Jack and Jill met on J-Date two weeks and a day before the city was shut down because of the Coronavirus.  They emailed every day or so and finally decided to meet at a coffee shop halfway between.  Both were mostly fair representations of their photographs.  Jill didn’t wear glasses in the photo and it had been taken about five years before.  Jack looked a bit paunchier and was likely a few years older than his photo.

More concerning to Jill was the fact that when she waved at Jack from the table where she was sitting, he didn’t respond.  She got up and approached him at the ordering counter. 

“Jack?”
He smiled, but didn’t seem to recognize her. “Yes.
“I’m Jill.”
“I didn’t recognize you.”
“I would have taken off my glasses but I wouldn’t have been able to see you. Ever since Oprah started wearing her 500 different pairs, glasses have become chic.”
They sat together in front of a fake fireplace.
“I had no idea,” Jack said.  He took a pair of reading glasses out of his pocket and put them on.  “That’s better.  You’ve already clarified my life.”
“Hope that’s a good thing.”
“When you changed our meeting date, I thought you were blowing me off.”
“The weather in February is so unpredictable in Chicago, I didn’t want to have to drive in 6 inches of snow.”
She sipped her coffee.
“And it never did snow.  Not even a dusting.”
“I was surprised when you said you belonged to my synagogue,” he said.
“I just joined at the High Holidays.”
“That explains it, I guess.  I go out of town.”
They talked another hour or so and shook hands before going to their cars.
The next day the governor of the state announced a “stay at home” order.

Jill’s email: I guess we can’t meet for a while.
Jack’s email: We can email.  That will take care of the waiting period.
Jill’s email: Not necessarily.  Emails are not dates.
Jack’s email: Our first fight.  I can’t wait to make up.
Jill’s email: Time will tell.

Strolling at a brisk rate, it took me 13 minutes to walk the interior parameter of an empty playground – empty, that is, with the exception of two 12 year old boys inhabiting a bench that is usually occupied by tired mothers and over-stuffed diaper bags. “What are those boys thinking?” I wondered on my eighteenth rotation.  Suddenly, the pre-teens disappeared as quietly as the City has become in a matter of days.

My FitBit beeped: 2,700 steps to reach your goal. “My goal?” I thought.  Oh, my goals have changed drastically in the past 96 hours!  And while it’s alarming that my cupboards are stuffed with enough carbs to raise my cholesterol 100 points, and it’s disappointing to have three productions canceled, I’m overwhelmed by the fact that I will be unable to see my grandchildren for, what?  Two weeks?  Forty-five days?

I face-timed with my older granddaughter, Tallulah, as she finished her lunch.  “What are you up to, Lulu?” I asked. “Me and mom were playing hairdresser in the bathroom.” “That sounds like fun,” I said. Tallulah paused for a moment. “Too pensive,” I thought.  I flipped my removable denture out of my mouth – something that always makes her laugh.  Tallulah giggled and said, “Grandma, when I come for my next sleepover, we can play hairdresser, too.  You can share my barrettes!”  I nodded agreeably.

Since Tallulah was born, I’ve spent 20-40 hours a week playing babysitter.  After her sister arrived last year, I’ve been visiting my charges four days a week and sharing childcare responsibilities with my daughter, who works from home.  “What is Lulu thinking about my absence?” I keep wondering.

Yes, children are resilient.  Tomorrow, Lulu and I will face-time again and, as promised, play a new game I purchased – an afterthought as I paid for water, canned turkey chili, wipes, TP, and coffee.  Maybe I can hold her attention for a while longer.  If not, I’ll just remove my bottom denture to hear my granddaughter laugh.

When our phone call ended, I wept as silently as the empty City before turning on the news.

Actually, my personal experience is a moving message that a friend found in the text of Moses’ healing prayer for his sister, Miriam (El na refa na lah – Oh G-d, please heal her) 

See below.

Corona is embedded in the text. Oh my.

I went out to get the mail this afternoon and my neighbor Herc was getting into his car with a
friend.  I hadn’t spoken to him in a month.

“How are you holding up?” he asked.  I knew what he meant.

“It’s hardly affected me.  I never go out except to the bodega.  I’m a hermit.  But I wonder how it’s influencing the economy…bars and restaurants are closing unless they seat fewer than 25, people aren’t traveling, and they don’t want to go to movies, concerts, or the theatre.”

“It’s gonna be the best thing that ever happened to our economy,” Herc answered.  “I’m a
Socialist.”

Herc isn’t into buying and spending and all the claptrap of a capitalist society.  He shrugged. So we chatted for a minute about the debate between Biden and Sanders last night.  He’d missed it but heard a report from a friend.

“I’d be happy with either of them,” I said.

“They’re both creeps,” he replied.  “And I’m a real Socialist.  I don’t like anyone who was in the running.”

“You know,” I said, returning to the previous conversation, “Kids are pretty safe.  If they get the coronavirus it’s more like a bad cold, nothing serious.”

“I know,” he nodded.  “And I’m in my 60s, but I’m not worried.  I’m not that old.”

I smiled at him.  Just then his friend leaned out of the car and waved down a woman who was

walking by with a big shopping bag.

“Where’d you get the toiler paper?” he asked her.

“Little shop down the street.”  She kept walking.  I suddenly found myself wondering if I had a good supply of toilet paper myself.  But it seemed likely I did.

“You know,” I said to Herc, “more people die from the flu than from this.” 

Since I don’t see him often I like being cheerful around him.  I said goodbye and turned away as he and his friend got ready to drive off.

But when I went back into my apartment after opening my mailbox that the postman had

touched, I washed my hands.  You don’t want to argue with good health.

I slip into the jacuzzi tub
As it fills with warm water.
I breathe deeply
My eyes close
As it bubbles around me
And my hair lifts and floats
Like a mermaid
Swimming free in the ocean.
The water
A soothing caress
On my shoulders, arms, legs, feet.

I slide to a good spot
The jet of water
Between my open legs
Gentle as a kitten
Lapping milk from a saucer
Dreaming of you.
I move closer to the jet
Both hands grasp the faucet behind me
Pretending it is you
Holding my wrists
Possessing me
Flying with you
Into the galaxy

Nothing compares
To what we share
To you on top of me
Inside me
Your arms around me
Your lips on mine
Me wrapped around you
Nothing compares

Dreaming
Wishing
Waiting
This is love in the time of Coronavirus

All right.  I don’t lie.  Shit is jacked.  I’m writing to you from America in the year 2020, which you actually have to write out fully on every document placed before you because apparently some genius was all “They could fill out whatever year they want to after the ’20,’” which makes zero fucking sense because we could have done that through all of ’19 as well and no one blinked.  That is the kind of dumb-ass mentation we are forced deal with now.

For the record, I would rather go through this fuckery with ANY SPECIES ON THE PLANET OTHER THAN HUMAN BEINGS.  I would deal with pigs, dogs, birds (who are bona fide assholes) and even horses – who personally scare the shit out of me and require too much upkeep for the kind of lip they give.  

If I had my druthers, my personal preference of animal to weather this storm with would be  raccoons.  I have very valid and rational reasons for wanting to ride and die with them, but that can wait for a future debate.  I seriously doubt anyone has given more thought to their apocalypse-sidekick animal than I have.  Raccoon. Every Fucking Day Of The Week.

But let’s move on to our new reality, shall we?  My mamas, my papas – we are on our own here in limbo land.  I don’t know what that means other than if you get too close to me at the grocery store, I’m gonna elbow you in the tit… but I will also give you half of my toilet paper if you need it.  We gotta take care of each other.  We are all freaked out (or should be) and we can eat each other later if it gets to that.  For now, let’s just be kind?

My dog is apparently fully attuned and adjusting to this new reality. Nine confirmed kills over the last two weeks.  Dog knows when he needs to step his game up to prove his value to the fam, yo.  He just dumped, yet another gopher (which looks like a russet potato that grew disturbingly large teeth) in the house. But it’s him, picking up on the vibes in the ether, doing his part to let us know there are means, there is sharing, and if we take care of each other we can make it through this.

Let’s hope the day never comes when I’m sending you the recipe for gopher pie.  But if I do, you better damn well believe it’s gonna be delicious.  Stay safe.  Imagine me dry hugging (TM) the shit out of you.

Xoxo
S
(See aforementioned killer below.  You’re welcome.)

The squirrels are partying under my orange tree eating more citrus than I can possibly pick.  The green onions are taking over my yard bouncing white blossoms in the breeze.  Arrogant arugula ignores the rocks between my manicured beds, spreading, heading for my neighbor’s yard.  Nature knows no boundaries, no borders between yards, nations, families or faiths.  She is an equal opportunity benefactor, empowering babies as well as bacteria.

Nature’s been trying to get our attention for a long time and now she’s got it.  We’ve been fighting her all our lives, and now we must humbly admit her powers are uncontestable.  But in return, the air is clearer of pollutants as our driving and producing and consuming slacken.  We are forced into stillness and valuing simpler things.  We are again reminded that the survival of man and womankind has always been and always will be miraculous.  I ache for the folks fighting for their livelihoods and lives while I add wild greens in citrus sauce to my salad.

I write limericks both grown up and kiddish
But never specifically Yiddish!
A non-Jewish friend
Wants to see that all end
I hope that’s not one God forbiddish!

Okay, so now what do I do?
Teach non-Jews words known to each Jew?
Like “plotz” and “shlemiel”
I’ll try keeping it real!
But must I define them all, too?

Nah….I’ll let them do that on their own
(Use Google—in fact, use your phone!)
There’s “chutzpah” and “shnorrer”
And of course there’s the horror
Of “shmuck”—( I’ll leave that one alone!)

There’s “zaftik” —I hope not passe now
Since Me Too is having  its say now
But must we get used’ta
A fat balabusta?
As the only good feminine way now?

However….whatever you choose
With Yiddish, you just cannot lose
They’ve a wonderful word
(That you may’ve never heard!)
So let’s have a Yiddishkeit schmooze

It’ll certainly help pass each day—-
We can kvell  ‘cuz there’s many a way
To avoid getting sick
If we stick to the shtick
Just remember: stay 6 feet away!

Covid 19 has brought about an important new relationship in my life; Paper Towels.  I’m writing this because quite frankly, I’m surprised at myself.  I really should be part of a social science study, if they ever have one.

The question has come up multiple times in our lives as to what would be the most important things we would grab if we had to run out of our homes quickly due to a fire or an earthquake.  Now I am faced with what is the most important thing I must be stocked up on due to the Covid 19 Virus.  

I am most surprised to find out how important paper towels have become to my life.  This phenomena surprisingly appeared after I was stocked up on anything that sanitizes.

It seems not to be enough that I have a gigantic pack of Costco Paper Towels in my condo storage locker.  This became apparent when this morning I was once again at CVS.  I have it figured out now (as do many other people).  Find out what time the shipment arrives and be at the store an hour before.

In the beginning the employees unpacked everything and brought the goods behind the cash register counter.  Now, there is a new plan.  On this morning’s visit where I once again saw the familiar face of the smiling Floor Manager, he guided all of us to the door of the back room where the goods are delivered.  Now, they have cut out the middleman.  The goods come right out of the boxes handing them directly to those of us who reach out the furthest with the strongest intention of getting the booty.  Satisfied, I load my car knowing I will be back again shifting my attention to more sanitizer wipes… just in case.

I kept questioning myself.  Why are paper towels so important to me now, when I never gave them a thought before?  When I couldn’t mathematically figure out how many perforated pieces a role had to last me how many times a day that I rip off  a piece to dry my hands after I wash them because my dish towel may be hovering germs from my last hand wash, or how many times I use one to open a door …that’s when I’m not using my Clorox wipes, I came to the only solution. Not being able to figure out the mathematics of all this, for as many of you know I am not good at match, the only solution is to keep buying them.

So when this is all over, you know where to come for paper towels. And when I can get my hands on more sanitizer (excuse the pun), I’m sure I’ll have plenty of those available too.

It started…with a bang.
………………………………………………..
During my first week of training for my position as a sound stage manager at Chapman University’s Dodge College of Film and Media, I–a disinterested and exhausted student — thought, “Maybe I’ll tell my boss there was a family emergency so I can leave.”  But I shrugged it off and continued to learn how to build flats and close elephant doors properly.  One hour later, I received a frantic call from my sister, “Dad is in the hospital.  Get to your apartment.  Mom and I are picking you up!” 

“What happened?” I said. 

“He shot himself.”

“What? Where?” 

“He shot himself in the face.  Get home.” 

“Oh god.  No.  No!” 

As I drove home, I unleashed every thought into the ceiling of the car. 

It was 2008 and my father lost all our money in the stock market. Every dollar my dad earned from 35 years of working in the carpet business and every dollar from his inheritance. He lost his integrity and he believed he failed as a husband and father. 

So, he shot himself. 

But a funny thing happens when you want something so badly.  Sometimes, when you shove that gun in your mouth — with the tears streaming down your cheeks as the dog yells at you for food in the other room because you’ve been up all night, walking around the house in a manic death daze — sometimes, when you pull the trigger, the bullet doesn’t sever your spine or blow your brains out.  

Sometimes, that .22 caliber slug lodges a millimeter from your spine, engulfed by your beautiful angelic neck fat and muscle.  Sometimes, the only injury you sustain is a chipped tooth and singed vocal cords and the surgeon tells your family,

“We’re not removing the bullet.  It would be too dangerous.  It’s a miracle.  He’ll be fine.  Get some rest.” 

Like a rainbow, he survived.  Like a fault line, the myriad of familial issues remained ready to quake again.

