Ari starts school, it is the third of Elul

I dropped Ari off at his second day of "school" today. This morning when I said, "Okay, it's going to be time to go to Tot Lot today," Ari dropped what he was doing, turned to me with a big grin and said, "Tra La!" Andi & I were very pleased that he was eager to go. I carried him over, clutching his lunch in my arms, and he and I sang a song about Tot Lot which I have now forgotten, even though we ran into our neighbor on the way who also goes to Tot Lot, and we sang the song to her. Here's what was packed in the lunchbox--freshly sliced cucumbers from a neighbor's garden, fresh tomatoes from Andi's brother's garden (yum!), sliced avocado and melon. Then tofu and brown rice and apple slices. He probably will eat none of this except the rice and some of the tofu and a bit of the melon. Oh well. It is fun to pack his lunches right now, until I am starting work (Friday) and then I'm sure the whole thing will become more hectic and stressful and I will probably resort to lots of cheese sticks. I am going to go soon and make seitan stew (and beef stew for the guys) so that there will be more food on hand before we go into the cooking-drought. I hope to make a big batch of food each Sunday to eat throughout the week--and a Friday night chicken for the guys--but we will see.

The neighbors Ari & I ran into on our way to Tot Lot told me that their little girl had been talking about Ari all night long. You'd think this was a good thing, but she was talking about how Ari had taken away her shopping cart from her. I am sure he did. He is already the pushiest kid in that room; I suspected he might be and the teachers have thus far confirmed it. I am worried and uncertain about this but am trying to convince him that gentleness is the way to go. We talk about saying "beep beep" instead of pushing others and about touching in a lovie, gentle way. My cousin does such a great job of explaining this to her girls. It is a special gift. Ari is such a robust fellow... and I don't think he understands yet that he can hurt others. Maybe he does. He will have to learn.

He is also not his usual self, unfortunately. We are weaning right now and that is exhausting. I have not slept much or at all for three nights now. I expect it will be at least a few more nights until he gets it. We are doing the super-attenuated weaning. Andi is helping, the valiant trooper that she always is, so we are all three more than a little droopy--though Andi in particular seems so perky you'd never know that she has been up half the night helping to soothe the bereft baby.

Walking back from Tot Lot without Ari in my arms I felt again a wave of sadness and confusion. It was a lost sort of feeling. As if: I had him for a year and a half, but he is gone to me now. I had friends who were sitting in mourning, practically, when their son started kindergarten--and they had another at home and one more on the way. You'd think they would have been reveling. A part of me did feel light, liberated, but mostly I was disoriented and sad.

Still, I do feel grateful that I have had the chance to feel even this sadness. I think about all the people in the world who, for a whole host of reasons, don't get this chance and I do not revel too much either in my feeling of liberation or in my feeling of loss. And I guess I won't complain too much about the overwhelm that is very soon to come. I feel lucky to be me, walking down these Cambridge streets, greeting even the neighbors who may be faintly worried that my toddler is a bully, feeling that September breeze sneak around my shoulders, the light buzz of caffeine keeping me awake and alert and grateful to everyone who has helped me reach this place in time. That is of course our task during Elul, the month of remembrance. Today is the 3rd of Elul, and it is a time for introspection, for thinking about our lives. Since Yom Kippur is, in some ways, the day that I "die"--what would I like to make sure I wrap up this year, 5768? If I am blessed to live through the Day of Atonement--what would I like to make sure I do differently this upcoming year? Ari in some ways makes all of this very easy. I know exactly where my priorities are. But the crazy busy-ness I am about to face with my very full schedule this fall makes it all, in a certain way, very hard. Nonetheless I am very grateful I have reached this moment in time. Thank you for coming along with me. May it continue to be so.

Need to start while it all ends

This is the oddest way and day to start a blog. I am about to go into an impossibly busy year; I am taking care of my wandering toddler. But I was struck by the poignancy of saying good-bye to my dear friend who I have not seen in 4 years. She returns to France. Ari chases the dog who bites. I must go pick up my car and then go to a bakery to get supplies for my parents, then drive down to RI for the last weekend of the summer. The summer is over. Will I take Ari to the yard first, to ride his new (to him) tricycle? Will he live to see his fortieth year, or will global warming short change every child on this planet? How do these worries seem to elide into one another? As I say good-bye to my dear Suzi and her beautiful wife and daughter, I realize I am letting my fears of what might happen in this world drive my life. And that is not living. That is merely taking up house room in this fearful, miraculous world of ours. Suzi is such a good example of living life vibrantly and gently, all at the same time. I want to be like her. Or something close.

I get to read Harper's magazine--another thing that I won't have time to do this fall, read for my own delectation--and am struck by what they say in Findings on the back page. Predictions are that penguins will be extinct in 2037. Ari will be only 30 years old. He will never know the planet as I did. Do any of us?

I used to envy my parents' childhood. I mean, not exactly. Not my dad's, surely, though he did get to go roam the World's Fair, he says, alone, when he was not yet 10. He did deliver flowers all over the City (New York, for those who don't realize that New York is The City) by the time he was 12. There were some idyllic parts, but really, it is my mother's childhood that I always wanted, thought was the norm, thought was Every Life, the milk in the glass bottles delivered to the back door, the neighborhood stores, the riding around until twilight on your bike with your neighborhood friends. 1934-1952, prosperous and WASPy, that gorgeous sheen of everything done right: beautiful house in the suburbs, academic job, Bach in the house at all hours, Wednesday pasta nights, learning Latin by age 10, life turning by the seasons: Christmas carols in Woolsey Hall, Easter hunts in pastel dresses and May poles, swimming and sailing with cousins in Newport--all of these stories have the element of myth to me. I want to create a Jewish Buddhist much less prosperous and much more urban version of this for Ari. He climbs in my lap now, insistent. It all isn't possible. But still we all try.