Mahar

With enough power, you can defy gravity. With enough speed, you can escape its grasp. For a weekend, you can disappear into a world of faith and security and open your eyes to life anew. You can taste the ruach and the koach, the spirit and the strength, and you can hold hands with seventy others and fill a room with sanctity.

We are not the leaders of tomorrow. We are the leaders of today.

Peopling

The year is 1886 and great-great-grandpa Rubin is on his sixteenth day of exhaustion. The conditions are steerage and the promise is America and he is alone, but not. He is a month too soon for Lady Liberty's welcome, but somehow, he still sees Her flame. He breathes in the New York City soot and smiles.

Flicker.

Boot heels meet cobblestone and he wonders how much life one can grasp in the palm of a hand.

Flicker.

He strokes Martha's face on the proof of his promise. He knows he can achieve.

Fade.

The year is 2011 and she finds herself revisiting. Her thoughts toss and tumble with the nights she cannot sleep. She doesn't call it loneliness, but she feels it all the same. Cars chatter outside her window. The coffee mug has been filled. Another evening. Another morning. A new day.

Flicker.

The sun is shining, but the season is still cold.

Flicker.

The medication stopped working days ago. She lies awake and dreams.

Flicker.

Her image of self is wavering. She borders on transparent. She knows not what to do.

Fade.

Realization

It hits you in the strangest of moments, that scent of something lost. It's 3 am and the pictures are scattered across her bed again. If you ask her, she'll tell the truth this time. Things are not okay.

Snow has been cleared from most of the parking garage. The lampposts are always shining. Music is playing through computer speakers. For tonight, silence is too loud. She's not ready for that. She's not ready for that yet.

She's not ready to be alone.

When she closes her eyes, she remembers the smell of latkes that always seemed to linger and the nights she shared her bed. She remembers bagel breakfasts and eight hour car rides. She remembers party hats and streamers and acting out Purim spiels. She remembers tickling and laughter and arms wrapped around her.

She's feeling naked now. She needs someone to hold.

She wishes she had never let go.

Renewal and Rabbit Holes

When you're standing across from a man for ten minutes, he begins to look familiar. You wonder if you've seen him before or if a shared subway ride can really be that intimate. You close your eyes to remember his face- laugh lines, glasses, winter cap covering graying hair. You wonder what he's scribbling in his notebook, leather-bound, and what he thinks of your bed-headed, Starbucks-sipping self. The 1 pulls into Times Square. You exit. He doesn't look up.

El Diario is sitting across from The New York Times and next to a Chinese paper I will probably never understand. For a moment, three worlds align. I stand and bear witness. It's empowering in a way.

Is it possible to be exhausted yet refreshed?

Once again, I find myself with questions. Once again, the reading is responsive, and my words have been scripted, and I know what I am saying, but I do not understand. I am searching for reasons, uncovering wood and stone, rifling through memory, reading facts on Snapple caps.

The ground upon which we stand is wrought with faults.

Life is fragile.

I lean into the wind.

Life is fragile.

From this moment forward, I vow to make mine count.

Pomegranate Seeds

There is so much life that I am living. There are meetings and concerts and classes and moments and the world keeps turning and the smiles keep fleeting and flitting as I New York City step around you. I love the feel of excitement and the way it lingers in the air. I love the taste of promise and the grinding of gears as another puzzle piece is laid in its place. A picture is slowly evolving. I love watching it unfurl.

The year is 2011, and while its eve brought seven days of grief, I have seen another morning. Life is in full force now and it is exhilarating. Day to day is not a monotony for each sunrise brings another thrill.

I missed the childhood wonder, but it's so easy to fall back into it again.

Each sunset has its own brilliancy and each snowflake its special flare. Each passerby has her own story to share and I want nothing more than to listen.

I've started making lists again, but this time, I think it's different. This time, I'm not afraid to breathe.

Bubbe

Life is never quite real until it happens.

I watched for years as she slowly slipped away. I watched the forgetting. I watched the regression. I waited for the day when she could say "I love you too" no longer. I hoped it would never come, but seasons change and years pass and the innocence of first snowfall is broken. White turns to gray, beauty to slush, and Death reaches out his shriveled fingers. I know she couldn't refuse.

I miss my grandmother. I miss the woman who laughed and tickled and did everything to make me smile. I miss the woman who played with me in pajamas and saved me from the Wicked Witch and made funny faces as soon as the camera flashed. I miss the lingering smell from latkes and the hours of anticipation New Hampshire bound. I miss the laughing and the hugging and the coming together again. I miss having a Bubbe to call my own.

The mirrors are covered, but I've stopped looking anyhow, and instead of ball drops, funeral bells will reign. The world keeps turning. New Years is on the way.

K. 545

Sometimes, I like to retreat into the furrows of my mind and toy with imagination. I like to curl into myself and allow myself to wonder. It's become less about answers and more about journeys, and as I meander the crevices of my thoughts again, I find myself content. 

I met a boy on the bus today who knew me with a glance. We'd never met before, but he looked at me and smiled, and when our eyes met, I was bare. I know he knew it too. I didn't ask and he didn't tell. I never caught his name. 

I had a friend knock on my door earlier to see if I was here. I answered. He saw through my facade and uncovered my exhaustion. They're begging me to sleep. 

My joints are cracking more than usual. I lean into the stretch. G major, but begging to resolve. I see tonic on the horizon, but the sun has already set. 

Tomorrow. 

There's a world of possibility and I'm aching to discover it. My shoulder grinds in its socket. My toes tangle with carpet. Tea tonight was chamomile. Cup number three is cooling.

Tomorrow. 

Why do we live to wait for sunrise? Why do we crave the break of day?

Tomorrow.

The development is just as beautiful. Dark does not suddenly turn light, and I love the moments of gray.

Tomorrow.

I know C major is dawning. I'll sit and watch it unfold.