We struggled for years to find a stable footing during the worst recession since the Great Depression.  We struggled with distrust from past misdeeds.  And we struggled to acclimate from the middle class to living at our grandfather’s house.

But those years shaped me into a man, considerate and empathetic to the woes of friends, foes, and strangers.  Those years turned my sister and I into writing partners.  And those years jump started my career in the arts with my dad by my side, driving me to each and every audition and each and every shoot day of my first breakthrough role in television, Amy Sherman-Palladino’s Freeform series, “Bunheads.”

Oh, those years, they started with a bang.

Seven things I’ve discovered this first week sheltering in place:

1. Routine is a luxury.
2. Respect the kitchen. Keep your distance.
3. When I don’t have to go out in public, a pair of cotton undies always wins over a HankyPanky thong. 
4. My ever-youthful yoga teacher who in real life looks 40 somehow looks 50 on the Zoom screen. 
5. The value of solitude is in direct proportion to my being in the world and connected to people. Without that balance, solitude just slinks and oozes into boredom and loneliness. 
6. Our loud young neighbors send an email asking if we need help getting groceries. Sweet. We have officially become the Elderly Couple Next Door.
7. I now can FaceTime-babysit a grandbaby 3000 miles away by making up new lyrics to “Baby Beluga.” 

I’m going to die.  That’s the refrain that keeps going through my head, whenever the toll of the virus is announced. 

Why the obsession?  Maybe it’s the suddenness of it all.  I know I’m going to die at some point, but it’s never been clearer that my age is an underlying condition.  Except about dementia and cancer.

Understood that we’re all expected to stay place, not venture out.  It’s easier, in a sense, on freelance workers.  We’re used to isolation.  And since Passover is upon us, maybe it’s apropos of the first one — when each family was commanded to sacrifice in its own home.

On the other hand, it’s lonely.  Why is no one checking on us?  Why am I the one who reaches out without much reciprocity?  Ironically, that which often bothers us and feels invasive — electronic media — is now comforting.  Without them, where would we be?

But as often as we speak to our recently married daughter in Israel, it won’t really compensate for the fact that our long-planned trip in May will most likely not take place.  Our other daughter lives nearby, but our little grandchildren are not supposed to hug us.

Our cats don’t understand much about electronic media — though many cartoons show frustrated pets not comprehending the devices their owners are glued to — but they seem to sense something is different.  They whine for food more often because I’m here.

That which is sometimes pleasant is now annoying.  Many a Shabbat I don’t feel like going to shul.  Being Orthodox, I have an “out” — not needed for a minyan.  But when our shul announced last Friday there would be no services, I felt bereaved.  But angry when other synagogues and Jewish institutions held them.

In fact, what could one say about the people everywhere who were asked to self-isolate and refused to comply?  What can one say about political leaders who don’t know how to lead?  Couldn’t our advanced country have been better prepared?  Maybe it’s not too late. 

How good it is to arise with purpose in the morning, if not to venture forth into the city or world, but to prepare for virtual Leo Baeck Women’s Torah study.

Deprived of our greetings of hugs because we genuinely love our togetherness and our Rabbi, Lisa Berney, we sixteen click Zoom, and one by one we pop up, squared, on the computer screen, like a giant Hollywood Squares TV show of yesteryear. 

First, how are we all managing sequestered at home?  Bewildered and beyond, yet with smiles we are reading The Dutch House and Jane Austen, listening to music, creating soup recipes, cleaning closets, keeping connections by wire and wireless.

Then we bless our studying together with  “Torah:  A Women’s Commentary,” and interactively discuss King David — his early years.  Plan B, yes, but a comforting togetherness.

I take a long walk; no purse, no empty grocery bag, no errand intent.  Just a walk on winding Westwood streets, striding on the sunny side.  I watch a crow on the grass teasing or courting another crow and observe an audacious squirrel at the foot of a tree, also seeming to stop and observe me.  A four-year-old boy, with his dad, picks tiny leaves from a bush bordering their driveway and placing them in a brown paper bag.  “This is a nature walk,” the dad explains when I stop and smile, a preschool home assignment due to school closure.

 My granddaughter, at home in Minnesota, and I create an internet project.  We begin co-authorship of a cookbook, she entitles “Wacky Recipes,” and back and forth we come up with fine feasts including Unicorn Soup, Giant Slurpy Stew, and Worm Salad.  I am occupied printing in colored text for ‘production.’  The pages will be bound with staples while we co-authors bond across the country with love.

Shabbat is nearing.  Late afternoon a friend comes by and gifts me a bouquet of flowers and a mini challah (and I can’t hug her with thanks).  At five o’clock my two sons, with wives at their sides,  call with an arranged three-way FaceTime across Minnesota, Santa Monica, and me in L.A.  We’ll all light candles and recite the blessings.  Hurriedly, I set my place at my table, complete with the flowers, challah, wine, and a silver-framed photo of my family.  We welcome the Sabbath together.  I receive another gift.  I receive a bounty of gifts.  

I hope you are still well, still distancing and yet still somehow enjoying life as it is.  For us it is getting a little boring I must say.  I have about had it with virtual tea and cocktail parties; museum trips where I pace the photos alone; reading the many options for an 11th plague, and how best to fill the virtual seder plate.  I am conducting serious research on handwashing and hope to connect it to refugees, hunger, the motzi, and fear of all things evil.  Including pandemics during Passover.

Passover has never been my favorite Jewish holiday…so much cleaning, worrying about things like crumbs that really should have been obliterated months ago thanks to the invention of the vacuum cleaner, and then later the dust buster.  The idea of selling all those accumulated crumbs has to be just another way to separate people from their money.  I think we have many legitimate reasons to give tzedakah and do not need to lower ourselves to see our own crumbs swept up in the dark with a feather… God knows where they may have been.  Yech if you get my drift!

So, I like the idea this year of a national movement to perhaps do less on Passover.  Just say the 4 kashers, spill a few drops of wine and then indulge in the age-old Jewish mantra of  “Let’s Eat.” 

Pico Blvd. is still pretty quiet and actually few autos are fighting over parking spaces.  Many bakeries have Order Your Passover Cakes NOW signs, and most unfortunately there are many homeless and their accoutrements back on bus benches and in front of stores and shops.  I would suggest Wednesday morning would not be a good time to be on Pico.

Passover ignites certain memories for me.  For example my grandfather gave his cigar ring (paper, but colorful) to the grandchild who found the Afikomen.  Decades later I realized what a paltry prize that cigar ring was.  After dinner the men stayed at the table while the women cleared and went in the kitchen to smoke and clean the dishes.  My grandmother stayed at the table where they brought out the chips, cards and played serious poker until the wee hours of the morning.  We, the original seven grandchildren, watched TV, then proceeded to argue and fight usually until someone (yes you guessed it, me) started crying and we were sent to bed.  The next day was like any other day except my grandma made matzah meal pancakes for breakfast for all the kids.

I believe the blockbuster movie The Ten Commandments came out around that time and for most of my growing-up years I truly believed Charlton Heston was Moses.  It won Best Picture at the Oscars in 1957 and Special Effects which makes perfect sense… I can still see Heston throwing down the first set of ten commandments expressing rage and anger at the poor Israelites who doubted his return and built graven images during the long wait.  In June of 1998 when Heston became President of the NRA loving guns I decided with great certainty he was never a Moses I could believe in.

I have a trove of Passover experiences which I shall not bore you with.  During my days living in an orthodox community I felt a lot of misery about the amount of work women had to do to clean and prepare for this 8-day festival which in addition to expressing freedom was also set to relish spring and sunny skies.  (It’s been cool, rainy and overcast in LA since the isolation.)  I envied families who locked up their homes and chametz and went to fancy hotels where they were served, and no clean-up was required.  Many of my women friends had band aids on their feet from standing and cleaning and cooking; I felt generally oppressed.  This year we will flip onto ZOOM, say the prayers, hear the story, sing the songs and make the infamous matzah sandwich; then we will eat on our own.  Sounds sad and lonely.  Then the next night we will do it again.  Then 6 days of matzah brie, matzah balls, and kugel galore and the fancy cakes if you ordered them and paid the $36 for them.  Then it is done, over, and the next morning you can go back to artisan breads from fancy bakeries and throw away all the unused matzah.  BUT the vacuuming the crumbs, the ones you got rid of 8 days ago and sold to the rebbe with the longest beard will again be in every nook and cranny in your house.

I wish you a healthy holiday and hope for together next year in Jerusalem.  

Anne Frank hid in a 450 ft. attic for 761 days ~ quietly trying to remain undiscovered to stay alive.  I believe we have the ability, and most of us the luxury, to stay in our homes for a while, with our clean running water, soap for our hands, food in our refrigerators and blankets on our beds. 

My Mother was torn apart from her family and home in Germany and placed on a Kinder-transport when she was 11 years old. She lived in an orphanage for 4 years during WWII and never spoke to or saw her family again. She made Aliyah (moved permanently) to what was called “Palestine,” and trained to become a nurse. She then served in the army on the front lines in the War of Independence for Israel. 10 years later, Aviva traveled to Los Angeles by herself, where she worked, met my father, married and started a family. This is the very short version of the story. Much tragedy and new-found love occurred on her incredible life journey. There was resilience and a force within my Mother to go with the change, not against it, as she moved forward as a survivor of incredible circumstances.

The Jewish People are RESILIENT. 

I have also seen my difficulties. Being a survivor of our family history of depression, anxiety, and even cancer, I have overcome all of the odds and I reflect on my experiences as opportunities of learning and growth.  And although I have had tremendous support, I have always felt a bit alone in this transformational process.  

Currently, these are challenging times. Many people feel scared and vulnerable. Anyone can transmit and receive the Covid-19 virus. Only this time, the experience transcends race, religion, wealth and nationality. It is not indiscriminate. And although there is still much prejudice, blaming, anti-semitism, anti-Asian, particularly Chinese, anti-gay and many other negative and destructive sentiments and actions, there is no denying that we are in this together. Many people may die, yet many more will persevere, just as their ancestors did before them.  

We are RESILIENT, we humans. We have all been through much, and I believe we will bounce back again. But we must do it differently this time. We have to transmute the past, and make amends for the future. We must CHANGE; internally and externally. And, we must LOVE more unconditionally and fully; ourselves and each other.   

 This virus is encompassing our planet, our world.  It is displayed on the big stage now. It is showing us how separate we have been and how united we must become. We live in opposites, Dark and Light, Night and Day, Moon and Sun, Sky and Earth, Land and Sea. Yet, they all work together in perfect unison. Let’s take notice of this perfect collaboration. 

Togetherness, Comm-Unity, Oneness, Whole-ness. RESILIENCY. 

For those people who have done their work and feel they have risen in mind, body and spirit, I commend you for being here now and helping the planet in all your capacity to heal.  For all of us struggling as well, re-birth is on its way. 

So, I’ve never really had the issue that most women face of being catcalled at.  I’m not even sure that that is the appropriate way to phrase that.  But we are living in strange and desperate times and today proved that as I experienced my first pandemic pick up (please tell me this won’t be a Netflix series anytime soon).  I was on my post-birthday hangover run (thank you, Nelia Miller, for the virtual wine tasting date) and as I was running, a man in a car waved at me.  I waved back and was feeling really optimistic that maybe people in this situation are actually making people (and in particular Angelinos) more kind and friendly.  

The other days I’ve been out running, people look the other way and make a mad dash to the other side of the street, which I totally get, it is, in fact, the law right now…but couldn’t we at least smile and wave at each other?  Show some solidarity for the fact that what we are all experiencing is quite surreal, but at least we’re all in this weird game of “no touching!” together?  So, I was feeling optimistic. 

But then…as I was running back down the street, a car, the same car I realized soon after, slowed down and pulled up next to me.  I kept running (to be fair, this was more like a trudge, seeing that I didn’t sleep well after sampling 3 Trader Joe’s wines the night before).  The man rolled down the window, driving now slowly next to me and said, “you know, ever since this whole thing started, I have seen so many beautiful women outside running.  And you, you are beautiful.”

I did not look beautiful.  I was tired and hungover and had a 2-year-old sleeping on top of me all night. I smiled and was polite.  “Thank you.  Yeah, it’s great to exercise!”  I wasn’t really offended and I wasn’t really all that flattered.  He kept trying to chat me up, joking about us keeping our “6 feet of distance.”  I think his car was actually only 4 feet away, but still.  Finally, he drove past me, but then stopped a little up the street and yelled out his window. I didn’t hear him, so he reversed his car and when he caught up to me, he said, “Are you married?”  Oh my god, are you serious?  “Yes, yes I am,” I replied. “Oh that’s too bad,” he said.  No, no it’s not.  As he drove away, I quietly coughed on his car.  This is 40.

*SUBMITTED BY ANDREW FROMER – MELISSA TAGGED HIM IN THIS FACEBOOK POST AFTER HE TOLD HER ABOUT INSIDE OUR TIME

At the beginning of this school year, I started to fret about imminent changes in my life.  Changes like my two children being in high school.  Sixteen years of defining myself as mom first seemed to be fading away, drying up as surely as my vagina was going to start drying up come my forty-fifth birthday in November.  In short, I felt that true middle age was upon me, my sexuality would be sidelined, my children would abandon me, and my relevance as a woman would be revoked. 

Last week, social distancing hit our shores, and now, in the inimitable words of Shania Twain, “man, I feel like a woman.”  

