Yesterday was Yom Kippur, so I took a digital fast.  I love Yom Kippur, especially the Kol Nidre service at night.  I always cry when our rabbi sings the opening prayer because you hear his entire heart being sung into the words.

So it was fitting that on Yom Kippur Day, he began his sermon by asking us to turn to someone sitting near by, introduce ourselves, and tell them the last time we cried.  We turned around to the couple behind us.  The man informed us that he didn’t know the last time he cried, and he implied that he never cried.  The woman told us that she cried inwardly when the rabbi asked us to talk about crying because it was just something she didn’t do.  And then I informed them that while I hadn’t yet cried that day, I probably would.  And I had definitely cried the day before.

“Why?” the couple asked.

“I don’t know.  I often cry when I’m reading a book and something strikes me as sad.  I’m reading a book now that is making me cry a lot.  I cry at movies.  I cry because something is moving.”

“You cried last night,” Josh reminded me.  “When you were talking about the death penalty with the kids in the car.”

“Oh,” I said, brightly.  “Yes, I cried then.  And I cried when the rabbi sang Kol Nidre.”

And then five minutes later, I cried during part of his sermon when he talked about his kids growing up.

I loved his sermon because it was about looking long and hard at the things that move you to cry instead of trying to suppress the urge to weep.  That crying is a good indicator that the triggering event is something important to us.  And yes, he spoke very specifically about crying and infertility because the Torah portions back at Rosh HaShanah were both about infertility.

And his point: you cry with infertility because you want children to parent so badly.  And that it’s not only okay to cry but that we should cry because crying is an extension of how deeply our heart longs for our infertility to be resolved or for our children to arrive.  He told us that crying is a form of prayer, perhaps the deepest, most intense form of prayer, because we are laying our heart bare.  Our tears are saying, this is really really really important to me.

Have I mentioned how much I love my rabbi?

Sometimes when he talks, I start crying because he speaks so deeply to my personal truth.  He has this magical ability to dig around in congregant hearts and make everyone walk out of shul still mulling over what they found in there.

So when was the last time you cried?  And what was it that moved you to tears?

I’m reading Jasper Fforde’s The Last Dragonslayer.  It’s the ChickieNob’s book, but she left it on my bed.  I had been reading Judy Blume’s new book, and I got to the first plane crash and I was done.  DONE.  Done with a capital D.  I closed the book and decided not to torture myself.  I’m already not great with air travel, so it seemed like a poor idea to poison myself more.

I picked up Fforde’s book and started reading to get the scene out of my head, and I ended up liking the beginning so much that I told the ChickieNob that I wasn’t giving the book back for a few days.

Thanks, kid.

Anyway, the main character in the book is an orphan, and in a scene on page 43, she is speaking to a fellow orphan who is admitting that he misses his unknown parents.

“I miss my father,” said Tiger. “I don’t know who he is, where he is, or whether he’s alive or even knows I’m here — but I miss him.”

“Me, too,” I said, blowing my nose and thinking for a moment before clapping my hands together.

It was such a touching moment in what is usually a whimsical and humourous book.  We relate so deeply to this thought: Of course he would miss his father, even if he never knew his father.  Of course he would feel his absence deeply.  We are meant to know our origins, to know our connection to the world around us.

But I reread that sentence flipping the child-parent relationship:

“I miss my child,” said Melissa.  “I don’t know who she would have been, or when she would have come, or whether she’s out there still waiting to be born — but I miss her.”

Why does the understanding only flow in one direction?  Why don’t we extend the same empathy towards the childless mother as we do the motherless child?

I don’t know — it was such a jarring moment, and then I fell back into the story.

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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I’m working my way through a backlog of Note to Self episodes, and there was a particularly interesting one on space travel and specifically space tourism such as Virgin Galactic*.  While we may not get a person to Mars in my lifetime (or maybe we will?), I agree with the host, Manoush Zomorodi, that it seems likely that we’ll have to make a decision on whether we’re up for a suborbital flight, similar to the way that we have to make a decision on how we feel about airplane travel.

I don’t think I’m up for it.  There are plenty of places I’d like to go and things I’d like to see, but I’m equally okay never getting to those places or seeing those things.  Life is short, you can’t fit everything in, and I understand that some of those dreams may need to float away.  And space is one of those things: I’m totally okay never going up into space.

How about you?  If you had the financial means, would you take the risk of a suborbital flight if it meant you got to see space up-close?

*Heads up: Infertility pops up a few times in the episode.

