Saturday

Taking a break–A and I have been outside in the garden. I put a bunch of pansies in a pot by the doorstep, planted some oregano around the patio, replaced the dead rhododenrom with an azelea whose flowers are white with patches of pink or red. The sky is blue, and I have energy.

So much has been going on in the last couple of month–I’ve been away so much. But with diaries, it somehow seems pointless to go back and recap.

A’s daughter is pregnant, for the third time. Her husband’s disposition seems to have improved, so that’s good. That was the first thing A asked her. A. says he hopes and expects it will be the last, as she is going on 36. I commented that since the husband had been wanting another one, he’ll be satisfied. A. said no, the guy wanted six. Then he mumbled “should have his stones cut off.” Spoken like a true father of a daughter.

I really need to get moving on the paper I’ll be giving in Boston at the end of May. Last week when I was in NYC I went through the paper I wrote 10 years ago that this one will be based on. Between you, me, and the lampost, that original paper had too much going on, enough material for 6 papers. I marked the passages that I can use now, so all (all!) I have to do is patch and paste and try to keep myself from starting up another thesis.

However, that gets put off while I clean up around here (Betsy and Rock are coming for dinner).

My choir is doing some interesting stuff. At the end of April we will be singing music by a medieval Jewish composer with the Rutgers Brass. That should be mega fun. In the middle of the month we’ll be singing a set of 5 yiddish songs. It’s been funny working on those songs. I’ve sort of thought of yiddish as having a comic sound, and a bit ugly to boot. I heard it a lot a H’s parents’ hotel in the catskills, though I never understood it. But as we learn the words and sing the songs, new associations are coming to me. It sounds yummy, like eating carmel chocolates with nuts. The songs are very varied–one was written by a “sweatshop poet” at the beginning of the 20th century; he used to entertain fellow workers with his poems and publish in a yiddish socialist paper. This one tells his lover that he has no resting place in the country, or by a playing fountain, because he has to work in the sweatshop, but as long as she is with him he has his resting place in her. Another song was published in 1935. It is called “vilna,” has a patriotic, exalted sound, and was sung every morning by the jews in the ghetto. Creepy feel to that one. Another is a lullaby, written in honor of a leader in the socialist movement who had died. Another is sung to a “maran,” or “pig,” asking him where he prepares for his seder since practicing Judaism is forbidden. Another, called My Fate, is very very sad. Here are the (translated) words:

Under the ruins of Poland lies a head with blond hair.

Both the head and the ruins are true.

Over the ruins of Poland the snow keeps falling.

I feel pain seeing the head of my girl.

Pain sits at my writing table and writes a long letter.

The tears in her eyes are true and deep.

Over the ruins of Poland a large funeral bird flutters.

The funeral bird bears this song of mourning on its wings.

Music, poetry, art, dance–so many ways humans have to get at our complex lives and emotions sideways.