No more take out dinners from Jersey Mikes or In-N-Out while we frenetically race from school in West Hills to dance in West L.A. on traffic-choked freeways.  My house is no longer a way station where no one spends any time together.  Nope!  Now I drowsily awaken and pad downstairs in my bathrobe to prepare the first of three home-eaten meals a day.  I bring turkey sandwiches on toast with potato chips and orange slices to my teenagers in their rooms as they wholesomely study with their friends on video chats.  We celebrated Shabbat!  We played Rummikub!  We went on a walk around the neighborhood!  We eat pleasant family dinners where I down one glass of wine, then another, after which we retire early, and my husband and I have sex every night.  

Well – there was that one night where I didn’t come to bed because he told me I was being passive aggressive in the way I asked him to take the trash out, and then he told me not to yell at him about something political, so I refused to come to bed and he couldn’t sleep because he was too stressed out after reading seventy-five articles about the spread of Covid-19 and he hadn’t had the nightly nookie he’d become accustomed to in the last week, so he tossed and turned and woke up bleary-eyed and miserable… .but otherwise – Yes!  Sex every night, and even some mornings!  

So – putting aside the global pandemic, death, insecurity, isolation, pain and a decimated economy –  I have been enjoying a wine-fueled Leave-It-To-Beaver-like existence – Yes!  For now.  It’s been one week.  I feel supremely confident that I won’t continue to dwell in this pleasantly tipsy fantasia of old-fashioned femininity forever.  But in the meantime, I guess I’ll just keep trying to enjoy it.

As we now have time, I decided to go through my closets.

In a small box found a “Star of David” Ring…that I didn’t even know I had…WOW!  Wonder of wonders, miracles of miracles—You just never know what treasures you will find…

During this imposed quarantine of sorts, there are many small Miracles… 

Not running around so much…like a chicken with my head cut off…being in touch with family and friends (making new friends in the process)…Grateful to have shelter, food and a warm soft bed to relax and sleep in…

Time to reassess what’s important and grateful to everyone who is “ helping” during this most trying time—

Leaving a  SMILE on my face realizing how much we truly have and love!!!

I’m a survivor. I’ve survived losing a dear friend, raising a teenager, divorce, and being in show biz in LA with grey hair and pudgy thighs.
Five years ago, I survived pancreatic cancer, and that’s not nothing.
So, I’m a survivor.
And now, like you, I’m surviving this. 

Normally, I am a “to do” list kind of gal, booked within an inch of my life.  Between 6 AM yoga, auditions, writing sessions, acting projects, directing assignments, and other work related activities, plus all of the life stuff – banking, cooking, caring and feeding of the adorable husband person, picking up dry cleaning, the list goes on – and I know you’ve got yours too – there is always something taking me out into the world. 

But not now. I can’t go out so I am forced to go within. 

Within. 

It’s a really lovely and important place to go, but it doesn’t always make my list.
And now, it’s the only thing on my list.  I’ve been told to stay on the couch.  It’s my civic duty.

My son is home from college, and will complete his last semester remotely before graduating in June.  My husband and I are working from home.  The three of us have arrived here together in this moment and I am drinking in this found time together. 

We eat homemade soup, play cards, work on a 1,000 piece puzzle, Netflix up a storm.  Last night we watched Ratatouille. 

We are finding the silver lining in this very dark and unimaginable cloud.

I’m a survivor.  May today have space for us all to listen to our breathing.  To be grateful for the breath we have. I am breathing with you.

One square, 2, 3 or 4? How many pieces of toilet paper will I allow myself
to use right now?  No more just tearing it off willy nilly.  These rolls need to last
for a while.  My mind shifts to prior encounters with toilet paper:  the stiff and thin
paper-like toilet paper in Israel in the ‘60s; the newspaper used in Brussels in a
public bathroom in 1970; the scratchy toilet paper in a cheap hotel in Paris in
I always appreciated the soft and fluffy toilet paper when I would be back
in the United States.  America, the leader in luxury products.
Several years ago I read that my favorite toilet paper was not sustainable; it was
ruining the forests in No. America and Canada with each flush.  My recycled toilet paper
isn’t as thick and soft, but at least I’m not contributing to the destruction of forests.|
Back to my counting TP squares. I don’t like to be without the necessities. I know I am
spoiled and privileged that I don’t have to be without. My days are slower and quieter
right now, with more time to reflect on toilet paper, and everything else I’m grateful for.  I
take so much for granted until I risk losing it, whether it’s toilet paper, my health, or someone
|I care about.  One day I will look back on this time with more perspective and clarity on how
it changed me.  Until then I will keep counting TP squares.

When I feel stir-crazy, I crochet to relax.  To distract myself from my extreme fear of Covid-19, I took out my crochet hook and yarn, and so far my new scarf is 30 feet long. 

I’m also making batches of homemade yogurt round the clock.  So far I have made 15 gallons.

Last night I polished 14 pairs of shoes.  When I was done, I took paper towels and spray cleaner and I scrubbed the bottoms until they looked brand new.  By the way, these are all stilettos that I never wear.

My next project is to take apart my crystal chandelier and wash each piece with soapy water.  The only problem is I have no idea of how to take it down from the ceiling, but the good news is that I have all the time in the world in which to figure it out.

As a recovering food restrictor and exercise bulimic, these last few days have been trying.  My cabinets and freezer are stocked for the next ten days.  My running shoes have become my date of choice, as I have been joining me for fresh air.  The idea of food and my next meal, always on my mind.  I have never had this much food readily available since living in college dorms.

Fears are irrational, and mine don’t fall short.  First, I fear keeping more than 3 days of food in my house under normal circumstances.  Second, I have no snacks because then comes my other fear of binge eating. 

Finding a balance between eating, not eating too much and healthfully replenishing essential fuel my body needs, has not been easy.  I have noticed myself making excuses if I don’t want to finish eating something I have made.  I tell myself, “I will eat it later.  That way it is two meals, instead of one.”  I rationalize my thoughts by deducing I will have more food in the long run.

This is not a healthy relationship with food.  This is not a healthy relationship with thyself.  I know I am not the only one feeling this way.  You are not alone.  Take it one meal at a time. That’s all you can do. 

I’m very fortunate, I cannot go out, but I am not going crazy staying in.

I go out every other week for chemo, I also go for blood test. Other than that I don’t go out

I don’t have to set an alarm, I get up and have a leisurely breakfast, and watch some Netflix. Since I don’t have appointments, I can do what I want during the day. I read, play games on my phone, and talk to friends. I’ve also gotten some things done in the house that I wanted to do.

This too shall pass, stay well!

OKAY! — I admit it — I’m vain!!!!!

It’s due to my mother’s mantra (may she rest in peace).

Growing up in the 50’s, she would continuously say to me, ‘always look your best when you leave the house — you never know who you’ll run into.’

This is from the stay-at-home mom, never a hair out of place woman, who wouldn’t take out the trash unless she had her earrings on!

So —  I’m working remotely during these ‘Safer at Home’ COVID-19 times and still getting dressed, though sans high heels, and putting on my make-up and earrings as if I was going to my office.

Turns out, my mom’s ideology is helping me feel more ‘normal’ during these days of isolation!

An added benefit of working remotely — I’m taking time to listen to the birds chirping their songs and seeing the butterflies flit amongst the flowers through my dining room window.  Have you noticed the insects and animals continue to go through every day as usual and are totally unaffected by the craziness turning the rest of our lives upside down?

My question is “Will the Corona Virus make me a better housekeeper?”  The truth is I’ve always been a crummy housekeeper.  That’s to be distinguished from being a good homemaker which I believe I am.  My home is quite lovely and comfortable with precious, much-handed-down furniture, handsome rugs, great artwork. 

But housekeeping is another matter – there are grimy countertops, a refrigerator filled with bits of ancient left-overs and an oven with reminders of meals past.  As for dust under the bed, my policy has always been to let it gather where it was most comfortable.  Dog hair, cat hair – if the animals can live without it, then I can live with it. 

 Of course, until recently, I always had plenty of excuses for my messy house.  I was too busy  writing, going to workshops, cooking,  gardening, shopping, walking the dog, having lunch with friends, taking a Pilates class.  In fact, I’ve been busy doing everything except clean my house. 

Now, however, I have almost no excuses – no lunch with friends, no Pilates class; no shopping.  I’ve been forced to gaze at my grimy countertop, dusty floors and hair-embedded rugs for hours and hours and hours.  Finally, in desperation, I got out the Windex, the Lysol, the mop and, God forbid, even the vacuum cleaner. It took a while to figure out how the vacuum worked but, frankly, I’ve discovered housecleaning is not as bad as I thought it would be.  No, it’s not as enjoyable as a good mystery.  And doesn’t compare to lunch with a friend.  But it’s bearable.  It can be tolerated until this siege is over.  Then comes the ultimate question:  Will my messy habits return?  Or will I receive the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval?

At present, the answer is unknowable . But it’s possible some good may come of this plague, after all.

Hello, Pharoah, my old friend
I’ve come to talk with you again
Will you finally let my people go?
Else streams of blood will flow
A Divine vision has been planted in my brain
And still remains
All around you there’ll be plagues and violence.

I killed your foreman all alone
“Cause he whipped one of my own
“Neath the halo of Pithom and Ramses
Which my people built as food silo cities
Then, my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a burning bush
Oh, Pharoah, shush….
Prepare for plagues and violence.

And in my mind’s eye I saw
At least twelve plagues, maybe more
Blood flowing down the River Nile
Vermin, hail, and beasts; how vile
Locusts, sick cattle, and, then disgusting boils
Beware, you Royals
And fear these plagues and violence

“Egyptian Fool, set us free
Or you will be quite sorry.
Hear my words that I beseech you
Or you’ll have frogs all over you”
And Moses’ words, like fiery hailstones fell
As there were more plagues and violence.

Moses said “prepare to go
Quickly grab some unbaked dough.
The Angel of Death knows to ignore
Those with lamb blood smeared on their doors
Heed my words and let us soon depart
Before more plagues and violence.”

And the Hebrews bowed and prayed
Unleavened cakes of bread they made
Total darkness was the last to scorn
Before the death of any male first born
All of these plagues and violence

After all of the begs and pleas,
Moses led us into the Sea of Reeds
And in the face of the Pharaoh’s wrath
The Hebrews walked upon a dry path

Cherish the gift of freedom.

Namah
Oy Vey!  (Holding her head, swaying back and forth).  I can’t believe I’m seeing the light of day.  (blinks, sits back).  Let me tell you, this has been one hell, (stops, mouths it, looks around) of an experience.  

Oy, I’m warning you.  LISTEN TO GOD next time!   Once that rain started, it didn’t stop.  (looks up).  The rainbow is a beautiful sight.  Know what I got to see for forty days and 40 nights?  Dark, dingy, gopher wood!  That arc was so huge.  Very little color inside.  We only had one window.  We didn’t have the modern conveniences you have now, like….lights for one thing!  

You may wonder how we made it.  Do you have a couple of days?  No?  Okay, I’ll make it as brief as possible.  Here, (picks up journal, opens it). I’ll read from my journal.  Let’s see….yes, the ark was probably the largest sea vessel built.  Since God gave us the measurements it was impossible to turn over. 

Remember the cargo we had?  All those animals!  (points to animals)   Mama Mia!  (Italian dialect)  Thank goodness we got the big animals like elephants when they were babies.  How did they get in the ark, you ask?  Well, don’t forget, God was behind all of this.  Somehow he called them two by two.  Others possessed a sense of danger and began moving to places of safety.  But the smell!  Oy…you don’t want to go there. 

What did we eat?  Food (sings) glorious food!   Since we were vegetarians, we gathered enough plants, seeds and other non-meat items.

But once we had lodged and got out of the arc, all of us had to be brave.  The first view of the mountains of Arat was incredible.  The world we had known was completely transformed.  Only fossils reminded us of the death and destruction that went on. 

You see, I pulled through because I knew Noah and I were called to a greater purpose.  I was married to a savior really.  God used Noah to save the world’s human population from extinction.  (pause, look off in distance). 

After the flood, God led us to move to different parts of the world where languages and humans changed.  And humans sure learned to look and act differently toward each other!  Do you know how many races there are? (points to audience member)  Can you guess?  (point to someone else) One!  There is only one human race.  One race, one nation, one blood.  (Sings “We are Family”).  We are ONE mystical body.  THINK about that!  Color doesn’t matter.  DNA differences are trivial.  Stop fighting.   

You know in our days, people were eating and drinking and carrying on as if life would go on forever.  Sound Familiar?  The way the world is dealing with sin today is very scary.  Are you listening to ANYONE who is telling you to change?  Are you seeing signs that will ultimately destroy the world again?  Oh no, not by flooding.  God promised not to send another. 

But humans have created greater weapons than we had in our day.  Environmental changes in weather and the atmosphere are affecting everything on earth.  Kids are bringing weapons to school and killing each other.  Terrorists rage everywhere even in unexpected places.  Human trafficking is growing.  No place is safe anymore.  Technology increases but good relationships don’t seem to be catching up.  Do you know ANYONE who could save you if your world was destroyed?  There are other ways besides water.  Maybe this time…by fire , Virus? (pause)  Who knows?

Mask Maker, Mask Maker
Make me a mask
Make sure it’s strong
So it can last
Mask maker mask maker
Make it look good
So I can go get TP

Mask maker, mask maker
I’ll bring a pail, you bring the broom
We aren’t in jail!
Cleaning the house though I’m longing to be
Out shopping for more TP

For Papa, make his in color
For Mama, make hers N95
For me, well, I wouldn’t holler
If I know these masks will help them survive! 

