She walked into the doctor’s office, trailing behind her mother. The feeling of overwhelm was everywhere. New office. New smells. New staff. New protocol.
Hey OOTOB readers,
First, you may have noticed that my writing style has changed somewhat. See, as of August I’ve been writing a column for the Cleveland Jewish News, our local paper. The pieces have to be 500 words and as I write, I have a certain audience in mind. Then I publish here. Also, I write every few weeks for our congregation’s newsletter. In the past seven years that I’ve been blogging (started in July, 2011) my tone and content have shifted and fluctuated, but I never thought this was the place for “Jewish inspiration” per se. But now I’ve decided to publish those pieces here too. So pretty much you get a mosaic of my writing.
I’m so happy that Dory’s mantra “just keep swimming” has gone viral.
I’ve been doing a lot of traveling recently (Philadelphia last week, California today, Dallas and South Bend in June). Each time, a few day before I travel, I get these benign feelings of travel anxiety. Now, in general I am not an anxious person, so I wasn’t really sure where these feelings were coming from.
There are beautiful responses that people of faith turn to during moments of pain and struggle: Gam zu l’tova – it’s all for the good. Gam zeh yaavor – this too shall pass. Kol man d’avid Rachmana l’tav avid – everything G-d does is compassionate and for our good. It’s all bashert – meant to be.
The extreme journey from utter control to complete release of control in parenting is frightening. No one seems to travel it bump-free. It’s more like a free-fall, hitting your head; spraining your ankle; losing your balance, and landing in a heap at the bottom wondering what happened.
Passover approaches like a returning visitor bringing melting snow and sunshiny Sunday afternoons to clean your car in the driveway. Every year it marches forward steadily, predictably. The smells of Passover coming: frying onions, potato starch cakes, hard-boiled eggs.