Category — Uncategorized

One of the only nice things that has come out of COVID is that for a brief period of time, the world became more inclusive. Instead of expecting all people to be able to read and hold paper books (and get to the library, etc), libraries increased their e-book license purchases, making library books more accessible to a larger portion of the population. Now there were paper books for the paper book crowd, and e-books for the non-paper book crowd.

Meetings and events went online, making it possible or easier for more people to attend and participate — not just people who did not want to risk COVID, but people with a lack of transportation options, people who were caregivers at home, people with health issues. Not every place could adjust and accommodate, but the places that could and did found themselves reaching new people or old people in different ways. Offering in-person and online options made it possible for people to choose the location that fit their needs.

In the last few months, many of those accommodations are going away, especially providing a Zoom option. I understand that the impulse is to get people to return to the building, and I’m sure for some people, it does force them to return if they still want to participate. But who do they lose in the push to get things back to the way they were? The people who are still unwilling to risk COVID as well as all of the ones who had barriers to begin with. It is hard to know an inclusive option exists and people aren’t using it anymore.

Just something I’m thinking about this weekend.

The rabbi at our shul gave a fascinating d’var Torah on Kol Nidre, and one part of it felt applicable to infertility. He spoke about how when we meet someone new, they only know about the choices we’ve chosen. They see all of the decisions that have brought us to this point, and that’s really all they see.

But as they spend time with you, moving forward, they start to see all of the discarded choices, too. The ones you make from that point forward. At least, the big ones; the ones they know about because you make 35,000 decisions daily.

I liked the idea that people who have known me a long time also know some of my otherwises and roads-not-taken that also shape who I am. I am just as much my ghost child’s mother as I am the twins’ mother. People meeting me now don’t know about that choice that shapes who I am, but Josh certainly does. People who have known me a long time do. You do.

And when you see me, you see what is here (the twins) and what is not here (the ghost child, who became a road not taken) at the same time.

He quoted someone (and I wish I had written it down), pointing out that when you’re looking at a portrait, the background is also part of the painting. It exists, too, even if it isn’t the focus, the thing we see. We all have background, empty space behind us, filled with all of our unchosen roads.

I’m writing this ahead of time because Yom Kippur started last night.

Last weekend, ChickieNob and I tested out 7 trailers, trying to choose a new television show to watch together. We landed on Bad Sisters on Apple TV. (Side note: We really loved the first episode. Funny and dark and interesting characters.) The show’s opening music is a cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Who By Fire.”

How timely.

The song is Cohen’s version of the “Unetanneh Tokef,” a prayer central to the High Holidays. Who will be written in the book of life for another year, and who will be lost before the next Rosh Hashanah. The prayer talks about how all of that is decided during these days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

It’s a prayer I’m struggling with this year — actually, I do every year — because I feel time so acutely right now. I didn’t as much when the twins were little, but they are older and I am older and everyone I love is older. But we’re living the next eight months or so in a period of deep unknown. Where will the twins be next year? What will have changed? What will not be as bad as I fear? What can I not predict at all right now, still standing on this side of the change? Having to sing about not knowing things, having to reflect on everything humans don’t know on a yearly basis is really really hard.

That’s what is on my heart today.

ChickieNob and I bought ourselves a new book — A Winter’s Promise. I’ve always been drawn to the cover but didn’t know a lot about it. It’s held up as the French Harry Potter or His Dark Materials in terms of world building.

But what sold me on the book was something I read in a review. The main character’s scarf, which is always with her, has its own personality: “Objects have souls. Ophelia’s scarf, a loyal and excitable creature, becomes just as integral and three-dimensional a character as Ophelia herself.”

And I thought, how brilliant is that? If the objects you carry with you behaved like objects — unlike an animal, they would not need to eat or sleep or make noise — but they can talk (I assume?) and reassure you and keep you company? I would love my water bottle to be able to listen to me vent, or have my pen discreetly give me advice on the go. This is kind of nerdy Melissa-as-a-kid’s dream come true.

Cannot wait to dive into this.

We have an appointment to get the flu vaccine and COVID booster in one day. Either vaccine was going to ruin the next day because I have a reaction to both vaccines. So putting them together makes sense — I’m going to have a bad next day, but only one bad next day vs. two bad next days.

Unless, of course, doing them together creates double the reaction, and I have deep regrets. Is it like mixing beer and… milk? Like you could drink a lot of beer and feel queasy, and you could drink a lot of milk and feel queasy, but drinking beer + milk = vomiting.

Has anyone else had both shots in one day?

And what about the arm thing? I was planning to get both in one arm, reasoning that I’d rather have one arm not hurt than both arms hurt. I may not get a choice on this, but in case they ask what I want, has anyone gotten both shots in one arm? Or in both arms?

Planning ahead.