We are on the home stretch of our year-long Abecedarium, patient readers!  I must admit, I’m a bit amazed at how I’ve been able to pull this off thus far.  I was a bit worried about letters, like Q and V, that seem to have limited use, but finding words to support a theme has been surprisingly easy.  In fact, most of the time I am noodling over several words that start with the letter of the day.  Bring it on, X, Y, and Z!

Finding the right word that begins with W has been an interesting challenge over these last two weeks.  I began pondering about the power of Words in general and Writing in particular, but that’s not the theme.  (I have a feeling that will drive my essay on my five-year blog-iversary, which we’ll reach right after this Abecedarium is complete.)  Nor is Wisdom, although I always try to sprinkle in a little bit about that as well.  No, today’s essay is going to focus on thoughts around Welcoming.

Part of what had me thinking about this theme is the on-going journey of socializing our new kitten, Baxter, with his reluctant older “sister” Bridget.  We’ve had Baxter almost a month now, and we’ve come a long way.  The day we brought him home, Bridget reacted with a “What fresh hell is THIS?!” look followed by a hiss and growl and running away.  Baxter, for his part, dove under a couch, not to be seen again for 12 hours.  I, of course, had had visions of Bridget falling in love with this adorable little kitten, letting her maternal instincts allow her to welcome him.  Instead, she has reacted to every stage of this socialization process with confusion/anger/standoffishness complete with strange growls that should not come out of any earthly creature and bared teeth that give me nightmares.  Little by little, her stance has softened.  She has begun to come running (well, slinking) to play along with Baxter with the feather-on-a-stick toy that she’s ignored up until now.  Bridget has consented to being in the same room with him, including somewhat relaxing on one lap while Baxter does the same on another.  (This is why you never should have more pets than available laps.)  Then, this morning, there was an amazing breakthrough.

We have discussed Bridget’s deep-seated food insecurity issues before.  Because of this, I have been really careful around feeding time.  I was afraid that if Baxter dared to come over to her food bowl that she would rip him to shreds.  He, of course, snuck over to her bowl and dug into her food, which apparently tastes way better than kitten food.  So, over the last couple of days, he has steadfastly REFUSED to eat his canned kitten food.  (I, as the paranoid hypochondriac, immediately decided that there is something fatally wrong with him.)  This morning, he again refused to eat his food and before I could react (I hadn’t had any coffee yet), he went over and stuck his head into her bowl WHILE SHE WAS EATING.  My heart caught in my throat, waiting for the attack.  But she LET him!  She actually backed away and let him eat her food.  No growl nor hiss.  I was stunned.  In her own way, she HAS accepted him and, in fact, I think she understands that he’s a kitten and needs to eat.  Her hissing and growling had clearly become just performative and that act clinched it.  She has finally welcomed him, although I expect her to continue to play the annoyed big sister for a while.  She does have an image to maintain after all.

I have also been thinking about Welcoming in the context of putting oneself in a new social situation.  My Mom made the decision last February to move to a different senior living facility.  She knew no one at this new place and even with a newcomer “buddy system,” she was often left to fend for herself at meal times.  Do you remember the stress of the cafeteria in grade school or high school?  It’s not a whole lot different as adults.  I am so proud of how my Mom handled this situation!  She opened herself up to the kind of rejection and discomfort we all dread, irrespective of how uncomfortable she herself was in the situation.  Over the months, she has developed a circle of friends and tells me stories regularly of how she welcomes new people who are looking for a place to sit.  People were kind and welcoming to her; she has been paying it forward.  

With everything going on in Israel these days, I have felt myself pulled back to more active participation in Judaism—particularly the need for a Jewish community.  The activation barrier, though, to attending a new shul for the first time has been prohibitive.  Religious institutions can be clic-y places and finding one in which you feel comfortable can be a difficult trial-and-error.  I had pushed through the discomfort when I lived in the Lehigh Valley and found a wonderful home at Temple Beth El.  I needed to push through that discomfort again, here. 