Mask maker, mask maker
Find the right cloth
It’s not a hard task
Folding and cutting
And printing 3D
Are methods that work for me. 

Mask maker, mask maker
You know that I’m
Still very young,
I’d like to survive
Up to this minute
I misunderstood
That we could be stuck for good!

Dear Fauci, I’m going mental
Each time DJT gives us lies
It’s not that I’m sentimental
It’s just that I’m terrified

Mask maker, mask maker
Thanks for your time
Find the right pattern
On web and online
Facing this virus
I think we’ve all learned
That shortcuts don’t work
So cover your face
Stay in your place
Keep keeping on
Please maintain that space
And send me the perfect mask!

2.
Mask-maker, mask-maker,
Make me a mask,
Find me a find,
Catch me a catch
Mask-maker, mask-maker,
Look through your Zoom,
And make me a perfect mask

Mask-maker, mask-maker,
I’ll bring the string,
You bring the cloth,
Classy – no bling.
Make me protected for all else to see,
The best of our PPE.

For papa, make it in color,
For mama, make it N95;
For me, well, I wouldn’t holler
If it were the kind that helps them survive!

Mask-maker, mask-maker,
Make me a mask,
Find me a find,
Catch me a catch
Night after night in the dark I’m alone
[Repeat: And day after day in the house I’m alone] So find me a mask,
Of my own.…

Dimmed lights cast shadows
from shiny crystal candlesticks
upon the food-stained damask tablecloth
of white word-worn texture. 

Flower petal china plates
rest quietly with
scattered remnants of
familiar food delicacies,
recalling memories of ancient times—
unforgotten misery and joy.

Family and friends, an invited
but unattended guest-
the hope for peace
and freedom for all
kindness, fairness, goodness
abound as the special topping
of the final course.

Dimmed lights get dimmer
until next year
when we need to
retell the already told story
over the crisp white tablecloth
welcoming us all back
for the last supper… again.

This year we shared 

in distance yet still from our hearts

next year may we recall it all

on the damask tablecloth

of white word-worn texture

in person for the last supper

once again.

This is one of the darkest times this world has encountered.  A different type of war from an unseen enemy has attacked.  Healthcare workers & first responders fighting on the frontlines sadly lacking the tools needed, nameless people sick and dying with numbers hard to comprehend, unprecedented unemployment rates, people scared to open a package from the outside, scared of running out of supplies and money and scared they will catch “IT.”  We all sense the darkness and yet… And Yet… It’s Spring!  The sky is still blue, the clouds still floating above, the moon and stars still shining, the rivers still flowing, the crops still growing, the flowers still blooming, the birds still flying.  And yet… the woodpeckers are still burying their nuts in my roof, the squirrels still climbing the trees, the clock is still ticking and the sun is still rising.  I have found this quite remarkable and have felt an unexpected lightness from it.  

Though we are still filled with fear, anxiety, a sense of loss, grief and isolation, we must STILL, now more than ever, count our blessings… however few they might be.  We can still breathe in the fresh air of spring and take moments to find joy in those tiny treasures the world still has to offer.  As the world still turns on its axis, this crisis jolted me into remembering what I still DO HAVE to be grateful for… like the sounds of my dog snoring, children laughing, the teapot boiling for my favorite tea.  It’s certainly not easy… but I am determined to find at least ONE moment a day to pause to remember those we have lost and to also be glad for the teeny tiniest of blessings in the here and now.  In this way, I feel I might be able to honor all those vast numbers of people who have passed way before their time and the appreciation of the tiny treasures in my life will help me to “Stay Strong, Stay Smart, Stay Safe and… Stay Hopeful.”

From probably one to twenty something years old I can picture Grandma Rose carrying up dish after dish from the kitchen in the basement that was kosher for Passover.  Every year she and my grandfather Sidney would walk up three long flights of steps carrying huge gleaming pots of steaming kneidlach and soup, like two Yiddish magicians about to perform their Jewish Magic.  Elaborately decorated utensils in hand, ladles and huge knives rather than wands.  My handsome grandfather smiling with a pride and joy that never left his posture and face once during the entire event.  His black wavy hair combed back highlighting his blue eyes that didn’t stop rejoicing for a second to be surrounded by his family on this holy day.

Ahh, and grandma, her natural light blonde hair pulled back in a messy chignon, the same and only lipstick she ever wore, pure red, never another drop of makeup, and the most gorgeous skin with the eyes of pale blue that people die for.  I can still see her face not as calm as grandpa’s was, thinking of getting each course up and perfect.  Pure mayhem in between at this point.  Yiddish flying through the tenement apartment like language kites strung from each corner of their living room.  

After all the reading from the Haggadah, and I am not talking abridged, but full Eastern European first generation here, (do it right!) version.  Laughter interspersed so heavily but, mainly between my mother and her brother, a la my grandfather in the background continuing his service without missing a beat, not paying the slightest attention to my uncle’s nonstop jokes to my mother’s delight.  Actuall, in these seders what I REMEMBER most is my mother laughing so hard trying to catch her breath, joke after joke, enjoying each one he or she told more than the one before, the more she wheezed, the more I did too.

I don’t know what this phenomenon is of when a parent laughs uncontrollably, it makes their child laugh unconditionally equally as hard.  FYI No drinkers here, this was pure fun.  l mean there was the token Manischewitz that we were required to partake in.  Then the rest of us, the kids would all laugh just hearing them laugh, having no idea what the jokes were about, and when we were old enough to understand them, I still remember laughing more at my mom laughing.  Gosh she loved to have fun, and yet understood depth and despair very well.  If someone was in pain or spoke of a psychological problem she was fascinated and wanted to help.  I guess you could say she could swing both ways.  A very complicated and unusual person.

But, at these seders it was mainly fun for us.  I can’t even imagine the amount of work that grandma and grandpa, and Bubbi put into this to give us these memories.  Bubbi was always smiling softly, so sweet, cooking, baking, crocheting and praying.  She had so many wrinkles, they were undulating, flowing down her face on the sides of her cheeks, and forehead, beautifully natural so unbotoxey.  Her hair was down to her waist and usually in a long braid, a perfectly neat one every day, sometimes coiled into a bun, her only adornment were two small diamond  earrings.  Her clothing, she made all of it and was exquisite, it’s how she and grandma escaped out of Poland.  More of that another time.

It took weeks of cooking before and then the clean up, every dish, I have to meditate just thinking of it.  No Order in back then.  On the other hand, after escaping from Poland and Romania as Jewish refugees being so brutally persecuted and having family members murdered, it makes perfect sense to create the largest celebration possible of each Jewish holiday where they were able to do this freely.  So, I guess looking at it this way, going up and down those three flights of steps many times with filled platters of dishes and food changes the whole perspective tremendously, being able to freely feed one’s family.

I also can picture every apron my mom, grandma and Bubbi wore, spring floral for Passover and our clothes, big skirts that when I spun around they would continue spinning, seeming to take five minutes to come unswirled, usually on the floor from playing.  New and fresh outfits for the Jewish holidays, always, and Patton leather shoes with T straps and fancy tights.  So we would all look so nice, so festive, so holiday-ish on our way over to my grandparents house.

Funny that the same crocuses, forsythias, and lilacs are filling the air and dotting sidewalks back east as Jewish children play outside during Passover week and notice how special the world is outside around them during this holiday especially as things come alive, awakened. 

But, this year it’s obviously different due to Pandemic which seems ironically straight out of a Passover scripture.  Passover was always there, because of course they were kosher.

So let me tell you about the end of the meal, the very end, which was very, very late at night.  Sometimes when we were still young we would get into pajamas half way through, and the finale after all the other special sponge cakes, layer cakes, macaroons, sugar coated red, yellow, green, orange joy va gels, dried fruits, grandpas fruits from his fruit trees in his backyard, then ……trumpets please blow !!!!??

The prettiest softest shade of towering pink I ever have seen still to this day, mounds and  billows of it on grandma’s finest desert China was served.  Breathless still from the imagery that cotton candy-like memory still conjures of floating Jewish pink magical carpet rides, it was something out of an Israeli Aladdin.

Truthfully, I never ate it, and don’t recall if anyone did, or how much they consumed of it, what matters is the memory of it.  To me it could have been the cherry trees abloom in Japan, floating in each of grandma’s dessert plates up those steps over sixty years ago, which I can’t go to either place now. But, if given the choice which I would choose, the exotic, foreign or the pink Pesach clouds, you know where you would find me

Recipe will follow in my Moms handwriting

Thank you grandma and grandpa

And Bubbi for making that so difficult journey  to America that I can’t even imagine, and going the full nine yards for the memories that you created for us once you got here

Love, Mom

Recipe for Jello Parfait

For years my wife and I followed a routine on Saturday mornings.  After a snuggle in bed first thing in the morning, we traipsed down the block to Millie’s, the local coffee shop, for breakfast.  The staff knew me so well that I didn’t even have to state my order.  They knew it was always – and I hate to say this on the JWT platform, but we Jews are of many different persuasions – bacon & eggs, hash browns, and wheat toast, all washed down by orange juice and coffee that needed to be refilled innumerable times.

But because of the coronavirus, Millie’s has been closed.  So, there went our ritual for a few weeks.  

As the days piled up, with each day seeming like the next, I thought it might be a good idea to do something to distinguish between the days of the week.  Two days – Monday and Wednesday – were already differentiated.  Those were the days I taught classes, now online, at California State University, Northridge.

Then I had a brainstorm — why not continue with our Saturday breakfast ritual, with some necessary adjustments.  So, this past Saturday we prepared breakfast at home, trying to replicate the Millie’s eating experience as much as possible.  I say as much as possible because we had to accommodate reality.  My Millie’s eggs had been over easy, but I had no idea how to accomplish such a complicated task at home, and I insisted on cooking my own eggs.  I even cracked the eggs by myself, put the contents in a small bowl and whisked them with a fork.  (I think we have a whisk, but I have no idea where it is.)  So, the eggs were cooked scrambled.  

We had no bacon in the fridge, but there was a small package of fake bacon there, purchased at some point by my vegan wife.  Unfortunately, when I opened the package the meat was moldy.  Perhaps the universe was telling me something about a Jew eating bacon, even if fake, on the Sabbath.

The potatoes were reheated from the roasted potatoes made the night before, with diced onion and red pepper, so they were more like country potatoes than hash browns.  

The bread was cracked wheat rather than the blander wheat Millie’s served.  The orange juice was fine.  But the coffee wasn’t.  I had bought a large container of coffee from a convenience store the evening before and kept the container in the refrigerator, now reheating it.  Who knew that coffee could taste stale just fourteen hours after purchase?

At any rate, I now have three days of ‘special events’:  Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays.  I’m working on ideas for Sundays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays.

My brother is a building contractor who has always provided masks and hand sanitizers for his workers.  Two weeks ago he managed to overpay for a box of hand sanitizers that he was very happy to get.  He then traded two bottles of the sanitizers for a box of N95 masks.  He sent masks to our close and extended family and we are very grateful for them.

A woman I knew when she was a child and haven’t seen in 38 years recently became a Facebook friend.  Her husband is an ER doctor on the east coast dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic.  He wrote a frightening piece about the shortages and having to re-use his masks for several days when you would normally change a mask after each patient.

I asked my brother if he would send some masks to this hero doctor.  The doctor had to turn down the offer.  Believe it or not, you cannot bring your own equipment into the ER, even if they don’t have enough!  They have to be CDC approved medical N95 masks.  This might change when the death toll triples this week, but right now he can’t accept or wear the N95 masks my brother has offered.

The woman was so moved by my offer of the masks that she informed me that she has rheumatoid arthritis and has been on hydroxychloroquine for decades.  She ‘s not taking it anymore, saving it for her husband and others.  And she offered it to me and my family if we need it.  An amazing offer I hope we never have to accept.

How I wish that Covid-19
would cease and desist its brutal march
like my watch stopped cold this morning,
refusing to budge past eleven o’clock.
But no, the monster insists on spreading its tentacles
using stealth and speed, much faster
than the progress of the gray in my roots
as it strives to saturate every strand
while salons have shuttered their doors
and I’m sheltering inside like a good soldier,
with gnawing despair
and dreams of a return
to the days
of my rich brown hair. 

I ate healthy every day,
Til coronavirus came to stay.

My food was organic, it’s all I trusted.
My pizza was cauliflower crusted.

I ran out of veggies to fill my belly,
There’s no more roast turkey from Nate and Al’s deli.

So I searched my cupboards way up high,
And forbidden boxes caught my eye.

Brownies and cookies, frosting and cake,
I filled up my hours learning to bake.

I ate treats that never crossed my lips,
Red velvet frosting and chocolate chips.

The scale is setting a record each morn,
The highest numbers since I was born!

Since no one sees me, who gives a damn,
I’m binging and happy.  That’s what I am.

Love is staying home as much as possible for those of us who can stay home.
Love is staying physically away from vulnerable people we know and love.
Love is avoiding in-person events and groups for now.
Love is sacrificing things that bring us everyday joy so we can save lives.
Love is speaking up against all forms of racism and oppression.
Love is picking up the phone to call and say hi.
Love is FaceTiming dinner.
Love is sending little gifts to brighten someone’s day.
Love is sending text messages or emails to check in.
Love is providing sick days.
Love is providing remote work and flexible schedules.
Love is giving people a break who work and need to care for their kids or elders or selves.
Love is making sure all workers are safe.
Love is keeping workers on payroll even if they can’t make it to work.
Love is paying people whose gigs you had to cancel.
Love is voting.
Love is advocating for universal healthcare, sick days, paid family leave, basic income.
Love is providing shelter and healthcare to everyone.
Love is sharing.
Love is listening.
Love is supporting.
Love is caring.  Love is caring.  Love is caring.  Love is caring.  Love is caring.

