Driving the hour-and-a-half into Asheville for my weekly therapy appointment, I pulled into my favorite coffee spot. Looked around for the backpack that serves as my purse. Not where it normally is. Searched the car. No backpack. No wallet, no driver’s license, no cash, no credit card, and worst of all, NO COFFEE! And no shopping for Shabbat dinner, no Thai food, no nothing that I usually do on Thursdays.
A rush of emotions fluttered by. I thought about factors that might have contributed to this grave omission.
Oh, it could be that if I had my “stuff” then at the time I would be heading home, a tree would have fallen on top of my car and I would be instantly killed, so the Deity made my pack temporarily invisible so I would have to come home early, thus avoiding the tree. I saw that happen once. The tree fell on this woman’s car, crushing it and killing her immediately.
To be honest, that doesn’t sound half bad to me, and I found myself once more angry at G-d for keeping me here. That is a recurring them in my life and always has been, no matter what kind of wonderful person I am and no matter who fervently wishes I would stay. Passive suicidality, I would call it.
On the other hand, it could simply be exhaustion. My brain is thoroughly addled by, oh, just everything. Dad, Mom, war, growing anti-Semitism everywhere, you name it–I am exhausted and overwhelmed by it all.
I am grateful that nobody is lobbing bombs at my barn (did I mention the “living in a barn with no bathroom” part?). I feel sorry for the Arabs whose houses are rubble, and once again I’m mystified that the common person cannot look at a picture of a demolished mosque, dome intact, and realize that if it had been bombed from above, the dome would have been destroyed. Ballistics 101. Not hard to figure out that the building IMPLODED, meaning that it was sitting on a cache of explosives. Not hard to see, but people don’t often look at things with a critical eye.
I apologize to people who have sent me manuscripts and interviews, and I have not done anything with them yet. That goes for emails, too. I know I’ll get back on my feet pretty soon, but for now….I’m knackered, done in, overwhelmed, and exhausted. I’m going to bed.
Blessings to all, and to all a Good Night.