Trish went with me to Friday night services at Temple Sinai a couple of weeks ago.  The attendance on Friday nights is generally lower than Saturday morning and I paradoxically find that easier.  Trish, of course, made friends quickly and easily with the people there.  It’s one of the aspects of her personality that I admire most.  She is an easy conversationalist whereas I am not.  She connects with people extraordinarily well.  Yesterday, I went alone to Shabbat morning services.  A few of the people we had met before were there and recognized me.  (Of course, they asked where Trish was and looked a bit disappointed that she wasn’t with me.  I tried not to take it personally.)  Striking up new conversations is hard for me.  It was always a struggle at work events, too.  Once I got to know people, conversation would flow more easily but those first encounters were difficult.  However, this first time went well enough that I’m encouraged to go back again and work at recreating the community that I miss so much.

This was also a lesson to me on the importance of being welcoming myself.  The essence of being welcoming is being non-judgmental and “people curious”.  Bonnie and Mike made me feel part of the Temple Sinai community right away.  Cheryl patiently asked me questions about myself during the Kiddush and shared a lot about herself even though I was too uncomfortable to ask good questions of her.  Everyone knew I was “new” and they were kind.  I have a hard time being welcoming to others because I have a hard time striking up conversation with people I don’t know.  (Well, even with people I DO know.  Writing is not really a problem.  Talking can be.)  I am trying to embody some of the lessons I’ve written about and the best way to do that is to remember what it’s like to be on the receiving end of needing to be “seen”.  These days, with all the division and dehumanizing going on in our polarized society, making the effort to be welcoming and seeing those around you as unique humans is more important than ever.  This week was another good reminder of that for me.

This essay is posting a few days late for a number of reasons.  First, my editor has a head cold and I refuse to put a piece of writing in front of her when she can’t edit clearly (or fairly).  Yes, that is a lame excuse.  Second, we had house guests this weekend, which is when I usually write polish my essays.  This is also a lame excuse since I could have written during the week or after they left midday Sunday.  So, the REAL reason this essay is late is that I’ve just felt very “un” lately.  Unsettled.  Unmoored.  Out of my routine.  Not in control.  Then I watched a TV show that titled that particular episode Uncharted and I knew I had my title.  I felt like I’ve been navigating uncharted waters, as it were.  And I just couldn’t write.  I’ll admit that I’m only marginally comfortable with this essay as it is.  I’ve just been all over the place.

I’m sure you got a hint of the disruption I was navigating in the previous essay entitled Time.  Let me tell you what else was wrapped around losing our beloved Beau.  First, I had traveled to Atlanta for my Dad’s yahrzeit (the anniversary of his passing).  I do not travel “well” anymore so that trip alone left me out of sorts.  My sister came back with me for a visit and we all had to deal with our trauma over Beau’s illness and decision to let him go.  Then we drove to Rhode Island for the family wedding that was beautiful and joyous and exhausting.  (We don’t handle six hour drives like we used to, either.)  After that emotionally draining visit (I hope Wendy will come back), my sister went home on Tuesday and I promptly came down with a wicked head cold.  Trish nursed me for the next, oh, five days (which basically involves getting me won ton soup, listening to me complain, and generally leaving me alone).  For good measure, I bit my tongue, so I had a huge painful ulcer, AND badly burned the roof of my mouth on hot soup.  I was a pleasure. Our house guests came the following weekend and we had a blast!  We hosted a Happy Hour on Friday that included two of Trish’s siblings and their spouses; we ate and drank and watched football and baseball with our friends; and, had a final group brunch on Sunday before they headed home.  As they drove away, Trish surrendered to the head cold and here we are.  It has been several weeks of ups and downs to the extreme.  I have emotional whiplash that has left me both drained and disoriented.