During this viral curse, I hear from a witch.  At least that is what he claimed to be when we met ten years ago.  (Though friends tell me Wican is the proper term for the male.) 

Something I think we have all learned from the virus is that has worked as an emotional filter.  Those who matter to us come to mind when we’re alone through this;  we, in turn, enter the minds of people we might have long forgotten, but who haven’t forgotten us.  

It was when I was in bed last night, hearing the roar of a silent New York, and scrolling the dating sites after having completed the crossword puzzle, that I received a message from a person named Franco.  These many years later I didn’t recognize his image, a handsome man now in his late 30s.  But he remembered me.  

He was young and pretty then, and I took his dramatic admission to be an act of drama from an underemployed actor.  He rolled up his sleeve to show me his solid black pentagram tattoo emblazoned in the crook of his arm.  I had never before felt tattooed skin and expected the pattern to be raised, embossed on his body.  But the design was flush with his smooth skin.  Later, I brushed the emblem with my lips, certainly not out of adoration for his chosen cult, but to seal the deal with us.  I’d always told myself, a man with a tattoo was a deal breaker, but, then, I was willing to adapt.

We had met online those many years ago and decided to rendezvous on a West Village pier, since it was a hot summer day.  The river waves thunked steadily against the pilings like a clumsy metronome.  We later walked the length of the High Line, each pointing out our favorite vistas, eventually wandering to my midtown apartment for dinner.  I handed him a bottle of Riojas to uncork.  It was a silent Sunday early-evening in August, when you can feel like the only person left in town—a ruminative silence, different than the ominous one which now envelops the city.  I watched him through the pass-through that links my galley kitchen to the dining table as he shook the tablecloth free of crumbs out the window and then flung it in the air, like a toreador, draping it over the table as if it was a holy shroud.  Seeing the care he took with a simple domestic task, I felt a kind of love for him.  I handed him a box of big kitchen matches through the pass-through recess and as he struck one, smoke rose like a magician’s trick; he then tipped each colored glass votive to reach the wick.  

After dinner, I took one of the ruby-red votives abeat with its candle, and as if we were performing some kind of witch-like ritual, I walked with it into the other room, he following.

And I quickly got another lesson in how unreliable memory is, especially if you are a writer.  A writer puts down on paper details about an encounter that he wants to believe are the facts, and they remain so in the memory even if they are inaccurate; they become the truth.  As we thumbed texts to each other past midnight, recounting our encounter those years ago, I asked Franco whether he was still a witch.  

“Where did you get that idea,” he said, “I was never a witch, though I am a believer in crystal healing.”  I reminded him of his pentagram tattoo.  “It’s an image of a spade,” he wrote back.  “Some of my family are Italian Jews, from up near Turin.”

I told him that I had written a poem about him those many years ago, and had also included him in an essay that I had performed before a live audience, describing my date with a witch.  He professed great interest in wanting to read those pieces when we can meet again in the nearish future.  Witches, it seems, cast spells that linger.

My favorite appetizer at my favorite restaurant “Tavern” is a salad called “Little Gems.”  It is a mélange of spring lettuces with green goddess dressing, avocado, and marcona almonds.   The gustatory experience is light and surprising, a harbinger of deliciously crafted entrées to come, as well as a Snickers candy bar pie to sweetly seal the deal!

Will we ever get to go out to dine again?  Will there be an occasion to celebrate and look forward to when we have so much despair and uncertainty on our collective plate?  Where is the goddess hiding or is she on sabbatical with no termination date, no end in sight?

They say don’t sweat the small stuff, but it is the small stuff that lets us make it through these long days and restless Ativan nights. We have lost our sparkle. 

We need to find our own little gems in this dangerous world that keep us going while one day bleeds into another and we never get to wear the Rothy’s leopard loafer that we ordered from Nordstrom, delivered to my door, one week shy of this mandated quarantine. 

My freezer is jam-packed with Trader Joe’s chicken tikka masala, hamburger patties, ice cream, and  frozen strawberries.  We are living from one Ralph’s delivery to the next.  I had never conserved (we are rationing!) food in my whole life, always giving table scraps to the dog and throwing the extra chicken tender into the compactor or recycling bin.  Now I was trying to make a bag of frozen cauliflower last for three meals. 

Something dropped on my left foot as I was staring hungrily into the emergency-packed freezer.   Like manna from heaven, in step with the Passover holiday, was an unaccounted for bag of brussels sprouts, a surprise vegetable.  My green goddess.

I’m not an alcoholic. I won’t become an alcoholic.

But this virus is definitely driving me to drink.  Everyday, a hundred times a day it seems, I’m reminded that I’m vulnerable.  I’m in the waaay over 65 category.

First drink of wine tonight.  The virus is coming for me and too bad, because I don’t get the ventilator if it comes.

Maybe I should have a second glass.  No ventilator for me if it is between me and a millennial.  That’s called triage.

A little vodka couldn’t hurt.  Oh G-d, what happens if I run out?  Supermarkets are having Senior Hours the same way bars used to have Happy Hours.  Maybe the stores will start blaring disco music and install large tv screens showing old sports events?  Can I trust all those other shoppers to have taken the right precautions?  It’s 7 in the morning, but I might need a shot just to fortify my supermarket run.

Does alcohol help kill the virus?  Maybe drinking is good for me.  Just what the doctor ordered.

Bottoms up!

Wasting away in Coronaville.

A new environment that involved no packing or moving vans.

I now find myself living in a new community devoid of social interaction except for the 2 year-old who roams above me like a herd of elephants, stampeding through his den from 6am to 10pm every single day. 

There should definitely be exceptions to sheltering in place.

Anyway, what I have shockingly learned via the Corona crisis is that I am now aged.

I have always thought of myself as young and vital, but the experts are constantly castigating everyone over 60.

Fortunately, my genetic composite is strong and I have never looked my age.

I am so disengaged from my legal status that I failed to register for my senior Metrocard, I forget to take advantage of senior movie tickets.

I exercise everyday, eat well, thankfully have no preexisting conditions and remain socially informed.

I have spent most of my adult life promoting and traveling on the road with rock ‘n roll bands.

No, I am not a groupie.

Despite my personal profile, I find myself in the death zone age group.

That is one of the reasons I am sheltering in place.

Of course, I am firmly dedicated to social distancing which I think everyone should adhere to.

When this is over I am going to organize all my vibrant, dynamic  ‘elderly’ friends and march on Washington in defiance of the ludicrous  elderly, aged branding.

I continue to hike at 7am when no one but the errant bunny is out, I am taking pilate YouTube classes to stay limber, I am challenging myself in the kitchen putting out 3 healthy and delicious squares a day, I continue to post my blog ifthedevilhadmenopause.com daily, writing about timely issues and I even participated in Debbie Allen’s Instagram dance class this week, dancing enthusiastically in the living room to America’s new anthem, We Will Survive!

I am sequestered with my husband and miraculously we are still enjoying each other’s company isolated together on Love Island.

I hope for a quick countrywide recovery and when this nightmare ends we will be a more harmonious country, led into the light by a compassionate, intelligent President Biden.

Morning Gray

The virus stops me

from working out at the gym

from coffee and

blueberry scones

savored at Whole Foods

from enriching cats

at the animal shelter

from leading Circle of Friends

at an assisted living

from the current events group

at the senior center

and the breath of yoga

on Tuesday mornings

and the life blood

of Wednesday’s poetry group

and dinner with friends

hugging cheek to cheek

         ii

Afternoon Light

Cut stems yesterday

placed in water

daffodils nod now

from the vase in the sun

pet the cat

hear him purr

a comfort song

in my little life

When I was a little girl in grammar school my mother was told I had to bring “something comfortable” to school on which to sleep, should I have to spend the night.  It was the Second World War. 

My newly married sister worried about her husband drafted into the army  just as I worried ten years later when my new husband was shipped to Korea – The Korean Conflict. 

A few short years later, countless American lives were lost fighting in Vietnam. adding to the sad totals of previous wars. 

Today, our country is threatened once again.  This time not by military force but by a no lesser evil – Covid 19. 

Just as Americans have prevailed in the past, we will get through this; face masks, gloves and hand sanitizers our weapons; isolation  our greatest challenge.

Just as Americans joined together in solidarity before, we are doing so again today. 

This too will pass.  We will come out stronger; grateful and appreciative of one another and of our country.  God bless.

The year was 1945, and Passover was coming.  It was time for the annual community Seder in my small Indiana town.  This event, when all 200 Jewish families gathered in the local hotel, was the highlight of the year.  The festivities included music and skits and a contest to see who could recite the four questions fastest.

It also meant a new outfit.  Coincidentally, “Meet Me In St Louis” hit the local theatre, and I was obsessed with Margaret O’Brien and the hat she wore in the movie:  a broad brimmed straw with a flower encircled crown and double black grosgrain ribbon that fluttered when you walked. 

Busy with preparations for the second night family Seder, my mother could not be bothered with my pleas for a hat like the one a child actress wore.

The evening of the community Seder, the Lieber family assembled in their finery.  As we were about to walk out the door, my mother said, “Oh, I almost forgot.  This is for you Franny.”  And there, in a large hat box, covered in tissue was The Hat.  It was gorgeous! 

That Seder, when I was 7, I was transported, playing Margaret O’Brien in my own Passover movie. 

One thing I never thought I’d be is a lunch lady… or a high school principal… or a PE coach… or a detention hall monitor.  But these are strange times. 

And, when my work moved home last week and my 17-year old’s junior year in High School moved out of the classroom a few days later, we found ourselves unfamiliar housemates.  Yes, we live together, but that’s at night and on weekends!  That’s over dinner, rushing through morning rituals and at family outings on weekends… but not day in, day out!  

The last time my son and I shared this much time, he was 3 and I was a LOT younger too.  We’ve each grown our own lives since then – separate schedules, separate friends and separate ways of doing things.  Being together has been an adjustment for sure.  

But, soon he’ll leave for college and our lives will further differentiate.  And, so, who knew that this confusing and uncertain time would offer us the blessing of reconnection.  Nothing to do, nowhere to go and no one to see.  Just time to remember all we’ve shared, time to appreciate all we’ve each become and time to confess all our hopes for the future. It’s been a beautiful and unexpected silver lining. 

Now, it’s time to go put your clothing away and get your homework done!

CHARACTER:   Shirley – surviving the virus. 

THE PLAGUE 

The virus now surrounds us.
It haunts us and it hounds us.
It causes social distance and lowers our resistance.
The toilet paper blues comprise our latest news.
We notice upon entry, the market shelves are empty.
We wave instead of hugging. Downhill we keep on chugging.
So how will we survive this plague?
Vaccination information?  Negative and vague.
Ah, but turn the page and please engage.
Remember scarlet fever, polio and mumps?
Those diseases came in clumps.
We conquered them because we could.
We’ll win again, that’s understood.
So don’t despair and give up hope.
And please don’t sit around and mope.
Let’s overcome our fear,
knowing a new day is near.
When it’s time to rejoice, raise your voice.
We will beat this plague, that much is clear!

Article originally featured in McSweeney’s A Force Outside Myself: Citizens Over 60 Speak

Note from McSweeney’s Editors:
In the past few weeks, the voices and even the lives of older people have been marginalized, scapegoated, written off. Most recently, certain politicians have presented a false and horrifying choice — either we protect citizens over 60 or we save the economy.

We thought it was time to hear their voices. They are living this anxious, troubled moment like no one else. Every day we will add more stories to this mosaic — some tragic, some wistful, some full of levity and hope. They will be at the top of this page every morning.

It Falls Into Place Nicely
by Nancy Kelton 

I am 72, a writer, and live in Manhattan. I used to talk to myself. My husband, Jonathan, now works at home.  I have to talk to him.

Other than that, I have not much changed my routine. Or my clothes.

The only people who have seen my early-March haircut are Jonathan, grocery store cashiers and shoppers, and the Union Square Whole Foods security guard who lets senior citizens in at 7:30 am.

About my haircut, my mother would have said, “it falls into place nicely.” She and I talked about my hair and clothes. She called my black tops “dreary” and always urged me to wear bright designs with flowers and flamingos.

I miss our talks about my dreary clothes.

I miss my New School classroom. I have been teaching there since 1980. A substitute more technically competent than I am is teaching my April sessions remotely. My students are probably as grateful as I am that I do not have to Zoom.

I am grateful my sister returned my call. It had been a while. My messages about our being a family got to her. We spoke at length and laughed.

I miss hugging my family out west. I miss feeling safe back east.

I am grateful for my loving husband, who plays Scrabble with me. I am grateful I usually win.

Perhaps the last time most of you were isolated or quarantined in your homes was when you were ill or recovering from surgery.  When that happened most of you had visitors, well wishers and you knew exactly how long the course of your illness would take.  Covid-19 is different.  I had hip surgery a few years ago.  I pulled out a child’s anatomy book and showed my grandson, Samuel, where my hip was and how they were going to fix it.  I couldn’t drive so I took Ubers to visit him and explained the process and the time constraints.  Without a beat, Samuel said: “Nana, after they fix your hip, will you still be old?” Yes, I said, “but it will be easier for me to get off the floor.”

