I guess

that last post was about nostalgia, pure and simple. That nostalgia is its own beast, and it will hang on to anything while you are feeling it. It is yearning for permanence, and an unwillingness to accept impermanence.

Ironic that as I was writing that, my dad was going in for routine blood tests and his PCP called my mother to say he was severely anemic and needed to go straight to the hospital for blood transfusions. Emergency room visits are no fun. Finally my dad was admitted and over seven hours later, had two infusions. Feels better but is in no way cured. We will see about what happens next. I had all sorts of plans for visits with family this weekend; nothing is as you expect and the more you cling to hopes of this sort, the more you suffer. That's for sure.

My mother wants to know about the title of this blog. I think what I meant is something of an existential pun. That theoretically mama is in charge, but in fact, all the words that come out of mama's mouth go.... are as impermanent as anything else. Even though by starting this blog I am obviously trying to buck the trend there--trying to render some sort of new-smell type of permanence on what is so obviously not really going to last.

My mother balks at what I am writing, saying, that of course things last. (My mother is not a Buddhist.) She wants to know, what about the words that stick in your brain forever? I say, yes but then you die. Her response: but when you die, everything stops anyway, that's not an argument about anything. I say, but we are all changing every day. Even those words that we remember with such ferocity, they do change, even our perceptions of them change. Sure, she says, but so what?

And, she wants to know, will anyone read this? Yes, I say, with that certainty born in me of being my father's daughter. How will I know if anyone is reading it, she wants to know? Well, you will read it, right? I say. Yeah, she says, somewhat unenthusiastically. My mother, after all, has a campaign to run (local, not Obama's) and my father and their dog to look after.

Today my cousin called and offered to take Ari for me so I could go to the hospital and get my father. Once I did finally get to the hospital (having taken a wrong turn and berated myself mentally for my incompetence and then tried to tell myself not to berate myself--ah, it's exhausting to be me) I found myself rendered superfluous since my uncle Arakel was there, and he took Daddy home for me. I was utterly useless. That was OK. I ate a cookie on the drive home and tried not to care about it all. I tried instead to feel grateful that we come from such a big, gorgeous, amazing family. I DO feel grateful for that, actually.

OK. Ari is napping and maybe Mum and Dad might need my help, instead of laconic conversations about the philosophy behind blogging. But a bit about that: if I do wind up with time to run this blog--and I may, largely because I won't have time to be spending any social time with loved ones this upcoming year except for Mum and Dad and the Roommates--what, you may rightly ask, will I be blogging about? Here you go: my life, dull as it is. There's incentive for you. And that is to say I will be writing about my son, my peculiar but lovely living arrangements, social work school, being a therapist, being an oddball, being a single mother (of sorts), being part of a lovely and odd family (oh yes, don't I know who will be reading this, if anyone, mum?), politics and current events as seen through that slightly paranoid lens, and spirituality, of the Bu-Jew type. Now you know what to expect.

Elul awaits another entry. Anon.