What I’m also struggling mightily with right now is Hamas’ indiscriminate, brutal, violent slaying of over 1400 Israelis.  I will say right up front that I am not balanced on this one.  No, I do not revel in the fate of civilians caught up in this mess and I will not defend every single action of Israel but nothing can compare to the brutality of those murders.  This is not a new conflict, of course.  If you want a good primer on the history of conquest of the land we call Israel, read Michener’s The Source.  But you don’t need a historical novel to know that Jews have been hated and hunted for millennia.  As a Jew, I have been educated since I was a young child on one very sad fact:  every few generations, Jews face an existential threat.  It’s happened like clockwork for thousands of years.  Those old enough to have experienced the horrors of the Holocaust, or who have direct connection to those who did, know this well.  Those young enough to be removed from that history see only what fits into their current experience.  But these are still uncharted waters.  Things are different this time.  We have real time information, much of it highly graphic, that shows the inhumanity of war.  We are also subject to enormous amounts of mis- and disinformation.  The weapons available are frightening and the ability to coordinate across different factions could lead to devastating outcomes.  I don’t know what is going to happen.  This very much feels like an existential crisis for Israel and I’m frightened.  This is all keeping me off balance.

Over the course of pontificating in these essays over the last almost five years, I’ve waxed philosophical about my ability to finally live in the present.  I apparently was a little too proud of that, because reality smacked me in the face over the last few weeks.  I was right back to living for the next opportunity to exhale, just like I had almost my entire adult life.  I couldn’t control what was happening around me and I had precious little ability (Strength? Focus? Desire?) to control my own reactions and outlook.  I stopped working out.  I stopped writing.  I stopped meditating.  I feel like I stopped breathing.  It was a humbling reminder that it’s easy to talk about calmly living in the present when everything is going smoothly yet a different exercise all together when you are lurching from one unexpected blow to another.

As I was thinking about this essay, I kept coming back to this theme of being in uncharted waters.  Mostly, that concept carries negative connotations—thoughts of dangers known and unknown; thoughts of lack of control; fears of what might happen next.  It got me thinking about my work years, particularly the last decade, which was one long uncharted journey.  When I started my career, I thought the world was run by competent, mature people and I found that intimidating.  As I gained experience, I realized that the world was run by people just like me, and I got scared!  Did I have the mental clarity to lead well?  Now, I realize that the world is run by people generally less capable than I am and it just pisses me off.

Like most people, I learned to develop mental and emotional shortcuts to navigate stressors:  a situation would arise that had elements that were familiar to me and I would apply a solution that had worked in the past.  Sometimes this worked brilliantly; sometimes it failed spectacularly.  Over time, I realized that while shortcuts had their value, EVERY situation is unique.  The trick, when you have a shortcut you want to apply, is to ask yourself, “What is different this time?”  I will admit that I did not embrace this thinking until very late in my career.  In fact, I believe it is what got me fired since the people above me did not want to think about what might be different.  They just wanted to do the same thing they’d done in the past and assume the same outcome.  I wanted to do something different but couldn’t find the right way to convince others to follow that pathway.

I’ve written before about my obsession with assumptions.  Assuming that the same solution will work in a different situation—or that a solution that previously failed will not work now—can get you in trouble fast.  Most people are not sufficient students of history to know what’s different this time around.  It gets you in trouble in relationships, in business, and most certainly in global politics.  No matter how confident you are that you’ve “been there, done that,” know that you must take a moment to ask “what’s different now?”  It may bring you clarity or it may take you in a totally different direction.  I can’t tell you what will happen in Israel or what the “right” path forward is.  All I can see is that it’s different this time and we can’t jump to conclusions.  Similarly, while I know I have certainly been through my share of trying times, I need to take a breath and move through these times intentionally.

So, finding myself in uncharted waters again, I’m asking myself, “What is different this time?”  I’m not so much embracing the chaos as challenging myself to not give into it.  I’m starting by going to back to what I control and what I don’t.  I’m letting myself feel but trying hard not to just react.  I’m taking more deep breaths.  I’m not allowing myself to let the days slip by while I wait for things to get better.  And I’m writing again.  We’ll see what comes next.