Covid-19 is different.  My grandkids and their parents are isolated in their home and I am isolated alone in mine.  We do FaceTime and I make appointments to read stories to them from the books I’ve collected.  There is no explaining the duration or time frame of Covid-19 to children because nobody knows anything for sure.  How do we keep our own frightened hearts and voices from spreading to our children when there is little to soothe us in this tragic pandemic?  How do you explain parks and beaches full of people who are disregarding the pleas of the medical establishment?  There are challenges all around.  Talk to each other, use a phone, commiserate and complain, relieve your hearts with loved one.  Covid-19 is different. 

The original “C” word
never spoken in polite company –
Cancer
or was it c-nt.

Now C words are commonplace –
Covid and Corona
contaminated
confinement
contracted
casualty
corpses.

Other words have become ubiquitous –
unprecedented
self-isolation
proliferation
quarantine
pandemic
Zoom.

Yet even more are in short supply –
hospital beds
clorox wipes
toilet paper
respirators
vaccines
PPE’s.

We’re waiting for a choir of preferable C words-
cure
change
certainty
community
congregate
containment.

A chorus of voices singing of
calm
creation
creativity
continuity
celebration
contentment……

Being single people constantly wonder
Aren’t you lonely?
Alone yes, but never lonely.
Until now,
until quarantine kept me isolated
from connection and community,
from my passionate pursuits.
Kept me in my usually pristine home,
now an avalanche of office paperwork
swept up in the whirlwind
preceding “social isolation”,
a phrase I am beginning to loathe.
It sounds so much like
“solitary-confinement,”
the type of incarceration
only endured by the worst prison inmates. 

But what is the crime
for which we are all being punished,
for which we are now all in private jails?
Perhaps it is the delusional thinking
that our natural resources are limitless-
The ignorant denial of global warming-
The naivety of misunderstanding
the interconnectedness of all things-
Of all people.

Thinking countries can transform into islands
isolated from one another-
Thinking our delusional leaders
aren’t the same as the hungry hyenas
folklore endowed with witchcraft
that could influence people
and steal their spirits.
Thinking we can inoculate ourselves
against the suffering of others-

Believing the blinders we wear
make the injustice we see,
the lies we hear,
the hatred that is coagulating,
all disappear.
Believing we are immune
from what others are forced to endure. 

This year the Pesach Seder
could resonate in a whole new way.
What if we saw ourselves
not as the Hebrews
enslaved by Pharaoh in Egypt,
but rather as the slave masters.
This year we are the ones
suffering from the plaque
so it is not too far a stretch
What is our role in creating mizraim

We are all jigsaw pieces
in the same giant puzzle.
But there is an antidote for apathy,
a vaccination for indifference,
a cure for complacency.
It is Hineni – Here I am.
Our world is diseased
and we each have a role to play
in healing it, in Tikkun Olam.

“Bones I see, dry and dead
A valley full,” Ezekiel said.

“Bones on bones, minus marrow
Bones that strayed from straight and narrow.”

“Oh Son of Man,” the Lord God said,
“Can these bones rise from their dry bed?”

“Only you know,” Ezekiel said.
“Only you can raise the dead.”

“Prophecy,” he heard God say.
“Prophecy this very day.

Tell the bones that they will live,
They will rise, for I will give

Them breath and sinew, give them flesh
And cover them with skin afresh.”

And prophecy Ezekiel did…
He had to do what he was bid.

There was a noise and a commotion
A funny sort of locomotion

As bone to bone came together
Joined with sinew as their tether.

Covered soon with flesh and skin
A brand new chapter could begin.

But first God must His breath infuse
Before these bones were living Jews.

These dry dead bones, our sages tell,
Were the House of Israel.

The day would come – regeneration,
Israel would live again – a nation.

And in our time, this prophecy
Has become reality.

The dry dead bones of Hitler’s hell
Rose in modern Israel

Came to life with breath of God
Upon the ancient, ancient sod.

With sinew torn from Chalutzim,
Torn from men who had a dream,

The dream that one day they’d fulfill
The vision of Ezekiel.

Not often is it to men given
To see fulfillment of a vision,

To see a modern growing land
Rebuilt upon its ancient sand.

Rebuilt upon the sands of time —
Israel — yours and mine.

To us of course, it’s like a dream
To Israelis it must seem

More like a nightmare as they stand
on every border, gun in hand.

Every daughter, every son
Fights a war – not lost, not won

To fight and fall and fight again
Again, again, and yet again.

Of enemies there’s been no dearth
Since the days of Israel’s birth.

And so we ask, “Oh God, what’s wrong?”
We want to sing a joyous song.

To bless Your Name and praise Your light
And see the end to endless night.

So why the constant warring Lord,
Is this Your people’s just reward,

For things are going from bad to worse.
Men don’t light candles, but rather curse

The darkness known as war and hate
And cry “Oh God, is this man’s fate?

Is the world so insane
You’ve given up on us in vain?”

When men of peace must live to fight,
When right is wrong and wrong is right,

When “You shall nots” have turned to “shall yous”
Making dry bones of our values

Then I fear, the world is mad.
Is there no prophet to be had?

But wait — I see prophets everywhere,
There and there and there and there.

There’s a prophet in every Jew
In you and you and you and you.

Stand up and shout so all will hear
No man should have to live in fear.

No man should live in poverty
No man should live in slavery

No man should ever have to kill
To save the vision of Ezekiel.
Shabbat Chol Hamoed Pesach

“Ron is back walking again
without huffing and puffing
…a miracle.”
My friend’s note was a breath of fresh air.

Without huffing and puffing
or bitching or kvetching,
I’ve gotten through these rough seas so far

A miracle?
You could say that.  I’ve hacked off the bad news,
leaving a clean view of the ocean and beyond.

My friend’s note was a breath of fresh air.
I folded it as if I were eight years old,
and with an easy toss, sent it out over the sea.

My bags are packed
I’m ready to go
I’m standin’ here, equivocal
I hate to shake you up (well, I could lie)
No more handshakin’
Cause it’s airborne
My Uber’s waitin’
She’s blowin’ her horn
I probably should atone some
I could die
But I’m a-leavin’ on a jet plane
I hope no friendly travelers are diseased
Leavin’ on a jet plane,
Sadly, there are no guarantees…
Oh, Babe, and I prepaid.

 And so my emails may all be
delayed.

These corridors, these formerly teeming arteries
sparkle,
gleaming like teeth that were mortally whitened
we, the brave or enslaved, roll, stride, marvel at this

sparkle,
never having seen this floor before,
aware of the privilege
we are witnessing.

Gleaming like teeth that were mortally whitened,
some of us understand the perils:
a skid, a glissade on this smooth stage
will end our newborn right to rule.

We, the brave or enslaved, roll, stride, marvel at this
set on which we’re allowed to perform
today.
It’s temporary. Which only makes us beam brighter.

Silence in the house
Claustrophobic, suffocating
Aware of my aloneness
Thinking of those souls
Who always live this way
Focusing on gratitude
Stepping out of myself
And yet deeper into myself

Sitting at my desk
Listening to the patter
Of the rain
Watching it dance
And make patterns
On the French doors.

Click of my dogs’ nails
On the hardwood floor
Walking in the garden
Seeing Jack’s orchids
Still going strong
Unfolding, about to bloom

Sinking into the quiet
My unexpected Zen retreat
Hoping to grow and stretch
To learn and expand
To develop new wisdom
From these times of Corona

Missing friends and family
Aching for hugs and touch
Knowing more than ever
How much
We need each other
Calling the market to deliver
Walls closing in again
Time to take a walk

They are calling this a pandemic.
Widespread, over OMG
Over our whole world.
Is this like the black plague?
Are we all going to die?

Pandemic means, extensive,
It’s closed countries,
All over our world
Impacting rich and poor alike.
No one is immune.

I don’t want to die
Of something like this,
I don’t want my friends and family
To get sick and die.
And I don’t want to live in fear.

With media screaming at us
Every minute of every day
How can we not be frightened?
Even though no one
In our county has been diagnosed.

The grocery stores have been
Decimated by those in fear.
First no paper goods,
Then hardly any non-perishables.
Even fresh foods are scarce.

All of my friends have self
Quarantined, isolated,
Afraid to be in contact
With almost anyone,
We are all running scared.

This is not the middle ages
Not a time when we don’t understand
Contagion, and cleanliness.
How could we have come to this?
Is this a punishment by God?

I need people in my life.
I need interactions to feel alive.
I need to go and do.
I want fresh food to eat.
I don’t need fear to dominate.

They tell us to do five things
To keep ourselves safe,
But is that enough?
Do we need to do more?
What more can I do?

The only thought that comes to mind
Is to sing the Misheberach prayer,
Over and over again.
And follow the instructions.
But it is so hard to live this way.

Oy the old days…

Remember way back in February 2020 when hands were used for hugging and kissing and showing affection?

When they were used to pick up our children and grandchildren to cradle them in our arms and caress their adorable punims?

When you could mirror “The Thinker” pose and not feel you had to run to the sink and wash your hands for at least 20 seconds?

I find myself wondering how my once aging, but not yet older looking, hands are now close cousins to the outer shell of a turtle.  And every time I dip those suckers into a bowl of moisture cream to make them less painful my hands only serve to muck up my cell phone and computer keys.  My two connections to the outside world smell nicer but there is a lot of slipping and sliding off the keys and keypad.

For some strange reason, my nose and cheek seem itchy every hour on the hour.  It is so annoying that I MUST sneak a scratch, hoping my doctor husband doesn’t see the transgression, and then I run to wash those hands once again.  15 times a day…ha….try 30!!!

Then there is the cooking and clean up.  While my husband does help at least a little, the primary chef/clean up person is moi!  Where these hands were once outstanding at making reservations, meals need to be planned all day every day.  Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner.  I am so grateful to have food in the fridge and freezer, so very grateful, and yet miss the days when we could run out to our favorite local burger or Italian place for a meal.

Tonight I drink Baileys instead of wine
Tonight I watch through a screen
without my family
Tonight I give gratitude
to the resilience of a people
Tonight I listen to 4 questions
but have so many more
Tonight I mourn for more than traditional illness
I ask for healing of so many
Tonight I have a box of matzah to myself
because I am emotionally eating in isolation
Tonight I will say,
Next Year in Burbank 

My suitcase lay overstuffed on the living room floor, all dressed up with nowhere to go.  Dancing shoes sat still, thwarted in their annual pilgrimage  to tango’s mecca.  I am a professional dancer and teacher of Argentine tango.  Slated to fly to Buenos Aires for the Congreso Internacional de Tango Argentino, a tango conference I have attended like clockwork each March for the past 20 years, I cancelled my flight.  Two days later, the Argentine Ministry of Health stated that people arriving from the U.S.  would be placed in 14-day quarantine.  The conference directors formally cancelled the event, noting the emotional and financial hit suffered.  

Whereas my 20-something, even my 30-something, self might have felt keen disappointment, my 40-something self felt only relief.  I could stay put.  I could stay home.  Fast forward a day, and my businessman boyfriend, 17 years my senior in life and countless years my senior in financial status, found himself pained at the dip in the stock market.  As an artist who can barely pay my monthly health insurance, I struggled with empathy.  

Then I remembered how he treated Valentine’s Day.  “It’s not important to me.  You are important to me,” he clarified.  “He is important to me,” I reminded myself, and bit my tongue as he vented his financial woes.  

We celebrated Shabbat and Havdalah via Facebook livestream with our temple’s clergy.  

We find solace walking Ocean Beach and the Mt. Sutro trail behind the house with Kali, our cockapoo.  

I take comfort in this globally shared humanity – our oneness in vulnerability, and strength.  

Can you fall in love in isolation
Over ice cream pints and soft guitar melodies
Over shared secrets and anxieties
Can you let go of your insecurities and be patient with someone who is doing it for the first time
Someone who hasn’t let anyone come this close before
Someone with warm hands and a steady gaze
Whose face is the only one you see with any regularity
While ambulances wail and politicians gripe
While family photos and friendly FaceTimes fill the loneliness
Can you fight the void with cooking, with creativity
With projects once lost
By picking up knitting
Can you fall in love with his dedication
His quiet aptitude
His nonchalant brilliance
All from afar
Can you feel safe at night in the dark knowing you are more alone than you ever have been
Snuggled up with the dog
Draped in his soft t-shirt
Donated to quell the nightmares
Alone
Can you fall in love alone
Can you fall in love again
Is that possible
While he reads the play you suggested and you try Stephen King on for size
While he bruises you by accident but thrills you on purpose
While your heart forgets its rhythm…
Will he hurt you
Probably
Will you hurt him
Most likely
Will it be worth it
Always
Can you take these kinds of leaps when held prisoner by your apartment
By circumstance
Waiting for text responses
Reading while it pours
Dreaming of a future that feels far away
Trips planned for months down the line
Telling yourself to slow down
You’re fine
Stop planning
Can you fall in love without the plan
Without the pain
Without the person
What if you try loving yourself first
Unlikely
Try again later
Maybe if someone showed you how
Maybe if the dog does
Maybe you could fall in love then
In isolation

1. The Pandemic has put a pause on a frenetic world.
2. I have discovered there is almost NOTHING that can’t be done on-line.
3. I now have a Pandemic Joke file, which I am sending out in lieu of inspirational poetry
4. My son has learned “Clair de Lune” on his keyboard and texted it to me, OMG – all 7 minutes! (Turns out the sheet music is on-line, too).
5. My work has come to a stand-still and I feel guilt free.
6. I remind people that other generations have indeed experienced economic hardship and social distancing without current technology to help them and survived.
7. We are bound to discover we are all part of one world, and viruses have no borders, like climate change.
8. Speaking of climate change, more people are bound to work at home after this, and save out air quality.
9. It turns out I find myself interesting enough to stay at home, and grateful that I can do this.
10.  My husband is doing his own thing!

