burning like matchsticks in the face of the darkness

I woke up a little after 9 this morning and thought, "Seriously?  But I only went to bed like 7 hours ago."  I didn't get up, but I clearly wasn't deeply asleep because about twenty minutes later I woke up to my phone vibrating on my bedside table.  It was Terry.

You may recall that last Saturday I was supposed to have lunch with Terry but he had a family emergency.  I called him on Thursday evening, and he couldn't talk because he was at a wine auction.  So I was glad to actually get to talk to him, even though phone conversations are never optimal for us as a mode of interaction.

I'd been planning to just come back another Saturday for a rescheduled lunch, but I have so much stuff to do that I think I'll just leave it until the next time I'm scheduled to be out there -- which is the last weekend in May.

+

This week, my hair hit that point of desperately needing to be cut.  [The last time I got it cut was late December -- I'd been thinking about growing it out, but have firmly decided against that.]  I walked in to Salon Femia, where I've gotten decent cuts before.  I had a different woman this time, and I'm not sure that when I said I wanted something wash-n-wear that that really registered.  'Cause the end product I thought, "My hair does not naturally have that much volume, and I'm kind of freaked out."  It's calmer now, and I think it'll look fine with regular wash and air-dry.  She also gave me side sweep bangs, which are a mix of cool and annoying, but I'm not too stressed about that.

+

65F at 12pm?  It felt significantly warmer than that.  It is nice to see people outside, cleaning and playing.  This warm weather saps my energy, though.

+

I went to my mom's friend Susan's Passover seder tonight.  (Apparently this is her fortieth year hosting this seder.)  Every time someone mentioned that this was my first seder, I felt like those "Baby's First [Whatever]" books.

I was actually surprised at how familiar it felt.  At CAUMC Maundy Thursday service, Trelawney does the Jewish blessing when she lights the candles at the table; I know the Exodus story, of course; I read The Devil's Arithmetic when I was like 9 (I remember doing a book report on it in 4th grade) so I have some familiarity with the four questions, the hiding of the matzoh portion, the opening the door for Elijah; relatively recently I looked up what exactly the Four Questions are (it had come up in conversation somehow), and in the process I read the bit about the four different kinds of children; the bitter herb and the sweet are familiar from some sort of cultural osmosis.

One thing I was (pleasantly) surprised by was the bit about how we shouldn't rejoice at the destruction of our enemies (the ancient Egyptians or whomever) because they are God's children, too.

I totally want to edit their Haggadah, though, because if you've never been to a seder before there are places where you're unclear on what you're supposed to be doing (it reminded me of church bulletins -- and there were times when people like Susan would stumble over what we were supposed to be doing, which of course drove me extra-crazy), plus just typographical errors.  And sometimes there's just the transliteration for the Hebrew, which some of the Jews at the table stumbled over (said if it were the actual Hebrew they could read that no problem), so the Hebrew should be added in all the places it's absent.

The actual discussions during and after the meal didn't drive me too crazy -- despite politics featuring prominently.  It was kinda trippy that there were over a dozen people, many of them older, so people would hear bits of conversation and ask questions which had totally been answered like a minute earlier -- much like the last time we FA's went to Border Cafe and Cailin was talking to me and MaryAlice chimed in, saying exactly what Cailin had said earlier (in that instance it was because the environment was so noisy).  I commented as much to my mother, and then the same sort of thing happened and I just about died laughing -- I don't even remember what about it made me so punchy.

The seder started around 7pm, and around 11pm most people were dispersing.  My mom had driven in, so rather than my waiting for a 66 or doing the long route of Brookline Villlage (Green Line) to Park to Davis (Red Line), she drove me part of the way home (we ended up at Central Square, and I said she could just drop me there rather than having to mess around with going through Harvard Square).

I took the 66 from Harvard to get there, and I've rarely taken it past where it hits the B Line, so it was interesting paying attention to stuff.  As soon as you pass Now Entering Brookline or whatever the sign says, there are a whole bunch of Jewish stores and temples and stuff, which entertained me, like an unspoken subtitle to the Welcome sign.  (I also hadn't realized just how many restaurants there are on the Brighton Ave. stretch.  Nor that there are a million burrito joints everywhere -- the plethora of burrito joints is kind of a joke in davis_square, and there are an increasing number in Harvard Square though I tend to forget that since I don't actually live in Harvard Square, but it still threw me to see places on Brighton Ave./Harvard St. apparently selling primarily burritos etc.)

Passover is coming up, so Emily asked Ruhi to lead RCFOS discussion tonight and talk about Passover. We talked about Exodus 7:16 (and briefly, Exodus 21:1-6) and Ruhi explained how the word translated "worship me" in the Hebrew means more like "serve me" or even "be my slaves" and we talked about the idea of serving God to the exclusion of all others and what sorts of things we feel ourselves enslaved to, and it was interesting and i found myself rather wishing i was taking notes

Liz came in late, after we all said things we were slaves to, so Ruhi asked her if she thought she was a slave to anything, and Liz said of course, that if she weren't she would feel so free all the time. Riffing off this, Ruhi said if she were free of everything, she would be praising God all the time, couldn't help it, would just feel so full of gratitude all the time, which is a way in which i had never thought about the whole "constant praising God" thing (a thing which has always seemed troubling to me, incidentally) and which actually made a lot of sense to me. And then ElizabethK said that it's like how when you're free of obligations and worries and so on you can notice all the beauty in the world around you.

We talked some about Old Testament God, and God is immature in Her relationship with Israel and the world and has to learn and how it's a partnership (e.g. Abraham and God discussing Sodom and Gomorrah -- Genesis 18:16-end) and i'm always torn on this, because i really like a God you can argue with, but i'm also really attached to my omniscient omnibenevolent God. (My need for that kind of a God is why i made the God leap.)

Check-out is something(s) you're looking forward to, and Ruhi said that Passover's coming, that "I'll be leaving the narrow places," which struck me as so powerful. Apparently Mitzrayim means Egypt and also "narrow places" or "narrow waters."

In other news, i've been using this icon a lot recently, and thinking about how the "we are who we choose to be" could be problematic with the idea that it elides the ways in which we aren't given a choice in a lot of things, and i thought about the image in the icon and how Anya thought about running away in Season 3 and how there she is taking up a sword at the end of Season 7 and what happens to her after that and thinking about how we don't always get to control what happens to us but we can choose how we react to what we're given. And yeah.

P.S. The first two pages of the Living Arts section in today's Boston Globe? (Finding their religion and Winding paths and spiritual journeys) I totally know two of the Smithies.