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Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts that are connected to businesses or are sponsored posts.

I am reading Ready Player One and having a very visceral reaction to the story.  On one hand, it is making me so sad.  Like so so so sad.  Like deeply, unspeakably sad.  I know what you’re thinking right now.  You’re wondering why I don’t put the book down.  I mean, who would keep reading something that is clearly making them weepy?

Because it is also making me feel as if I’m walking into a sweatshirt-soft hug.  Like I’m being held and rocked.  I can’t stop smiling as I’m reading it.

I guess because it is reminding me of everything from childhood, and, frankly, from now since I haven’t really moved on from my childhood loves.  I still wake up early every Saturday morning to play video games.  And I listen to the same music I listened to in high school and still wear the same clothes.  So not a lot has changed.  But, you know, everything has changed.

I was reading in Mental Floss about bibliotherapy,

Patients fill out a questionnaire about their reading habits and issues they might be having, and get a prescription for something that speaks to their specific set of circumstances.

Oh yes, yes, that sounds perfect.  I mean, I don’t always go for book recommendations when the person doesn’t know my reading tastes, but I definitely believe that books get us in a different mood.  Ready Player One is a case in point.  It is changing my mood as I read it.  Bringing me down while making me unbelievably happy; like how I felt when I finally met up with other people who played interactive fiction games.  Where were these people when I was a kid playing alone?  It makes me sad I didn’t find them until now, but it makes me unbelievably happy that I found them at all.  Sort of like this book.

What was the last book that changed your mood?

Side note: Tomorrow is #MicroblogMonday.  Get writing!

I’m not really ready to graduate from Hogwarts. I mean, overall, I’m not a big fan of change. I don’t mind something becoming more, but I’m not really into things becoming different. So Rowling announcing that Pottermore will be completely overhauled and that Hogwarts is essentially disappearing makes me somewhat depressed.

I spent a lot of time taking screenshots of my work.

Like all those potions I made and hoarded.  And my house points.  And my duels.

I took my Pottermore very very seriously.

Last week, I had a night to myself while Josh worked.  I went on Pottermore to say goodbye, but it sort of felt like the last days of college, when you knew you were going to have to leave soon so what was the point in doing anything more?  I spent a little time looking at my virtual books and some scenes.

And then I closed it down to wait for the site to revamp itself like a phoenix.

Oh Fawkes, I’m not really good with phoenixes, either.

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Stop procrastinating.  Go make your backups.  Don’t have regrets.

Seriously.  Stop what you’re doing for a moment.  It will take you fifteen minutes, tops.  But you will have peace of mind for days and days.  It’s the gift to yourself that keeps on giving.

As always, add any new thoughts to the Friday Backup post and peruse new comments in order to find out about methods, plug-ins, and devices that help you quickly back up your data and accounts.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Pain in Progress (Part Two)” (Infertilityhonesty)
• “Microblog Mondays: Back Alleys” (Searching for Our Silver Lining)
• “On Othering. Dismissing People as Being Less Human Than We Are” (Carly Findlay)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Um… let’s see how well this goes.  I want to highlight two posts, both about Kim Cattrall’s comments about… well… sort of about mothers.

Misconceptions About Conception had the first personal blog post I read on the topic, so it opened the discussion for me.  She comes at it from the idea that words have meaning, and whether it’s okay to apply them to a different definition.

The Road Less Travelled also talks about the feelings that certain words evoke as well as understanding Cattrall without really agreeing with her completely.

Both are thought-provoking posts, and I think Cattrall’s comments open up an interesting discussion on maternal instincts and mothering and ways people can be with kids and not parent.  Go read these two posts and join in the discussion.

Battlefish has a post about volunteering for the Finnish Red Cross.  First of all, I love that the woman called the sorting of items a “work party.”  But it was a sweet image of volunteering with her daughter on her back.  Go read the post and smile (and maybe get inspired to offer out some volunteer hours).

Lastly, Love and Life in the Petri Dish is holding her breath during the first weeks of her pregnancy.  I think the title says it all: “Inside the Mind of a Habitual Aborter.”  She explains: “It’s a tricky place.  I’m trying to balance in the place that all could be ok. Not to start to think it is ok and get my hopes way up, but not to fall into the chasm that it’s hopeless and doomed either. Just stay the middle path.”  I think this post will resonate with a lot of people.  Go send her good thoughts as she finds that middle place.

The roundup to the Roundup: Not ready for Pottermore to change.  Your weekly backup nudge.  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between September 11th and September 18th) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.