SOOO…call me crazy but there are some upsides to this disaster….and we all know the downsides so no need to make THAT list.  SORRY WORLD.

Have you seen the show Westworld?  I’ll try not to give anything away.  Westworld is the ultimate theme park – an immersive experience where guests get to spend their vacation in an authentic Western Town.  The town is full of “hosts” – lifelike androids – who live their stories on constant loops, none the wiser that they are not, in fact, human.

But sometimes their stories are changed, and they go from living one life to living another. One day they are a humble rancher, the next perhaps an outlaw.

This morning I feel like I am one of the hosts. 

I woke up the same and yet different – in a strange new life that is somehow completely normal.  I am principal, teacher, coach, cafeteria lady and janitor all rolled into one.  We are no longer wearing our emotions on our sleeves, and we are back to joking.  Life is surprisingly lighter during this heavy time.  Which is good, as we share 900 square feet of space.  And life’s too short to be petty during a pandemic.

But there is this nagging sensation in the back of my head, that there is something else I am supposed to be doing. Someone else I used to be.

In my new story line, I can play “Let it Be” on the ukulele.
Who knows what story I will wake up in tomorrow.

She writes how she whipped up his favorite
kind of pancakes, secretly grateful for
him, for his enjoyment of what she provides

The day a cocoon for a yet to be free
butterfly—and those pancakes were key
as they were for me when we made them

for the boy I’d recently met, a group of us
off for an adventure, hiking a mountain
near Palm Springs, my girlfriend, her brother

the four of us never making it even partway.
Back in L.A., long afternoon drive, ready
for food, and all we found in a bare kitchen

was a box of buckwheat pancake mix
which us girls made, hesitant, following
directions, our first time with pancakes

serving them to hoots of laughter, the guys
commenting on their color—gray—how flat
they looked, though soon scarfed up, likely

drowned in corn syrup. I don’t remember
that part, only the jokes about our cooking
and that I resolved never to marry that boy

yet I did, the following spring, in spite of
our supper of buckwheat pancakes, despite
everything I knew was wrong, because

his mother made me peanut butter sandwiches
when I came to visit, us on the floor, listening
to his collection of folk LPs, later going out
on long drives, taking the 101, 99, or 405.

1. Out of town family and friends can participate too.
2. No need to polish silver.
3. No need to borrow dishes, silverware or extra chairs.
4. You only have to get dressed from the waist up.
5. You only need to cook for 1 or 2 people.
6. No stressing over seating arrangements.
7. You don’t have to remember all the relatives’ names.
8. You can mute yourself (and make whatever comments you want to your spouse or even leave the table and no one will know.)
9. When the evening is done, you are already home.
10. There is room at the Seder table for everybody!

A two-minute play about Hope during the CoronaVirus pandemic.

[Two Jewish women are sitting on towels at Hilton Head Island Beach, South Carolina.  Enjoying a Shabbat sunset.  SFX of seagulls, ocean, breath of dolphins.]

BETH

Should we feel guilty???  Being here at the Beach?

BARBARA

Kinda.

BETH

The world is sick and dying from coronavirus.  We’re here eating lox and bagels.

(pause)

Isn’t the Ocean beautiful, Barbara?

BARBARA

Mesmerizing. 

(happy gasp)

See that?

BETH

(thrilled)

Oh my God.  Dolphins!  And what a sunset, huh?  

BARBARA

Dolphins diving for fish.  So graceful.  Love dolphins.  Don’t you hate????  The entire world, closed.

BETH

(sadly)

It’s lonely in my house with despicable TV.  Every day I wonder:  Is it over?  Then it’s Worse.

BARBARA

Look!  Seagulls, stealing the dolphin’s fish!  Love seagulls.

BETH

Voracious eaters!  Poor fish.

BARBARA

Poor fish.

BETH

Hey!  Let’s pretend everyone in the world is healed.  Waves!  Soothe us to sleep!

BARBARA

I haven’t slept in weeks.  What if I get corona?  If my husband dies, I refuse to live.

BETH

Dolphins.  Seagulls.  Humans…. Only the strong survive.  Like us.  And our Ocean is always here…

(gently)

Barbara, everything is going to be… all right.

BARBARA

(ruefully)

Beth, you are such an annoying Pollyanna! 

(pause)

Shabbat Shalom, Girl Friend.

BETH

Shabbat Shalom, Barbara.

(SFX Dolphins breathing.  Seagulls screaming.  Ocean swooshing.)

Everything will be All Right. 

END of play

The idea of an invisible being leading one and a half million people from slavery to freedom is a great story for kids and for the uneducated and non-scientific societies that existed when the Torah was written.

The exodus of these people who just walked to freedom through a marshland was the handiwork of a true leader who knew how to unite fractious and downtrodden slaves.  The use of supernatural imagery and texts covers up the greatness of the only real leader the Jewish people ever had.  This leader learned the mechanics of how to do this by observing for sixty years how his father-in-law led his tribe of humans.

By the way, at age twenty our hero couldn’t even inspire one Jew to follow him even after saving the guy’s life from sure death at the hands of an Egyptian.  Furthermore, he was taught by his father-in-law how to develop a system of government after their successful escape to freedom.  Moses and Jethro partners in freedom.  Honest, empathetic and impartial Jewish leadership that treated men and women equally in the face of tribal and societal demands has been lacking ever since.  Hence the need for a fifth question:

 “When will honest and decisive Jewish leadership emerge to lead Israel to greatness and heal our sick and dying planet?”

Because of the Coronavirus:

My friend Helen had to postpone a milestone birthday party this year, with friends  and family flying in from all over the country.  She’s going to be 100.

My friend Jeanne works for a doctor.  She was exposed to the virus at work.  When she tested negative, thank goodness, she went to Whole Foods to celebrate.  She bought  a loaf of sourdough bread, pepperoni pizza and a strawberry shortcake.

My friend Franny flew to visit her mother in Cleveland on March 8 for 10 days.  Her return flights have been cancelled twice.  Her most recent one is scheduled for April 30.  In the meantime they fight over how much to pay for toilet paper.

My friend Carol, a cancer survivor, has recently been alerted to coyotes in her neighborhood.  With gloves, mask, glasses and a hat, she puts her dog in her car and drives a mile away to walk him, twice a day.  He fights the mask.

I have two friends who are college art teachers.  Committed  and dedicated as they are, they are frantically learning how to put their classes on Zoom.  They are not happy with how they look on camera.

My friend Linda had 3 shifts of round the clock care for her mother with dementia.  One helper also works for an ER doctor.  She left to protect Linda’s mother.  Another also works for a convalescent facility.  She left.  Linda does have 1 helper left and 35 lbs. of rice.  

My friend Annie, also a cancer survivor, is taking both her usually in person tai chi and Zumba classes online.  She’s so happy to do it in her pajamas.

My friend Lois, an avid supporter of the arts, had cancellation notices from the opera, several theaters, museums, and lectures.  She doesn’t have a computer.  She reads and eats.

My beloved daughter cut up tee shirts, pants, curtains and bra straps to make masks.

Brave and stalwart, they carry on.  I miss these lovely women.  But I do see lunch again someday soon.

For 1,000 patients, the USNS MERCY that docked in the Port of Los Angeles yesterday will be just that.   This song made famous in 1934 by Shirley Temple was a night-time dream of lollipops, Cracker-Jacks, Tootsie Rolls and many other confections that were available at Peppermint Bay.  

A friend called me from an area around the port describing the beautiful color of white ship against the blue water.  He recalls I told him the story of another Navy ship that arrived in the Port of Shanghai at the time of liberation late August of 1945.   The outside of the ship was battered but the inside was full of sailors ready to add some sweetness to the 18,000 refugees that came to the open Port of Shanghai previous to 1941.   Many of these refugees who had been interned in the Shanghai Ghetto from February 1943 were innocent children.   My late husband Robert Goldman was one of those children who all had become adults in children’s shoes.   The sailors and the liberating U.S.  Army soldiers were committed to helping all of these people but were drawn to the faces of these skinny and scared children.   A uniform was a uniform and evoked a sense of fear in them.   Not for long because soon the children found themselves looking in awe as a soldier tried handing them a Hershey Bar.   The bar had 18 pieces and one little girl ran back to get her friends so they too could have a taste of the GOOD SHIP LOLLIPOP.   Not only had Robert shared this story but, not long after his passing, I met one of those little girls who then introduced me to one of those soldiers!  The Mercy Ship will be like a welcomed piece of candy – a life sustaining White Ship named MERCY.   G-D bless them all.   Their caring never stops.   The real image of this ship MERCY will stay embedded in my memory bank forever.

A virus is upending our lives.  We fear any moment the invisible killer will find us.  It makes me think of the Jews in Amsterdam, and the rest of Europe, where families hid in attics or barns.  They worried about being killed by mass murderers called Nazis.  We are worried about being killed by an invisible mass murderer or, if we are lucky, we’ll get only a mass sickness to which we will recover.  Crammed in an attic for months or years, fearing every movement might reveal their hiding place must have been a daily stress if not torture.  For us there is no place to hide.  When groceries are delivered to us, they may contain the virus, or not.

I wonder now that I am on edge, how did those Jews manage to keep themselves sane for months and years?  How horrible the hiding must have been not knowing it could be years in hiding?  Fearing every day may be their last.  And I worry will this invisible scourge kill me?

For people under 60 it is not quite so fearsome.  If they get sick, chances are they will get well.  If they get very sick and need a ventilator, they may get one.  But at my age, over the hill and sliding down the other side on slick black ice, there will be no ventilator.

I take a walk for fresh air in the biting cold and feel better when I come in.  I see tiny blue flowers on a neighbor’s lawn, bright harbingers of spring.  I wave to strangers in the street who wave back, keeping their distance.  I am still alive today.  But I am writing letters to my children, just in case, hoping they will keep the letters after I’m gone.  I shall not send the letters.  Not yet.  After all, what if I don’t die?  What then?  What will I do with the letters?

I am obeying, with conviction, the rules to protect myself and others.  Thank goodness for my sweet dog who requires attention and outdoor activity.  She is wonderful company for me, gives me reason to get up, and keeps me going.

My personal complaint is that I have a very painful pinched nerve in my back which causes incredible discomfort, making it painful to walk,  and also making my body crooked…not a pretty picture.  I was supposed to get an epidural injection today actually, but of course that too was cancelled.

For me, being the targeted group for potential illness is scary, but hopefully social distancing (words that have crept into my vocabulary and thinking) will keep me and all who adhere to this doctrine, safe.  

In a crazy way, this situation reminds me of the song “Ya Got Trouble” from the Music Man.  Only our trouble begins with “C,” not “P.”

Here we are all of us in America hunkering down at home practicing being safe…staying 6 feet apart from others, washing our hands a lot without mentioning how chapped they get… using sanitizer obsessive compulsively… going to the market only when necessary at the senior morning hour… and not running around…

So…I made up my mind I was going to make this new isolation be a glass half full experience rather than a glass half empty one…I made up my mind I was going to contact people throughout my life (that I hoped might still be alive) that I haven’t connected with for years.. say hello …ask… 

“How are you doing?  I’m sorry I haven’t connected with you sooner…but I’ve been doing a lot of self-introspection and soul searching and realized that I forgot about a lot of friendships…”

What an incredible experience this has turned out to be…the responses have been so touching, so rewarding…from a long lost producer who ended up on bad terms with me years ago to a new chapter of re connection… remembering only the good that came from our involvement…

A cousin who I haven’t spoken to in almost 30 years…so happy to hear from me…sharing lots of family stories for those lost years…

The list goes on and on…Some didn’t call me back…but I remember the saying, “it isn’t the results that count it’s the journey” and the rewards of reaching out to say hello have brightened my days and make me realize that yes, we strive to accomplish things in life but it’s the connections we’ve made in life even with those we forgot or didn’t want to remember that we really must not forget…This decision to connect with others has become so gratifying…and freeing of resentments…This time in my life has brought me
back to keeping it simple…

I wake up every morning wrestling with the same questions:  How can I be an effective rabbi in a time of separation, isolation, self-sequestering? How many emails, texts, phone calls and zoom classes can I fit into my day and still have energy left for self-care and for staying connected with my family and friends?  What about my own self-care?

It isn’t as if I didn’t ask myself these questions before the pandemic, but there is definitely an increased sense of urgency now, as the promised—and dreaded—“spike” looms larger and closer every day.  Like everyone else, I am doing my best spin.  In order to better grasp what’s happening, I’ve translated the necessity for  physical “social distancing” in order to stay healthy and save lives into “holy distancing”—the spiritual imperative to stay healthy and save lives. 

And exactly like everyone else, I’m striving to transcend isolation and, weeks into staying at home, a moderate case of cabin fever.  I’m taking pity on my old dog, no longer dragging her along every time I make a lap around the block.  I’m trying to stick to a semblance of a schedule.  I’m trying not to think too far ahead.  I’m reminding myself that the only control that I have is self-control.  It’s true that we’re all in this together, even when we are isolated in our own homes.

The Jewish ethical practice of Mussar identifies one of the elements of our human “spiritual curriculum” as prishut (“separation”). Prishut, like most spiritual practices, calls for our discernment.  It asks us to consider how we spend our time, to separate what we actually need to do from what we do not actually need to do.

