Taking a Breath(er) and a Blintz
I know, I know. I am
in violation of the first rule(s) of blogging.
Stay current.Write. Stay
disciplined. Write, right away. Know your stuff, right?
Okay, enough with the wordplay, like playing with the food
on your plate.
Have you ever taken note in the movies how actors actually
eat in dining scenes? Imagine the
impediment of the food on the plate, how unappetizing it really is, take after
take. It’s cut! Then eat again. So what
we see on camera are just the nibbles, the tiny bites, taken furtively for the
lens. Uck. The spaghetti twills, that
never leave the fork, that plate still full.
Writing sometimes feels just like that.Tiny bites for the scene, working through a
full plate of ideas. Uck. It’s a beautiful day. Almost 10 a.m. And here I sit. At my keyboard.
When we say we have a full plate, we mean too busy – a state
of perpetual distraction.
I “meant” to be out at this time, breathing deep, balancing
on one foot on a yoga mat in a class down the street. But no.
I missed the 7 a.m. window there. And I “meant” to be outdoors at this time –
digging in the dirt, pulling weeds from the garden, planning a trip to the
nursery. But not yet. Through the window in my room there’s a brisk spring breeze
stirring the papers on my desk. But here
I sit, staring at a grey screen, tapping grey words on an electronic page,
heading nowhere outside my own head, which is nowhere in particular.
Some of higher mind call
this ‘the writing life.’ A form of self-imposed torture for many. For others, as necessary to life as
breathing. For me, it’s a curious kind
of give and take, more like a clinical exchange of oxygen and carbon
dioxide. I’m no writer, I would say. I’m not a “journalist!” I confessed to the 10
people interviewed last night in a roundtable discussion for an article -
an article on the “Greening of Detroit” that I will spend the next week and a
half : laboring. Writing.
I’ve made a life writing. Like this, on days like this, meeting
deadlines, set by the parameters or obligations of work - a
job, where I sit most of the day . . . writing. Ad copy. Jingles. Press releases. Annual
reports. Video scripts. Speaker notes. Exhibits.
And now. . . in free fall, I write articles of my own
choosing, setting my own “editorial calendar,” agenda and schedule to meet a
monthly deadline, as the “founding editor” of a little e-publication of the
Detroit Jewish Federation – we call it
(because I named it) myJewishDetroit
Now there’s a declaration: I’m Jewish. A Detroiter (albeit former Clevelander). I work for the Jewish Federation – the “engine
of philanthropy” as we say, for the Jewish community here.
You don’t have to be Jewish to understand our mission: to
care and tend to our families and the most vulnerable members of our community,
to teach our children well, to work towards the greater good, a vibrant future
for generations to come, to repair what is broken in this world. And indeed, there is much that is broken here
in Detroit, in Israel and the world over. And so we plow our fields, plant our
seeds, persist in the work and the hope. When you got a big mission like that,
well, honestly, there’s plenty of work to go around.
My work goes just as so: tap-tapping on a keyboard, melting
through hours, word by word, putting together small pieces of the Big Puzzle.
As our sages tell us – We are not obligated to complete the
work, nor are we free to desist. (Pirke
Avot – Ethics of Our Fathers - 2:21, if you must know.)
And then we get these holidays – like today is Shavuot. Time
out. I’m on holiday today, a holiday which I am not particularly observing, and one which seems
something of an interruption of everything I have on my plate.
And so here I sit at work of my own choice. I will proceed to the yoga mat and to the
garden, in due time, perhaps within the hour. But for now, as I will, and as I
must: I will post my own work
About Shavuot
In case you are still wondering – as most people do -- Shavuot
is the holiday that celebrates the giving of the Torah to the Jews. On the Jewish calendar, it falls 50 days after
the second night of Passover and historically marks the new agricultural
season, the Holiday of First Fruits.
The food of choice for Shavuot, is cheese (most typically
served as blintzes or burekas,
Israeli cheese-filled dough pockets.) Why cheese: from Scriptures somewhere in
Exodus, Israel is described as the Promised Land, flowing with milk and honey.
Because, and just
because, a recipe is in order here, I offer my link to burekas, posted onFood52.
For better blintzes than ever I will attempt – I defer to a
higher authority: Joan Nathan on Chosen Blintzes for Shavuot.
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