak, I can see whether my words have reached their mark, have changed a mind, have struck a note. Who even thinks about what I just wrote?

And now, the years have collected and I sense how my words need space on paper to be recorded and read later. We all are the hinge generation. Only we can transmit what we “know” or have heard from earlier generations. If I have something to share, it will have to be on paper, because my time is… well, not timeless. I had forgotten. No, I had never even thought of that. I will not hear my voice in future years—not the actual voice. It will be someone else’s voice I do not hear. It will be in the voice of the reader. And there is a strange, strange thought.

I will have to write about it, of course.

Face to Face with the Image of God

Posted on April 18, 2016 Updated on December 13, 2018

Everyday, Hanna needed to go out into the world and encounter some people… any random people. It did not much matter who. The possibility for interactions, for dialogues, for giving joy, or praise, or even advice… well, if there was such a thing as a pregnant pause, then surely there could be expectant possibilities. These were all that is needed… that, and a little bit of boldness.

Hanna had reached an age when she could get away with things–things she could not do as a younger woman. In her 60s, she could directly, abruptly, amusingly speak to a random couple on the street, at the market, or leaving a movie theater. In her 30s, 40s, maybe even 50s there was this… what shall we call it… some psycho-socio-sexual something-or-other that would prevent her from doing exactly the same thing. Freedom. She had freedom to act freely. On the other hand, she was able to imagine that there might be an upper limit to this privilege. As a 90-year-old, she might elicit a dismissive reaction: “Oh gosh, here comes that old nut! Let’s get away. She tells the same old story every time we meet her!”

But if that were the case–if she’d become dotty–then she probably wouldn’t mind or even notice. She’d chirp, “Every day, I meet the nicest people,” …over, and over again.

Find more people to smile and laugh with. That was Hanna’s goal. This is what fed her, gave her hope and strength and kept her resilient and happy. She had finally learned to take care of herself, and how to properly do so. She was no longer fitting herself into the busy schedules of everyone around her. It was okay to not get her “to do” list done. Okay, to go lie down and rest; okay, to nap today–and yesterday. The possibility of gleaning some joy, an insight, yet remained.

Tonight, Hanna might dream; she might recall the dream; and perhaps that dream will help her resolve some anxiety, some unfinished worry… but tomorrow, in the bright new day, she will engage life again, and find more random people to meet face to face. If we are made in God’s image and God’s presence is manifest in the face of the other, she cannot be too selective. That presence must be in an anxious face just as much as in laughing eyes.

Last week, she noticed how big her grandson’s feet had become. “Wow, looks like my shoes might fit you!” she declared. So he tried them on. “I feel like I am wearing Omi’s shoes,” he said, bemused. Hanna wasn’t sure if that was a good, or bad, or neutral statement from an 11-year old. Maybe a bit of each.

Then she remembered the day before her wedding, feeling that she was walking her mother’s shoes. As she crossed a parking lot she heard the clop clop of her mother’s high heel shoes. She felt that she was inhabiting her mother’s actual shape. So she said out loud, but quietly: “Hello Mother. Thanks for being here with me today. I wished you could be here… and so you are.” She did not often think of her mother, nor wish her presence, but as she grew older into the freedom to act free stage of life, her mother came to mind more often. In fact, since she reached 63, the age of her mother’s death, she often thought things like: “She would have been interested in this or that development,” or “Who would Mother have voted for in this election?” or “Would she have mellowed and been easier to be with at this age?” and, perhaps, most wistfully: “I wish you were around, Mother; I’d like to talk to you about something.”

Hanna’s mother was a bold woman. Bright, brave, witty, beautiful, but something was not right. Too many quarrels, too many directions, too many husbands, too much alcohol. Not a happy person. It took Hanna many years to appreciate her mother, to understand her, to admire her, and to feel compassion for her. A wonderfully stranger idea came to her. “Wow, the person I have become could easily have been a good friend to her, encouraged her. I could have made her laugh.”

And with that, to herself, Hanna laughed.

Fixing Everything

Posted on October 12, 2015 Updated on October 22, 2018

I am always fixing things.

Prying open something with a screwdriver; applying glue; oh that reminds me the veneer on the leg of the dining room table needs glue. Quick before it falls off. The vacuum cleaner must have banged it.

Shopping bags—paper and plastic—are dropped and forgotten. Inside are the materials necessary to fix something. Who remembers? Is this me in my dotty old age? Surrounded by bags full of unfulfilled projects!

Would I recall what project was intended if I peered into one of these bags? Or conversely, if I resolved to finish a particular project can I find the bag with the needed materials?