I’ve been thinking that perhaps prishut—separation—is the most urgent spiritual practice of this time.  While it’s hard on us to be separated, we also have to separate as a matter of life and death.  Every time we survey our depleting stock of food—and, of course, toilet paper—we must ask ourselves how urgently we need to leave our homes.  We need to consider how we can best stay separate from others when we do so.  We have to ask ourselves not what brand of yoghurt or coffee we’d like but what are we actually willing to risk our lives for—and the lives of others?  We have to confront the question of our truest, deepest needs and ask ourselves how can we meet our deepest needs when we are separated from so many and so much.  We are on a sharp learning curve to accept the reality of virtual connections and a whole lot of alone time and still find a sense of meaning and purpose.

I think that what is most helpful for me these days is taking a good look at what has brought me a sense of joy all along. 

I’ve come to admit to myself an uncomfortable truth:  that— way too often and far more than I like to admit—these are exactly the same things that I told myself I didn’t have time for in the days when I spent a truly shocking amount of time just getting from one place to another.

Now that my life is commute-free, I cannot deny the upside of that separation. When I make time for more walking and online yoga and for practicing the piano and ukulele, I feel better.

I’ve always found a lot of joy—and sanity—in cultivating our garden and in keeping our own small flock of chickens.  When I watch the unfolding of flowers and fruit, really notice bees and hummingbirds and singing birds, I tear up at the  beauty of our world.  As I do my daily inspection of the unfolding of tender pea and bean seedlings, I think of the Talmudic teaching that every blade of grass has its own angel who bends over it, whispering encouragement: “Grow, grow.” 

In the midst of this pandemic, separating what I “need to do” from what I “should do” and what I “want to do” is a process of  reminding myself that this has always been our human condition: seeking balance between the most horrific and the most beautiful.  In times of plague and war and persecution and upheaval, human beings have always searched for— and found —meaning and purpose —and even joy.  And in this time of separation, there’s something immensely comforting to me in tuning into the whispering voices of our ancestors, voices that remind me that this time, too, shall pass.

I was walking my dog Louie – or he was walking me –

When he spotted a squirrel with a delicious acorn locked in its tiny mouth.

Louie lunged, nearly ripping my arm from its socket.

“Sit” I said, pulling on his leash.  “Stay!”  But nothing worked, 

Social Distancing obviously had no meaning for him.

I pulled out his squeaky toy, and got his attention 

As the nervous squirrel scurried up the tree.

We continued down the sidewalk. 

I watched Louie sniff flowers, raise his leg

and celebrate the glory of the day.

For one fleeting moment I forgot about the impending plague

And felt the sunlight bathing us in its warm, eternal embrace.

Thank God for dogs.

After fumbling for hours with a therapist’s virtual platform I finally settled into a video session with a client.  Obviously, I was a novice at telehealth and now, well I am an expert. “Hi Sue so, first I want to ask you a few questions.  How are you handling this situation? Are you feeling well? Do you have everything you need? What are you struggling with and how is your support system?” 

In response to my inquiries about her adjustment to Covid Sue said, “Thank you for asking and it’s just so good to see you.  So, I now have a pet squirrel! It’s so exciting!” Keeping in mind that everyone has a right to find their own coping mechanisms as long as they aren’t harmful,  it is not for me to judge. I did however make note of signs Sue was possibly experiencing some psychotic symptoms and cognitive decline as observed in her tangential answer to my very direct questions. 

In my most therapeutically neutral voice I said, “Oh, really tell me more about your squirrel.”  “Well his name is Sammy and actually I used to hate Sammy. He drove me crazy, every day racing across my oak tree branches with that obnoxious ‘click click click’  sound he made, punctuated by shrill, ear-piercing whistles. Sammy would stop, look to see if I was there and noting the coast was clear, he’d practically fly over to my exquisite succulent garden.  Like a locomotive turbine Sammy sent huge wafts of dirt into the air digging deep trenches at lightning speed to bury his precious peanuts. I would then go screaming like a banshee into the yard armed with my green translucent squirt gun and spray away, always missing him by inches.  My husband refused to even go into our yard now as he is deathly allergic to peanuts, and I was just filled with fury.” 

I listened patiently wondering where this story was going and what it had to do with the Covid crisis.  Sue continued, “So a few days ago while trying to wrap my mind around the reality of this nightmare in the world, I had an idea.  I went through our pantry and found the most delectable, delicious nuts we had to include, toasted hazelnuts, rosemary infused almonds, and exotic brazil nuts, hoping I could tempt this furry little trouble maker.  I began to toss nuts to him before he reached my cactus garden where he made direct eye contact with me, frozen in shock and then inhaled the fancy nuts. I began to make a squirrel like granola for him with pumpkin seeds and some dried cranberries, and each day now Sammy waits patiently for his gourmet treats.  I feel so happy he is my buddy now, and my anger is gone. Then I named him, and I can’t wait to see my adorable little cherub every day.”

My three grown daughters and two stepdaughters have been calling me daily since coronavirus to make sure that I am careful. I am a senior.  Yes, I am the target population for the virus, but I consider myself in good health. Before the virus, I played tennis. I went to exercise classes.  I enjoyed my kids, grandkids, and my hobbies. It’s been a turnabout for my husband and me to have our grown children worrying about us, helping us, buying our groceries, and ordering us to “stay home.” 

One night, I spoke on the phone to Andrea, my oldest daughter.  She works as a first responder, a nurse at a hospital with COVID19 patients.  We hadn’t seen her in weeks, as she didn’t want us to be exposed to her or to her kids.  Her toddlers were home from pre-school. She had no childcare. She said she was exhausted. Her voice cracked.

“Oh sweetie, I’ll be right over,” I said.  How could I not help?  My husband told me that I was crazy.  I knew I wouldn’t go. I knew Andrea didn’t want me there, but I felt so helpless.  I couldn’t stand doing nothing.

The next day, I called Andrea and the kids to facetime.  Twenty-month-old Jeremy garbled at the screen, proud to have discovered speech.  Three-and-a-half year old Hannah grabbed the phone from her brother and gave me a virtual tour of her toys; a new set of blocks and a unicorn.  She took the phone into her pink tent and placed it on the floor I gazed up at pink, the plastic roof of the tent. Hannah chattered about her toys.  I heard Andrea’s voice off-screen telling Hannah that it was time for dinner. 

“Not now.  I’m playing with my grandma,” said Hannah.  I laughed and settled in, looking up at the pink tent roof while Hannah told her stories. This was a virtual play date, I realized.  It wasn’t what I had imagined when I wanted to help, but for now it was just right.

As someone who has been writing long – some say interminable – historical novels for years now, I’m fielding a lot of questions these days.  It seems that many of my friends and family members are planning to use this enforced quarantine to write, finally, that novel that has been long aborning, aching to be released.  A few months from now, we may expect to see a bumper crop of new books.  So let me offer some insights into how exactly we professional novelists pull it off. 

First of all – and this is key — wake up as late as possible.  There are only so many hours of real creativity available to you in any one day, and I never fail to be amazed, on those occasions when I crawl out of bed before eleven, how long an ordinary day is.  What do regular people do with all that time?  To me it presents a landscape as vast and forbidding as the Empty Quarter of the Sahara desert.  Best to minimize it right from the start.

Okay, once fully awake, I, like many another novelist, spend an hour or two surfing the internet, a habit for which I hold myself in utter contempt.  (That self-contempt, by the way, is a hallmark of this profession.)  Did I really need to progress through thirty-six screen prompts to see the abused puppy catch its first glimpse of the ocean? Apparently, I did. 

Then it’s time to upload the manuscript from the day before.  It is always annoying to me to see that no helpful little gremlin has supplied the next plot twist, or even a simple line of dialogue.  Nothing has budged.  After reading over the preceding few paragraphs for typos, it’s time to put in maybe a good half hour of solid work, punctuated only by several trips to the kitchen for more coffee, and a couple of furtive glances at your email.

Lunch break comes next.  (Breakfast is for grinds.)  How much time can you kill opening a can of tuna and slathering it into a stale tortilla?  You’d be surprised.

Then, just as soon as you’ve finished with other pressing business, like rolling all your socks or flossing the dog’s teeth, it’s back to the desk, for some more sustained writing time.  Try not to look back at what you’ve written—go forward. You can always despise what you’ve already done later on.  (And you will.)

After anywhere from twenty minutes to a half hour, sit back and let yourself indulge in a much-needed work break.  Use this time productively; I spend most of mine in bitter recrimination – why did I let my ex-wife move me to California? how come I can’t figure out how to cancel my Match.com membership?  what was I thinking when I let that salesman at Men’s Wearhouse talk me into buying that fake suede sport coat?

Depending on your mood, you might then want to segue into another fifteen or twenty minutes of erotic reveries.  My memories are so shopworn at this point that they appear in black-and-white. But do not under any circumstances go to any porn site—your healthy self-contempt may spill over into such outright self-loathing that you can’t stand to sit in the same chair as yourself any longer. 

Either way, it’s time for a nap, the better to access all that great stuff still brewing in your subconscious.  Done properly, a nap must be taken in a chair, on a couch, or on any horizontal surface that is not a bed.  If there’s a bed or a blanket involved, it’s sleeping, and that’s cheating.  For warmth, a newspaper, as well as a cat or a sofa cushion, may be spread across the chest.  Duration?  No more than an hour.  (See, Sleep, cheating.)  

When you awake, you may have another solid half-hour of writing in you. Writer’s tip: Hemingway, as a way of jump-starting the next day’s work, always liked to stop in the middle of a scene where he knew where it was going.  So, as soon as you feel the flow, stop dead.  The next day, you’ll have the fun of wondering why on earth you ever thought you knew where that scene was going and cursing yourself for not being Hemingway.

Check the clock and if you’re not at Happy Hour yet, then you got up way too early.  See what I mean?  Count the words you’ve added to your manuscript that day (we all do) and if they enter three figures, give yourself a pat on the back and close up shop. Tomorrow, repeat all the steps above.  And then do it again the next day, and the next, and the next, until whatever job you previously held – mortuary assistant, toll-booth attendant, meter maid — begins to look a lot like heaven.   Now, my friend – and no, don’t thank me — you are a novelist.

I am ready for a seder full of questions this year.  I’ve done my homework, gone to classes, read essays and books.  I prepare questions. A seder is like a mini-Beit Midrash, a table of learning, debating and understanding.

After synagogue services, armed with my questions and shivering in the cold of Montreal, I walk to my sister’s house for the first seder.  The place is loud and festive. The kids are playing and reconnecting with their cousins, grown-ups are catching up on the past year. And my mother is in my sister’s kitchen acting as if it were her own.  It is a scene right out of Woody Allen’s “Radio Days” – everyone competing to see who can speak the fastest.

I look at the joyful chaos around me and wonder if I’ll be able to introduce some learning into the evening.  As our noisy group takes their seats at the table, a book comes to mind: “We Plan, God Laughs.” It is clear to me that God is now laughing at my plan for a neat and orderly seder with lots of meaningful discussion.  How can I compete with all this happiness? I’ve got to face it, the theme of our seder is family joy, not ancestral angst.

Once we complete the rituals and begin the meal, something unexpected happens.  Not from Moses or Pharoah, but from my 94-year-old uncle, Tonton Michel.

Tonton Michel has been attached to our family since he was a kid in Morocco, though technically, we’re not related.  He’s been married to the same woman for 68 years. They’ve never had children and have no relatives in Montreal. But they’re so close to our family that we’ve always called them uncle and aunt.

They’ve been fixtures at our seder and holiday tables since the mid-1960s, when we all moved to Montreal.  Although I’ve probably seen them hundreds of times, I don’t recall ever having a real conversation with them.  We never did anything more than small talk or exchange expressions of affection.

But this year my sister has placed Tonton Michel next to me.

With the festive noise of our seder showing no signs of abating, I decide it is a good night to finally get to know my uncle.  So, I lean sideways to ask him a few questions. 

I learn that growing up in Morocco, one of his closest friends was a Muslim man who had a partly Jewish name. He was probably a descendant of the Marranos several centuries earlier.

My uncle reminisces about seders 80 years ago in his Jewish neighborhood of Casablanca – what his mother cooked and who would come over, how he met his future wife, and how he loved the night of Mimouna (held the night after Passover ends) when Arab neighbors would help the Jews prepare the traditional sweet tables.  I could tell he still misses the old country.  

I also learn that Jews in Morocco were clever businessmen.

He shares, his favorite story, that of an old Jewish merchant who made sandals using discarded tires.  When a customer complained that the same sandals sold for a lot less somewhere else, the Jewish merchant explained that his sandals were worth more because he used Michelins.

My uncle keeps pouring out stories and I keep leaning over to ask him questions – none of them following any Passover script.  Instead of Pharaoh, we talk about the King of Morocco. There are no questions about the deeper meaning of slavery or the symbolism of matzah.  Nothing about the personal significance of our people’s master story.

The only story that captures my attention is that of my 94-year-old uncle.  The questions are not historical, but personal. It isn’t “tell me about our ancestors,” but rather, “tell me about you.”

After 40 years of spending time with Tonton Michel, I finally hear his story.  I break the rules of the seder: I lean sideways not to eat matzah but to listen to my uncle.  

But, as I reflect, our collective master story is really an accumulation of millions of personal stories like the one I’ve just heard. 

I also realize that of all the questions we can ask at Passover, of all the questions we can ask of our children, neighbors and those we have forgotten, perhaps the most powerful one is the simplest of all:  What’s your story?

I see the look on my uncle’s face after he has told me his own story; it is like seeing a man who has come back to life.

I don’t just learn about personal liberation, I witness it.